Forced Gifts The Burden Of Being A Friend
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Forced Gifts The Burden Of Being A Friend
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Author : Bulte, Erwin
language : en
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
Release Date : 2017-03-09
Forced Gifts The Burden Of Being A Friend written by Bulte, Erwin and has been published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2017-03-09 with Political Science categories.
In many developing countries, gift expenses account for a substantial share of total household expenditures. As incomes rise, gift expenses are escalating in several developing countries. We develop a theoretical model to demonstrate how (unequal) income growth may trigger “gift competition” and drive up the financial burden associated with gift exchange. We use unique census-type panel data from rural China to test our model predictions and demonstrate that (1) the value of gifts responds to the average gift in the community, (2) the escalation of gift giving may have adverse welfare implications (especially for the poor), and (3) escalating gift expenses crowd out expenditures on other consumption items.
Existing Data To Measure African Trade
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Author : Mitaritonna, Cristina
language : en
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
Release Date : 2017-03-10
Existing Data To Measure African Trade written by Mitaritonna, Cristina and has been published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2017-03-10 with Political Science categories.
One finds a broad consensus in the literature regarding the lack of good information on trade in Africa, particularly intraregional trade. This paper attempts to identify gaps and remedies in measuring and tracking trade in Africa. We review the major international and regional databases that track trade in Africa, identifying the gaps therein. We also review the studies that have attempted to track informal trade between African countries, and we look at the major ongoing initiatives to track such informal trade. It appears that both international and regional databases suffer from a lack of reporting or from faulty reporting of African trade statistics. Informal trade flows pose an ongoing problem when measuring intraregional trade, although actual border-monitoring initiatives ongoing in selected countries constitute an interesting option for their quantification. When no direct monitoring method is available, estimating gravity equations represents an alternative with which to measure the potential trade between two partner countries, giving us an estimate of missing trade. A final avenue consists of estimating unregistered trade via national accounts data by comparing consumption, production, and declared trade.
Agricultural Diversification In Nepal Status Determinants And Its Impact On Rural Poverty
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Author : Thapa, Ganesh
language : en
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
Release Date : 2017-04-28
Agricultural Diversification In Nepal Status Determinants And Its Impact On Rural Poverty written by Thapa, Ganesh and has been published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2017-04-28 with Political Science categories.
As in many parts of the developing world, the share of high value crops in agricultural gross domestic product (AgGDP) has increased substantially in Nepal. We contribute to the literature on trends in agricultural development in the poorest countries by answering the research question on “Does transition from traditional to high-value agriculture reduce rural poverty in poor developing countries”? We also identified the drivers leading to this transition. The study uses survey data from three rounds of the nationally representative Nepal Living Standard Surveys: NLSS I (1994/1995), NLSS II (2004/2005) and NLSS III (2010/2011). Multi-level model was used to study the determinants of agricultural diversification. To estimate the causal impact of agricultural diversification on welfare measures, propensity score matching and instrumental variable techniques were used. Results indicate that there has been a rightward shift in the distribution of the share (percent) of high-value crops between 1995 and 2004 and between 2004 and 2010, respectively. The area as well as the shared by major cereals (paddy, maize, and wheat) is declining over years. However, it is increasing for high-value crops (potato, vegetables, spices/condiments, and fruits). The percentage increase in share of the high-value crops was higher in or adjacent to urbanized districts between 1995 and 2010. The factors positively associated with the agricultural diversification are female-headed households, caste, mother's education, net-buyer status, urban region, remittance, farm size, kitchen garden, improved seeds, telephone and refrigerator. We found positive impact of agricultural diversification towards high-value crops on rural poverty and monthly per capita consumption expenditure. However, for cereal crops grower, we find the negative impact on poverty and monthly per capita consumption expenditure.
Smog In Our Brains Gender Differences In The Impact Of Exposure To Air Pollution On Cognitive Performance In China
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Author : Chen, Xi
language : en
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
Release Date : 2017-03-11
Smog In Our Brains Gender Differences In The Impact Of Exposure To Air Pollution On Cognitive Performance In China written by Chen, Xi and has been published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2017-03-11 with Political Science categories.
While there is a large body of literature on the negative health effects of air pollution, there is much less written about its effects on cognitive performance for the whole population. This paper studies the effects of contemporaneous and cumulative exposure to air pollution on cognitive performance based on a nationally representative survey in China. By merging a longitudinal sample at the individual level with local air-quality data according to the exact dates and counties of interviews, we find that contemporaneous and cumulative exposure to air pollution impedes both verbal and math scores of survey subjects. Interestingly, the negative effect is stronger for men than for women. Specifically, the gender difference is more salient among the old and less educated in both verbal and math tests.
