the adoption of reduced tillage the role of human capital and other variables this paper presents a model of adoption behavior and explains differences econometrically in farmers decisions to adopt reduced tillage practices and in the efficiency of farmers adoption decisions the empirical results obtained from microdata show that the probability of adopting reduced tillage in corn enterprises differs widely across farms and depends on soil characteristics cropping systems and size of farming operation the results also show that farmers schooling enhances the efficiency of the adoption decision

the political economy of urban food security in sub saharan africa abstract sub saharan african cities in the late 1990s face a daunting set of problems including rapid growth increasing poverty deteriorating infrastructure and inadequate capacity for service provision even as a renewed debate is shaping up around issues of urban development there is little attention given to the question of urban food security whereas in the 1970s and 1980s urban food problems in africa commanded political attention the nature of urban food insecurity in the 1990s is such that it has tended to lose political importance this is largely because in the 1970s the problem was one of outright food shortages and rapid price changes that affected large portions of the urban population simultaneously the impact of structural adjustment continued rapid growth and an increase in poverty make urban food insecurity in the 1990s primarily a problem of access by the urban poor under circumstances where the urban poor spend a very large portion of their total income on food urban poverty rapidly translates into food insecurity the lack of formal safety nets and the shifting of responsibility for coping with food insecurity away from the state towards the individual and household level has tended to atomize and muffle any political response to this new urban food insecurity this paper briefly reviews urban food insecurity and generates a set of empirical questions for an analysis of food and livelihood security in contemporary urban sub saharan africa and then examines historical and contemporary evidence from kampala uganda and accra ghana to suggest some tentative conclusions

factors determining intercropping by rubber smallholders in sri lanka a logit analysis abstract variables related to farmers awareness and attitudes towards intercropping of immature rubber hevea brasiliensis stands extension contacts education level and experience with farming other crops are positively associated with the probability of adoption higher levels of off farm income are associated with reduced intercropping in immature rubber stands farmers who are sole owners of the land and engaged in full or part time rubber farming show lower adoption rates than other land ownership groups social participation family size experience with farming rubber immature and mature rubber stands size and the nature of the land flat sloped do not significantly influence adoption these conclusions were obtained from a logit model estimated by employing the results of a survey of 588 smallholder rubber farmers from five major rubber growing regions in sri lanka

interpreting tests of school vam validity abstract we develop over identification tests that use admissions lotteries to assess the predictive value of regression based value added models vams these tests have degrees of freedom equal to the number of quasi experiments available to estimate school effects by contrast previously implemented vam validation strategies look at a single restriction only sometimes said to measure forecast bias tests of forecast bias may be misleading when the test statistic is constructed from many lotteries or quasi experiments some of which have weak first stage effects on school attendance the theory developed here is applied to data from the charlotte mecklenberg school district analyzed by deming 2014

a hedonic approach to estimating the supply of variety attributes of a subsistence crop the article extends the household hedonic model by estimating a supply function for variety attributes of a subsistence crop in a developing economy the model is applied to bananas in uganda making use of disaggregated data on variety specific farm gate banana bunch prices and attributes while accounting for the semisubsistence nature of banana producing households the article is motivated by the need to understand the attribute trade offs made by farmers at the farm gate in light of targeted variety improvement efforts and their impact on banana markets whether variety improvement will pay off at the market level requires a more detailed examination of the relative worth of banana attributes within the structure of consumer preferences and production technologies related to bananas in uganda the results confirm the importance of consumption and production attributes in selling behavior quality and bunch size are found to be complements at the farm gate banana bunches that capture a premium at the market will be those that provide bundles of desirable consumption and production attributes simultaneously by revealing important price attribute relationships the findings provide guidance for crop improvement efforts and diversification choices while taking into account implicit market signals for output attributes

