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With research staff from more than 60 countries, and offices across the globe, IFPRI provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries.

researcher spotlight

Ruth Meinzen-Dick

Ruth Meinzen-Dick is a Senior Research Fellow in the Natural Resources and Resilience Unit. She has extensive transdisciplinary research experience in using qualitative and quantitative research methods. Her work focuses on two broad (and sometimes interrelated) areas: how institutions affect how people manage natural resources, and the role of gender in development processes. 

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IFPRI currently has more than 600 employees working in over 80 countries with a wide range of local, national, and international partners.

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The University of Maryland, College Park is the state’s flagship university and one of the nation’s preeminent public research universities. A global leader in research, entrepreneurship and innovation, the university is home to more than 40,700 students, 14,000 faculty and staff, and 388,000 alumni all dedicated to the pursuit of Fearless Ideas. University of Maryland discovers and shares new knowledge every day through its renowned research enterprise and programs in academics, the arts and athletics.

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Publications

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Working Paper

To defer or differ: Experimental evidence on the role of cash transfers on Nigerian couples’ decision-making

2024Bakhtiar, M. Mehrab; Fafchamps, Marcel; Goldstein, Markus; Leonard, Kenneth L.; Papineni, Sreelakshmi
Details

To defer or differ: Experimental evidence on the role of cash transfers on Nigerian couples’ decision-making

We conduct an original lab-in-the-field experiment on the decision–making process of married couples over the allocation of rival and non-rival household goods. The experiment measures individual preferences over allocations and traces the process of deferral, consultation, communication and accommodation by which couples implement these preferences. We find few differences in individual preferences over allocations of goods. However, wives and husbands have strong preferences over process: women prefer to defer decisions to their husbands even when deferral is costly and is not observed by the husband; men rarely defer under any condition. Our study follows a randomized controlled trial that ended a year earlier and gave large cash transfers over eighteen months to half of the women in the study. We estimate the effect of treatment on the demand for agency among women and find that the receipt of cash transfers does not change women’s bargaining process except in a secret condition when the decision to defer is shrouded from her husband. This suggests that the cash transfer to women increases their demand for agency but does not change the intra-household balance of power enough to allow them to express it publicly.

Year published

2024

Authors

Bakhtiar, M. Mehrab; Fafchamps, Marcel; Goldstein, Markus; Leonard, Kenneth L.; Papineni, Sreelakshmi

Citation

Bakhtiar, M. Mehrab; Fafchamps, Marcel; Goldstein, Markus; Leonard, Kenneth L.; and Papineni, Sreelakshmi. 2024. To defer or differ: Experimental evidence on the role of cash transfers on Nigerian couples’ decision-making. IFPRI Discussion Paper 2271. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/152230

Country/Region

Nigeria

Keywords

Africa; Western Africa; Bargaining Power; Cash Transfers; Decision Making; Intrahousehold Relations

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Project

Gender Equality

Record type

Working Paper

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Working Paper

Women’s empowerment and the intrinsic demand for agency: Experimental evidence from Nigeria

2022Bakhtiar, M. Mehrab; Fafchamps, Marcel; Goldstein, Markus; Leonard, Kenneth L.; Papineni, Sreelakshmi
Details

Women’s empowerment and the intrinsic demand for agency: Experimental evidence from Nigeria

Most studies of intrahousehold resource allocation examine outcomes and do not consider the decision-making process by which those outcomes are achieved. We conduct an original lab-in-the-field experiment on the decision-making process of married couples over the allocation of rival and non-rival household goods. The experiment measures individual preferences over allocations and traces the process of consultation, communication, deferral, and accommodation by which couples implement these preferences. We find few differences in individual preferences over allocations of goods. However, wives and husbands have strong preferences over process: women prefer to defer budget allocation decisions to their husband even when deferral is costly and is not observed by the husband; the reverse is true for men. Our study follows a randomized controlled trial that ended a year earlier and gave large cash transfers over fifteen months to half of the women in the study. We estimate the effect of treatment on the demand for agency among women and find that the receipt of cash transfers does not change women’s bargaining process except in a secret condition when the decision to defer is shrouded from her husband: only in that case does the cash transfer increase women’s expressed demand for agency.

Year published

2022

Authors

Bakhtiar, M. Mehrab; Fafchamps, Marcel; Goldstein, Markus; Leonard, Kenneth L.; Papineni, Sreelakshmi

Citation

Bakhtiar, M. Mehrab; Fafchamps, Marcel; Goldstein, Markus; Leonard, Kenneth L.; and Papineni, Sreelakshmi. 2022. Women’s empowerment and the intrinsic demand for agency: Experimental evidence from Nigeria. NBER Working Paper 30789. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research. https://doi.org/10.3386/w30789

Country/Region

Nigeria

Keywords

Western Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Africa; Intrahousehold Relations; Allocation; Rival Household Goods; Budgeting; Marriage; Decision Making; Cash Transfers; Bargaining Power

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Links

https://doi.org/10.3386/w30789 Source record

Record type

Working Paper

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Journal Article

A model of asynchronous bi-hemispheric production in global agricultural commodity markets

2022Miranda, Mario J.; Glauber, Joseph W.
Details

A model of asynchronous bi-hemispheric production in global agricultural commodity markets

The past forty years have witnessed a rapid expansion of grain and oilseed production in the southern hemisphere, particularly in South America. The growth of southern hemisphere production is significant, not only because it has increased supplies to meet growing world food needs but also because it has effectively shortened the global crop growing cycle from twelve months to six months. In this paper, we develop and analyze a semi‐annual stochastic spatial–temporal equilibrium model of a generic agricultural market with two major exporting regions, North and South, which plant and harvest at different times of the year. As a case study, we calibrate our model parameters to reflect the stylized facts of the global soybean market between 1980 and 2019, with the United States serving as North and Brazil and Argentina serving as South. We find that more balanced production, with both hemispheres producing nearly equal amounts at different times of the year, has, from a global perspective, shortened the traditional crop “season” from twelve months to six months, allowing semi‐annual adjustments to planned production that stabilize supply and prices in all regions while reducing global inventories.

Year published

2022

Authors

Miranda, Mario J.; Glauber, Joseph W.

Citation

Miranda, Mario J.; and Glauber, Joseph W. 2022. A model of asynchronous bi-hemispheric production in global agricultural commodity markets. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 104(2): 812-830. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajae.12241

Keywords

Agricultural Products; Commodities; Storage; Soybeans; Markets; Trade; Agricultural Trade

Language

English

Access/Licence

Limited Access

Links

https://doi.org/10.1111/ajae.12241 Source record

Project

Policies, Institutions, and Markets

Record type

Journal Article