Farmers Quality Assessment Of Their Crops And Its Impact On Commercialization Behavior A Field Experiment In Ethiopia
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Author : Abate, Gashaw T.
language : en
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
Release Date : 2017-03-24
Farmers Quality Assessment Of Their Crops And Its Impact On Commercialization Behavior A Field Experiment In Ethiopia written by Abate, Gashaw T. and has been published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2017-03-24 with Political Science categories.
Adoption of quality-enhancing technologies is often driven largely by farmers’ expected returns from these technologies. Without proper grades, standards, and certification systems, however, farmers may remain uncertain about the actual financial return associated with their quality-enhancing investments. This report summarizes the outcomes of a short video-based randomized training intervention on wheat quality measurement and collective marketing among 15,000 wheat farmers in Ethiopia. Our results suggest that the intervention led to significant changes in farmers’ commercialization behaviors—namely, it prompted farmers to adopt behaviors geared toward assessing their wheat’s quality using easily implementable test-weight measures, assessing the accuracy of the equipment used by buyers in their kebeles (scales, in particular), and contacting more than one buyer before concluding a sale. The training also led to improvements in share of output sold, price received, and collective marketing, albeit with important limitations. First, farmers who measured their wheat quality received a higher price, but only if their wheat was of higher quality. Second, farmers who found that their wheat was of higher quality were more reluctant to aggregate their wheat (that is, sell their products through local cooperatives) than those who found that their wheat was of lower quality. Lastly, the training intervention led to better use of fertilizer in the following season. Our discovery that a short training intervention can significantly change farmers’ marketing and production behavior should encourage the development of further interventions aimed at enhancing farmers’ adoption of improved technologies and commercialization.
Misreporting Month Of Birth Implications For Nutrition Research
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Author : Larsen, Anna Folke
language : en
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
Release Date : 2017-03-09
Misreporting Month Of Birth Implications For Nutrition Research written by Larsen, Anna Folke and has been published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2017-03-09 with Political Science categories.
Height-for-age z-scores (HAZs) and stunting status (HAZ<−2) are widely used to measure child nutrition and population health. However, accurate measurement of age is nontrivial in populations with low levels of literacy and numeracy, limited use of formal birth records, and weak cultural norms surrounding birthdays and calendar use. In this paper we use Demographic and Health Surveys data from 62 countries over the period 1990–2014 to describe two statistical artifacts indicative of misreporting of age. The first artifact consists of lower HAZs for children reported to be born earlier in each calendar year (resulting in implausibly large HAZ gaps between January- and December-born children), which is consistent with some degree of randomness in month of birth reporting. The second artifact consists of lower HAZs for children with a reported age just below a round age (and hence implausibly large HAZ gaps between children with reported ages just below and just above round ages), which is consistent with survey respondents rounding ages down more than they round ages up. Using simulations, we show how these forms of misreporting child age can replicate observed patterns in the data, and that they have small impacts on estimated rates of stunting but important implications for research that relies on birth timing to identify exposure to various risks, particularly seasonal shocks. Moreover, the misreporting we identify differs from conventional age-heaping concerns, implying that the metrics described above could constitute useful markers of measurement error in nutrition surveys. Future research should also investigate ways to reduce these errors.
Measuring Postharvest Losses At The Farm Level In Malawi
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Author : Ambler, Kate
language : en
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
Release Date : 2017-04-14
Measuring Postharvest Losses At The Farm Level In Malawi written by Ambler, Kate and has been published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2017-04-14 with Political Science categories.
Reducing food loss and waste are important policy objectives prominently featured in the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. To optimally design interventions targeted at reducing losses, it is important to know where losses are concentrated between the farm and fork. This paper measures farmlevel postharvest losses for three main crops—maize, soy, and groundnuts—among 1,200 households in Malawi. Farmers answered a detailed questionnaire designed to learn about losses during harvest and transport, processing, and storage and which measures both total losses and reductions in crop quality. The findings indicate that fewer than half of households report suffering losses conditional on growing each crop. In addition, conditional on losses occurring, the loss averages between 5 and 12 percent of the farmer’s total harvest. Compared to nationally representative data that measure losses using a single survey question, this study documents a far greater percentage of farmers experiencing losses, though the unconditional proportion lost is similar. We find that losses are concentrated in harvest and processing activities for groundnuts and maize; for soy, they are highest during processing. Existing interventions have primarily targeted storage activities; however, these results suggest that targeting other activities may be worthwhile.