the impact of perception and other factors on the adoption of agricultural technology in the moret and jiru woreda district of ethiopia the objectives of this study are to examine both the significance of the impact of farmers perceptions regarding new technology for the adoption decision and how perceptions themselves are influenced by the decision to adopt new technology the study is based on data from 96 wheat farms in the moret and jiru woreda district of ethiopia the probit approach is used to analyse the adoption decision while the variables relevant to farmers perceptions are modelled using the ordered probit methodology a simultaneous equations model combining the probit and ordered probit approaches provides a useful approach to modelling the two way relationship between perception and adoption variables such as farm size farm income and soil type have a key role to play in the model perception is measured by eight different components and as there is a strong collinearity among these various measures a principal components analysis is attempted to draw the best possible linear combination of variables

testing the central market hypothesis a multivariate analysis of tanzanian sorghum markets the central market hypothesis is important in the analysis of market integration because it implies a specific market structure while avoiding a simultaneity problem however despite its importance the central market hypothesis is difficult to test and is therefore often assumed this article shows that the hypothesis can be tested in a johansen cointegration test provided that prices are nonstationary this approach is applied to reveal the existence of central markets for sorghum in tanzania the results indicate that the tanzanian sorghum market can be grouped into two market regions with prices being determined in a central market in each region

consumer preferences for cowpea in cameroon and ghana consumer preference information is essential to targeting research this paper reports an effort of a multi disciplinary team to measure the market value of cowpea characteristics five samples were purchased once per month in seven markets in ghana and cameroon starting in september 1996 in the market price and vendor characteristics were noted in the laboratory size of grains testa color testa texture eye color and damage levels were recorded a hedonic pricing regression model was used results indicate that grain size is the most important characteristic consumers seem more sensitive to bruchid callosobruchus maculates damage than hypothesized cowpeas with white testa command a clear premium only in one of the ghanaian markets in ghana black eyes sell at a premium but in cameroon black eyes are discounted in general this study indicates that quality characteristics are very important in west african food markets even low income consumers are willing to pay a premium for products that match their preferences and they are vigilant in identifying products that do not meet their standards purchasing samples on a regular basis and hedonic pricing offers a practical way for biological scientists and economists to work together to measure these consumer preferences

adoption of agricultural innovations in developing countries a survey this paper reviews various studies which have provided a description and possible explanation to patterns of innovation adoption in the agricultural sector the survey points out that the tendency of many studies to consider innovation adoption in dichotomous terms adoption nonadoption may not be appropriate in many cases where the actual decisions are defined over a more continuous range more attention needs to be given to the socio cultural and institutional environment in area studies so that their interrelation with economic factors affecting adoption can be inferred the presence of several interrelated innovations is another aspect that needs to be considered more carefully in future research since a number of simultaneous decisions may be involved furthermore the possibility of regular sequential patterns in adopting components of a new technological package should be specifically addressed in future studies finally the impact of differential adoption rates on land holding distribution merits attention in future research

structural adjustment in africa insights from the experiences of ghana and senegal abstract structural adjustment in ghana and senegal has helped create an improved framework for economic growth but this is a fragile trend one that could be disrupted by bad weather adverse terms of trade and the vagaries of international assistance the current version of adjustment however has produced little enduring poverty alleviation a weak performance on equity issues together with rising political expectations has generated threats to the sustainability of structural adjustment and overall political stability alternatively adjustment policies can be modified to fully incorporate equity and sustainability objectives in this respect it is critical for the poor to obtain more effective representation in decision making on adjustment through indigenous nongovernment organizations

commodity and developing country terms of trade what does the long run show recently the debate surrounding the commodity net barter terms of trade and the terms of trade of developing countries has entered a new phase in this journal spraos i980 presents evidence of a stable declining commodity terms of trade and sapsford i985 although fl nding instability in the work of spraos argues in support of the stable declining terms of trade hypothesis grilli and yang i988 henceforth gy also provide evidence supporting this view and state the implications of this finding for developing country terms of trade a major contribution of gy is a published set of data on the main price indices with a high degree of consistency for the whole century 1 however cuddington and urzua i989 in thisjournal illustrate that the hypothesis of a secular deterioration in the commodity terms of trade is not robust to the alternative claim that there was a once and for all shift in commodity prices in the period i920 i after taking this shift into account these authors find little evidence to support the view of a secular decline 2 this debate has important implications for the prebisch singer hypothesis of a stable declining commodity terms of trade see for instance prebisch i 950 it also has implications for both development and stabilisation strategies adopted by commodity dependent developing countries a central issue in this analysis is the order of integration of the commodity terms of trade a time series is said to be integrated of order o i o if its mean and variance are constant or roughly speaking if the series is stationary a time series is said to be i n if the series requires first differencing n times before a stationary series is obtained alternatively if adding a time trend is sufficient to induce stationarity the series is termed trend stationary a trend stationary series implies that the variable in question simply adjusts around a constant growth path but an i i series is truly non stationary and displays very different properties a commonly cited example of an 1 i series is the random walk the order of integration of a single time series is related to the idea of cointegration of a number of time series consider two variables x and y that are not themselves i o but are of the same order of integration if the residuals from regressing x on y or vice versa are i o or roughly speaking if the residuals are stationary it can be concluded that the two variables are cointegrated in turn this implies that there is some form of equilibrium

growing their own unobservable quality and the value of self provisioning abstract many important food quality and safety attributes are unobservable at the point of sale particularly in informal markets with weak reputation effects through a framed field experiment conducted in western kenya we show that farmers place a large premium on maize they have grown themselves relative to that available for purchase providing information on the origin of maize and on its taste and safety reduces this gap we conclude that information which is unavailable during typical market transactions is important to how consumers value maize and that imperfect information may contribute to the prevalence of agricultural production for subsistence needs in developing countries

majority voting with single crossing preferences we clarify and extend a number of sufficient conditions for the existence of a majority voting equilibrium on one dimensional choice domains these conditions variously stated in the previous literature all impose order restrictions on voter preferences for instance monotone marginal rates of substitution which we show to imply or be equivalent to a general ordinal version of the single crossing condition this simple property is economically intuitive and easily checked in applications this ease of application is demonstrated through an examination of voting models of redistributive income taxation and trade union bargaining behaviour

estimating price discounts for low quality maize in sub saharan africa evidence from benin summary this article uses household data from benin to estimate the extent that markets in sub saharan africa discount damaged maize stated preference methods indicate that a 10 increase in insect damage results in a 9 maize price discount however revealed preference methods indicate that this discount is only 3 discounts are larger immediately after harvest than they are in the lean period when maize is scarce our results help explain why many smallholder farmers sell maize at harvest rather than making the effort to preserve grain of good quality for later in the season when it may fetch a higher price

spatial integration transport costs and the response of local prices to policy changes in ghana abstract this paper investigates the respective roles of spatial integration and transport costs in explaining price changes in ghana we introduce a model of price formation and market integration that incorporates the price transmission process between local and central markets and also captures the implications for volatility of local prices we explore the implications of the model for the time path of price adjustments as determined directly and indirectly through the marketing sector we show that the price adjustment process in a local market is determined by the degree of interdependence between that market and the central market in which a price shock originates and estimate the intertemporal and interspatial dynamics of the price adjustment process using data from wholesale maize markets in ghana we find that reductions in local prices and local price variance following the introduction of economic reforms in 1983 can be traced to both local and central market forces but that differences in the degree of market integration have important implications for long run changes in transport costs and the evolution of prices in outlying markets

poverty and inequality under income and price dispersions many policies simultaneously affect the distribution of prices and incomes in the economy moreover a bias may occur when there is a stochastic relationship between prices and incomes and this relationship is being ignored it is therefore important to dispose of an analytical framework for welfare analysis that could account for changes in this joint distribution how can the joint influences of price and income distributions on poverty and inequality indicators be analysed we offer a method to deal with this problem by using parametric formulae of poverty and inequality measures we propose statistical indicators for the levels variabilities and a statistical link of price indices and nominal living standards these indicators are consistent with an approximation of the problem based on a bivariate lognormal distribution of price indices and nominal living standards our analysis provides hints about the social welfare impact of economic shocks or policies affecting levels variabilities and correlation of prices and incomes intuitive insights are obtained while using arithmetic means and variances instead does not lead to illuminating results the role of price and income variabilities for poverty and inequality is more complex than generally expected with the possibility of several variation regimes empirical investigation of these statistics would guide social policies