Impact Of India S National Food Security Act On Domestic And International Rice Markets
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Author : Debnath, Deepayan
language : en
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
Release Date : 2017-04-28
Impact Of India S National Food Security Act On Domestic And International Rice Markets written by Debnath, Deepayan and has been published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2017-04-28 with Political Science categories.
Policy making in food security is at a crossroads in India, particularly for the rice crop. Whereas India has emerged has a leading rice exporter over the last two years, the government has also introduced a large food subsidy program called the National Food Security Act. The program requires that 33.6 million metric tons of rice per year be distributed to the marginalized rural and urban populations of the country. In this study, we analyze the long-term impact of India’s Food Security Act on its domestic rice market and the international market for rice. We specify and apply a structural demand-and-supply model to India’s rice market and link it with the world rice market, as part of a broad partial equilibrium modeling system of international agriculture commodity markets. We specifically focus on three different scenarios—subsidy as a price effect, subsidy as an inelastic income effect, and subsidy as an elastic income effect—under the broader framework of the National Food Security Act. We find that at the end of the projection period (the 2024/2025 crop year), as a result of the rice subsidy program, the consumption of rice increases significantly by 6,831 thousand metric ton (MT) in the case of the price effect while the inelastic income effect has little on production, consumption which increase by 265 thousand MT and 269 thousand MT, respectively and no impact on rice export of India.
Can Agricultural Aspirations Influence Preferences For New Technologies
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Author : Bell, Andrew R.
language : en
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
Release Date : 2017-05-03
Can Agricultural Aspirations Influence Preferences For New Technologies written by Bell, Andrew R. and has been published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2017-05-03 with Political Science categories.
In the face of increasing environmental stresses, there is a critical need to improve water-use efficiency in many arid and semiarid agroclimatic zones. Drip irrigation is a high-efficiency irrigation technology that can improve water-use efficiency in currently irrigated areas and transform areas that are not otherwise irrigable in practice. Although adoption of drip irrigation is growing rapidly in India, adoption is low in neighboring Pakistan. The authors of this paper undertook a discrete choice experiment framed around the hypothetical subsidized purchase of a drip irrigation system in four districts of Punjab, Pakistan. The nonrepresentative sample of adopters and nonadopters in the study districts identified a clear increase in the valuation of drip systems in the first several years following adoption. This finding suggests that farmers may be unaware of the opportunities for the use of drip irrigation on their farms or the benefits that may accrue from such use. In addition, farmers’ aspirations for cropping systems under drip were better predictors of the valuation of drip systems than were current cropping patterns, implying that a different agricultural landscape might reasonably emerge under improved adoption of drip. Aspirations differed across the different agroecological zones and water regimes captured by this study. Aspirations to substitute wheat crops for fruits and vegetables were associated with a higher appreciation of the subsidy level, whereas aspirations to expand wheat were associated with a higher appreciation of the area covered by the drip initiative; together, these findings imply a degree of control over the extent of wheat production in the landscape via careful design of the drip subsidy program. Although the penetration of drip irrigation is not yet sufficient to draw inferences from a representative sample, these results suggest a number of ways in which drip irrigation may transform Pakistan’s agricultural landscape
The Discouraged Worker Effect In Public Works Programs Evidence From The Mgnrega In India
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Author : Narayanan, Sudha
language : en
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
Release Date : 2017-04-28
The Discouraged Worker Effect In Public Works Programs Evidence From The Mgnrega In India written by Narayanan, Sudha and has been published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2017-04-28 with Political Science categories.
This study investigates the consequences of poor implementation in public workfare programs, focusing on the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in India. Using nationally representative data, we test empirically for a discouraged worker effect arising from either of two mechanisms: administrative rationing of jobs among those who seek work and delays in wage payments. We find strong evidence at the household and district levels that administrative rationing discourages subsequent demand for work. Delayed wage payments seem to matter significantly during rainfall shocks. We find further that rationing is strongly associated with indicators of implementation ability such as staff capacity. Politics appears to play only a limited role. The findings suggest that assessments of the relevance of public programs over their lifecycle need to factor in implementation quality.