gendered social networks agricultural innovations and farm productivity in ethiopia summary this paper examines the existence of social learning in agriculture in ethiopia to be specific we use a random matching within sample technique to collect data on social networks and to elicit details of the relationships and information exchange between network members we find that shared kinship or membership in certain groups informal forms of mutual insurance and having frequent meetings with network members are all associated with a higher probability of forming an information link with a network member furthermore we find evidence for a statistically significant and positive relationship between networks and the adoption of row planting as well as yields for both male and female networks however the evidence for an inverse u shaped relationship of social learning that is between the number of adopters in the network and the adoption of row planting is strongest for female networks our results thus suggest that extension services and other programs that promote agricultural innovations and seek yield improvement can benefit from social networks but that their success depends on identifying the right networks such as those of female household members in the case of row planting

food price variability and economic reform an arch approach for ghana changes in maize price levels and variability in ghana are investigated a model of wholesale price determination is reviewed in which grain stocks are held for speculative storage as well as export to neighboring countries in the sahel to test the model an autoregressive conditionally heteroskedastic arch regression is applied to monthly maize data for two markets over the period 1978 93 the regression is used to measure changes in maize price volatility in ghana and to infer the importance of past prices domestic and regional production and commodity storage and trade in explaining these changes

selection on observed and unobserved variables assessing the effectiveness of catholic schools in this paper we measure the effect of catholic high school attendance on educational attainment and test scores because we do not have a good instrumental variable for catholic school attendance we develop new estimation methods based on the idea that the amount of selection on the observed explanatory variables in a model provides a guide to the amount of selection on the unobservables we also propose an informal way to assess selectivity bias based on measuring the ratio of selection on unobservables to selection on observables that would be required if one is to attribute the entire effect of catholic school attendance to selection bias we use our methods to estimate the effect of attending a catholic high school on a variety of outcomes our main conclusion is that catholic high schools substantially increase the probability of graduating from high school and more tentatively attending college we find little evidence of an effect on test scores

credit for what informal credit as a coping strategy of market women in northern ghana abstract this paper explores the use of informal credit as a strategy for managing risks by market women in northern ghana a broad concept of the costs of risk management strategies is introduced and encompasses both a time and monetary dimension based on qualitative data the analysis reveals that market women invest a considerable amount of time in maintaining complex networks of informal credit providers to ensure their access to credit once a shock occurs informal credit involves high transaction costs and prevents market women from growing out of poverty in the long term

economic reform and food prices evidence from markets in ghana abstract this paper investigates trends in food prices in ghana during 1970 1993 regression results confirm that real wholesale prices of food have been declining since the 1970s price trends in the 1980s are characterized by a downward shift at the beginning of the postreform period and a subsequent continuing downward trend despite falling grain prices we find that agricultural wage rates failed to provide an adequate basis for subsistence particularly during periods of large seasonal price rises many farmers hold grain for both speculation and to smooth income this view is supported by evidence regarding seasonal price spreads that have been increasing since 1984 we find no support however for conclusions of trader manipulation of marketing margins during the adjustment period

a multiple source of innovation model of agricultural research and technology promotion abstract two models of agricultural research and technology diffusion are described and contrasted the central source of innovation model frequently underlies the theories and rhetoric of agricultural research and extension institutions the multiple source of innovation model places agricultural research and diffusion processes in the historical political economic agroclimatic and institutional context in which technological change takes place the paper discusses the evidence and reasons for the dominance of the central model and reviews the significance of the multiple source model for agricultural research policy

the poverty impacts of improved cowpea varieties in nigeria a counterfactual analysis adoption of improved agricultural technologies has long been recognized as critical for reducing poverty through increased productivity incomes and asset accumulation using a nationally representative survey data from a sample of over 1500 households in nigeria this paper evaluates the impacts of adoption of improved cowpea varieties on income and asset poverty reduction using an endogenous switching regression model the results showed that adoption of improved cowpea varieties increased per capita household income and asset ownership by 17 and 24 percentage points respectively the results based on the observed and counterfactual income and asset distributions further showed that adoption reduced both income poverty and asset poverty by 5 percentage points the paper concludes with a discussion of the policy options for increasing adoption and impacts of improved cowpea varieties in nigeria

consequences of unintended food policies food price dynamics subject to the israeli palestinian conflict abstract israel s imposition of military security measures in the palestinian territories as a consequence of the long lasting violent conflict between them has negative economic effects on all parties concerned one crucial outcome is the limited ability to carry out trade which brings about welfare losses conflict induced policies such as security measures can result in sizable unintended externalities that shape the markets of and the trade in food we assess the dynamics of daily wholesale prices of food produced in israel and the west bank that is traded between them and is therefore subject to restrictions on movement to do so we suggest a regime switching cointegration model which is estimated using a novel extension of the johansen estimation method we find that the two major wholesale markets of the two regions are integrated with regard to these main trading products deviations from price equilibria are quickly adjusted the model suggests that movement restrictions temporarily cut off markets from each other implications of conflict induced closures for welfare depend on the direction of trade and are harming both palestinian and israeli consumers

production technologies in ethiopian agriculture abstract this article examines the characteristics of and choice among two production technologies in ethiopian agriculture one with fertilizer and the other without using 1989 90 farm level data for northwest and central ethiopia fertilizer usage determinants are estimated simultaneously with technology specific production functions for southern ethiopia where fertilizer is rarely used a single production function is estimated three conclusions emerge first fertilizer use is not significantly affected by a farm s stocks of capital or land this is consistent with the fact that fertilizer allocation decisions under the deposed mengistu regime were politicized to the point where farmers had little control over use second fertilizer is associated with a smaller factor share for cattle and a larger share for land meaning that those who control land may gain relative to the individual farmers who own cattle as the country develops agriculturally third farms without fertilizer in northwest and central ethiopia tend to be too small a problem due to population pressures on the land and communal methods of land allocation this suggests that land allocation institutions should adjust by distributing land to a smaller but more economically viable number of farmers

household specific food price differentials and high value crop production in rural ghana using panel data from ghana we have examined the relationship between household specific producer consumer price differentials and rural household cropland allocation between food and high value crops we test the hypothesis that cereal price bands induce a shift of resources away from high value crop production making smallholders appear unresponsive to price incentives our results lend support to this hypothesis implying that a policy aiming at increasing farmers income through high value crop production may fail if hard and soft infrastructure does not improve in rural areas and if staple crop productivity does not increase significantly

estimating market demand for fresh yam characteristics using contingent valuation implications for crop breeding and production choices this study uses the box cox bc transformations to examine nonlinearity in price modeling and compare results from several functional specifications in hedonic price analysis of yam in togo based on a sample of 6 402 observations on price and produce characteristics generated through a market experiment it is found that the bc quadratic asymmetric specification is the most suitable function several characteristics are valued more than others and prices vary across species time and market sites some residual symptoms of pest and disease damages on yam tubers reduce their market values tuber weight exhibits a diminishing marginal value and price per kilogram decreases above an optimum size therefore producers do not derive additional reward from extra large tubers we conclude that to effectively access and benefit from urban markets producers should focus on small size low weight and conical shaped tubers which are easy to process and meet the esthetic qualities preferred by urban consumers the implications for research on improved variety development to reduce poverty and for crop and resource management practices are drawn

spatial price transmission and asymmetry in the ghanaian maize market abstract this paper utilizes recently developed threshold cointegration tests that allow for asymmetric adjustment toward a long run equilibrium relationship to examine price linkages between principal maize markets in ghana unlike previous studies the approach employed here assumes that economic agents only act to move the system back to equilibrium when the deviation from equilibrium exceeds a critical threshold whereby the benefits of this adjustment exceed the costs the findings indicate that major maize markets in ghana are well integrated both the threshold cointegration and asymmetric error correction models reveal that wholesale maize prices in local markets accra and bolgatanga respond more swiftly to increases than to decreases in central market techiman prices accra prices are found to react faster than bolgatanga prices to changes in techiman market prices

heterogeneous preferences and in kind redistribution theory and evidence abstract this paper examines the impact of social heterogeneity on in kind redistribution we contribute to the previous literature in two ways we consider i the provision of several public goods and ii agents different not only in income but also in their preferences over the various goods provided by the public sector in this setting both the distribution and size of goods provision depend on the heterogeneity of preferences our main result is that preference heterogeneity tends to decrease in kind redistribution while income inequality tends to increase it an empirical investigation based on united states census bureau data confirms these theoretical findings

are we overestimating the negative impact of higher food prices evidence from ghana most studies of the welfare impact of higher food prices adopt deaton s approach based on the first order effect of prices changes using income and expenditure survey data this paper explores the impact of higher maize and food prices in ghana and considers the sensitivity of results to changes in several assumptions if second order effects are included incorporating household response to price changes the welfare impact of food price increases is more positive but only modestly so however if we assume that marketing margins are constant in real terms rather than proportional to prices the welfare impact is substantially more positive these findings highlight the need for more research on the behavior of marketing margins under volatile prices

modeling spatial price transmission in the grain markets of ethiopia with an application of ardl approach to white teff following the agricultural market liberalization policy there is an emerging grain market structure in ethiopia in which the central wholesale market exhibits concentration of power and spatial integration with the local markets due to this it is hypothesized that the central wholesale market influences the long run price movements in the local markets the relationship can be modeled as spatial price equilibrium with the aim to guide subsequent policy decisions with regard to public intervention in the post liberalization period in this study we modeled the spatial equilibrium relationship between the producer and the wholesale prices of white teff a major staple in ethiopia using the autoregressive distributed lag modeling approach to cointegration analysis first the existence of a nonspurious long run relationship in levels between the producer prices in the local market and the wholesale prices in the central market is confirmed second the long run relationship and the error correction model for the producer price are estimated the results reveal that the wholesale price of white teff in the central consumer market is a major short and long run determinant of the producer price in the local supply markets therefore the institutional role of the government with the aim of improving producers marketing margin and the overall performance of the grain markets in the post liberalization period can be influenced through targeted interventions at the central wholesale market

crossbred cow adoption and its correlates countable adoption specification search in sri lanka s small holder dairy sector considerable specification choice confronts countable adoption investigations and there is need to measure formally the evidence in favor of competing formulations this article presents alternative countable adoption specifications hitherto neglected in the agricultural economics literature and assesses formally their usefulness to practitioners reference to the left side of de finetti s 1937 famous representation theorem motivates bayesian unification of agricultural adoption studies and facilitates comparisons with conventional binary choice specifications such comparisons have not previously been considered the various formulations and the specific techniques are highlighted in an application to crossbred cow adoption in sri lanka s small holder dairy sector

unpacking postharvest losses in sub saharan africa a meta analysis summary reducing postharvest losses phl is a key pathway to food and nutrition security in sub saharan africa however knowledge of phl magnitudes is limited a meta analysis has been conducted to expose nature and magnitude of phl and the kinds of interventions that have been attempted to mitigate the losses findings reveal inadequacies of loss assessment methodologies that result in inaccurate phl estimates moreover losses are often economic rather than physical product losses overall technologies for loss mitigation fail to address dynamics of supply chains consequently rigorous phl assessment using systematic methodologies as well as holistic approaches for losses mitigation are in need 2014 published by elsevier ltd

public expenditures in sub saharan africa during a period of economic reforms abstract public expenditure restraint is the most direct means of reducing balance of payments and budget deficits and is consequently a key aspect of macroeconomic adjustment programs the results of this study indicate a steady increase in total central government and social services spending during 1977 1989 in sub saharan africa the growth in population however contributed to an overall erosion in per capita expenditures while total government expenditures as a share of gdp have been stable during the past decade they have declined net of interest repayments which represent an increasingly large share of total spending an analysis of spending in the three years before and after donor financed adjustment programs began reveals no pattern of increase or decrease in real levels of total and social sector expenditures or in social sector spending as a share of the total expenditures elasticities of health and education spending with respect to gdp were found to be greater than unity in recent years indicating that as countries develop social spending will constitute a larger share of gdp

rice market integration and food security in nepal the role of cross border trade with india coarse rice market integration between nepal and india is analyzed applying a threshold autoregressive model the price response behaviour of traders is found to be consistent with an asymmetric price adjustment mechanism indicating coarse rice prices in nepal respond to shocks originating in india the results show that adjustments to negative price deviations from long run stable equilibrium are faster than adjustments to the positive ones given a null threshold given that trade flows mainly from india to nepal nepali traders would adjust their prices upward to align with the long run equilibrium value relatively more quickly in the case of negative price deviations than if the price deviations were positive such a high speed of adjustment to negative price deviations could be detrimental to net food buyers food security status in the absence of a price stabilization mechanism however a price stabilization policy in nepal a food deficit and import dependent country would hardly have any effect on prices unless further effort is made to build up the level of national food reserves for short term food security interventions in the current context of structurally low levels of national food reserves an alternative short term policy such as foreign aid in the form of food or income transfers targeting the most vulnerable households to price increases is necessary through social safety net programmes in the long run an improvement of transportation infrastructure between market hubs other than the biratnagar trade basin in the terai nepal and india would contribute to the reduction of transaction costs and create incentives for more competition in formal cross border trade with india in times of negative shocks such as the high food price crisis in 2008 restrictive food trade policies in india will continue to undermine household food security in nepal

agricultural technology adoption and child nutrition enhancement improved maize varieties in rural ethiopia adoption of improved crop varieties can lead to multiple benefits to farm households including increased productivity incomes and food consumption however possible impacts of adoption on child nutrition outcomes are rarely explored in the literature this article helps bridge this gap through an impact assessment of the adoption of improved maize varieties imvs on child nutrition outcomes using a recent household survey from rural ethiopia the conceptual linkage between imv adoption and child nutrition is first established using an agricultural household model instrumental variable estimation suggests the overall impacts of adoption on child height for age and weight for age z scores to be positive and significant quantile instrumental variable regressions further reveal that such impacts are largest among children with poorest nutrition outcomes finally by combining a decomposition procedure with system of equations estimation it is found that the increase in own produced maize consumption is the major channel through which imv adoption affects child nutrition

will they buy it the potential for marketing organic vegetables in the food vending sector to strengthen vegetable safety a choice experiment study in three west african cities abstract considering the hazardous use of synthetic pesticides in vegetable production in urban west africa this research investigated the marketing potential of organic vegetables in the food vending sector of cotonou benin accra ghana and ouagadougou burkina faso certified organic production and marketing was examined as a potential strategy to improve chemical food safety a stratified random sampling strategy was applied to study the preferences of food vendors n 180 and consumers n 360 vegetable use risk perception choice preferences and willingness to pay wtp for organic certification were specifically analyzed the results showed that awareness of chemical contamination risks was generally low appearance of a product was central to vendor choice consumers attributed similar utility to taste and organic certification consumer wtp was calculated to be a premium of 1 04 usd per plate if the food served contained only certified organic vegetables in restaurants this would mean an average premium of 19 for a meal if certified organic vegetable production is to make a positive impact on food safety in urban west africa we suggest concentrating marketing efforts on the educated elite who frequent restaurants however considering that restaurant owners exhibited a lower preference for organic certification than lower class food vendors the marketing situation is difficult we therefore conclude that demand from the food vending sector alone will not institutionalize domestic certification mechanisms this underlines the need for public commitment to facilitating such change

consequences of a coexistence policy on the adoption of gmht crops in the european union this article examines the adoption of genetically modified herbicide tolerant gmht crops in the european union eu prior to its commercial release a set of potential drivers including the implementation of coexistence measures by farmers farmers own motivational factors e g economic environmental and technical factors and perceived social pressure to accept or reject adoption may influence european union farmers willingness to adopt gmht oilseed rape and gmht maize the analysis includes economic and sociological factors results show that coexistence measures may hamper gmht adoption in the eu

revisiting the impacts of teachers author s rothstein jesse abstract chetty friedman and rockoff 2014a 2014b study value added va measures of teacher effectiveness cfr 2014a exploits teacher switching as a quasi experiment concluding that student sorting creates negligible bias in va scores cfr 2014b finds va scores are useful proxies for teachers effects on students long run outcomes i successfully reproduce each in north carolina data but i find that the quasi experiment is invalid as teacher switching is correlated with changes in student preparedness adjusting for this i find moderate bias in va scores perhaps 10 35 as large in variance terms as teachers causal effects long run results are sensitive to controls and cannot support strong conclusions

preferences selection and value added a structural approach abstract what do applicants take into consideration when choosing a high school to what extent do schools contribute to their students academic success to answer these questions we model students preferences and obtain average valuation placed on each school we then investigate what drives these valuations by carefully controlling for endogeneity using a set of creative instruments suggested by our model we find that valuation is based on a school s location its selectivity as measured by its cutoff score value added and past performance in university entrance exams however cutoffs affect school valuation an order of magnitude more than does value added

environmental impacts of technological change in bangladesh agriculture farmers perceptions determinants and effects on resource allocation decisions this article measures the impact of modern technology adoption in raising farmers environmental awareness and the impact of farmers environmental awareness on resource use by utilizing survey data from 21 villages in three agro ecological regions of bangladesh the econometric analysis is based on the application of the tobit model explaining farmers environmental awareness in the first stage and a profit function examining environmental awareness and resource use relationships in the second stage results reveal that the level and duration of involvement with modern technology raises farmers environmental awareness and that farmers environmental awareness reduces resource use including chemicals farmers who are aware of the adverse environmental impacts of modern agricultural technology use lower amounts of all inputs in order to avoid further environmental damage therefore efforts to raise farmers environmental awareness are expected to enhance intangible benefits accruing from a relatively less chemical intensive environment

farmers perceptions and adoption of new agricultural technology evidence from analysis in burkina faso and guinea west africa economists investigating consumer demand have accumulated considerable evidence showing that consumers generally have subjective preferences for characteristics of products and that their demand for products is significantly affected by their perceptions of the product s attributes however the role of farmers preferences in adoption decisions have received very limited attention in adoption studies conducted by economists this paper tests the hypothesis that farmers perceptions of technology characteristics significantly affect their adoption decisions the analysis conducted with tobit models of modern sorghum and rice varietal technologies in burkina faso and guinea respectively strongly supports this hypothesis our results provide a strong case for future adoption studies to expand the range of variables used away from the broad socio economic demographic and institutional factors to include farmers subjective perceptions of the characteristics of new agricultural technologies

from participation to adoption comparing the effectiveness of soil conservation programs in the peruvian andes many efforts are made to promote soil conservation in developing countries this paper compares the effect of two programs promoting soil conservation in peru on the adoption decision of households one program applies a top down approach with soil conservation as its core activity the other program applies a participatory approach offering a portfolio of activities in order to improve rural livelihoods the decisions on participation and adoption are estimated with a trivariate probit model the results show that each program attracts different types of households and achieves different outcomes in terms of soil conservation

majority voting and the single crossing property when voters belong to separate groups we provide conditions under which a condorcet winner exists when voters are exogenously distributed in groups with preferences satisfying the single crossing property separately inside each group we also show that the majority voting social preference is acyclic