impact of modern agricultural technologies on smallholder welfare evidence from tanzania and ethiopia this paper evaluates the potential impact of adoption of improved legume technologies on rural household welfare measured by consumption expenditure in rural ethiopia and tanzania the study utilizes cross sectional farm household level data collected in 2008 from a randomly selected sample of 1313 households 700 in ethiopia and 613 in tanzania the causal impact of technology adoption is estimated by utilizing endogenous switching regression this helps us estimate the true welfare effect of technology adoption by controlling for the role of selection problem on production and adoption decisions our analysis reveals that adoption of improved agricultural technologies has a significant positive impact consumption expenditure in per adult equivalent terms in rural ethiopia and tanzania this confirms the potential role of technology adoption in improving rural household welfare as higher consumption expenditure from improved technologies translate into lower poverty higher food security and greater ability to withstand risk an analysis of the determinants of adoption highlighted inadequate local supply of seed access to information and perception about the new cultivars as key constraints for technology adoption

the impact of biogas technology adoption for farm households empirical evidence from mixed crop and livestock farming systems in indonesia abstract this paper aims to study the impact of biogas technology adoption as a livestock waste technology to support mixed crop and livestock mcl farming among smallholder farmers in indonesia a cross sectional survey was conducted to collect data from 351 farm households 171 biogas adopters and 180 non adopters in the province of yogyakarta this study employed treatment effects analysis based on propensity score matching techniques to evaluate the impacts of biogas technology adoption among the farm households the results showed that the adoption of the biogas technology reduces firewood consumption of smallholder farm households in indonesia unfortunately the impact on the use of slurry for organic fertilizers and the use of gas liquid petroleum gas lpg as another household cooking energy could not be evaluated this study empirically showed that the benefits of the biogas technology had not yet been optimized at the household level which may partly explain the slow rate of biogas technology diffusion among farmers however the consumption reduction of firewood as a benefit of using biogas contributed to behavioral changes of the women in the households especially with respect to firewood collection and cooking activities

world poverty and the role of agricultural technology direct and indirect effects agricultural technology can help reduce poverty through direct and indirect effects direct effects are gains for the adopters while indirect effects are gains derived from adoption by others leading to lower food prices employment creation and growth linkage effects conceptualising and measuring these effects is highly complex yet is needed for each region if technology is to be used as an effective instrument for poverty reduction we propose a methodology for doing this in the context of computable general equilibrium modelling and apply it to archetype models for africa asia and latin america results show that the dominant effect of technology on poverty is through direct effects in africa indirect agricultural employment effects in asia and linkage effects through the rest of the economy in latin america in each case increasing the poverty reduction effect through the targeting of technology across crops and through complementary rural development programmes is also explored

adjustment costs from environmental change abstract the paper is concerned with the case whereby the distribution of a firm s productivity shocks changes without the knowledge of the firm over time the firm learns about the nature and extent of the change in the distribution of the shock and adjusts incurring adjustment costs in the process the long run loss in profits due to the shift in the distribution we term the equilibrium response the transitory loss in profits incurred while the firm is learning about the distribution shift is termed the adjustment cost the theory is then applied to the problem of measuring adjustment costs in the face of imperfectly observed climate change in agriculture the empirical part of the paper involves estimating a restricted profit function for agricultural land in a five state region of the midwest us as a function of prices land characteristics actual weather realizations and expected weather we then simulate the effect of an unobserved climate shock where learning about the climate shock is by observing the weather and updating prior knowledge using bayes rule we find adjustment costs to climate change are 1 4 of annual land rents

biogas energy from family sized digesters in uganda critical factors and policy implications dependence on fossil energy sources is increasingly becoming unsustainable due to ecological and environmental problems and rapid depletion biogas energy could augment these conventional energy sources but despite its advantages and favourable conditions for its production biogas energy use in uganda remains low due to technical economic and socio cultural impediments based on primary data on households in central and eastern uganda and the use of logistic regression this study analyses factors affecting the adoption of biogas energy in uganda the empirical results suggest that the probability of a household adopting biogas technology increases with decreasing age of head of household increasing household income increasing number of cattle owned increasing household size male head of household and increasing cost of traditional fuels in contrast the likelihood of adoption decreases with increasing remoteness of household location and increasing household land area policy options and recommendations including educational and awareness campaigns on biogas benefits and successes the provision of financial and non financial incentives to households and establishment of an institutional framework could bolster wider biogas energy acceptance in uganda

impact of improved maize adoption on welfare of farm households in malawi a panel data analysis summary this paper assesses rural households decision to use improved maize varieties in malawi and examines its impact on household welfare using a three year household panel data the distributional effect of maize technology adoption is investigated by looking at impacts across wealth and gender groups we applied control function approach and iv regression to control for possible endogeneity of input subsidy and area under improved maize we found that area under improved maize varieties is positively correlated with own maize consumption income and asset holdings we found evidence that improved maize adoption has a stronger impact on welfare of poorer households

natural resource management and household well being the case of posaf ii in nicaragua summary measuring the impact of natural resource programs is a key element in the formulation and implementation of policies designed to promote farm income while enhancing the quality of the surrounding environment in this paper we analyze the economic impact of natural resource technologies delivered by the socio environmental and forestry development program ii posaf ii in nicaragua we use cross sectional data for 1 483 households from 212 treated and control communities results obtained from propensity score matching psm ordinary least squares ols weighted least squares regression wls based on psm and instrumental variables iv regression indicate that posaf ii has had a positive impact on the total value of agricultural production of beneficiary farmers an internal rate of return analysis supports the hypothesis that increasing household income while encouraging the sustainable use of natural resources through the implementation of suitable management programs can be complementary development objectives

risk attitudes to low probability climate change risks wtp for flood insurance abstract natural disasters may increase in frequency and severity in the future as a result of climate change which is likely to have an impact on the demand for natural disaster insurance insights about individual risk beliefs and behavioural responses to changing risks are relevant for insurers as it allows them for example to estimate the demand for new insurance products that cover weather related damage this study elicits individual risk beliefs and the demand for low probability high impact flood insurance using the contingent valuation survey method among approximately 1000 homeowners in the dutch river delta this study is of practical relevance since currently flood insurance is not available in the netherlands while insurers have been considering to provide such insurance individuals generally do not behave in accordance with the expected utility model since a significant proportion of homeowners neglect the low probability flood risk the willingness to pay wtp of those individuals who demand flood insurance is on average considerably higher than the expected value of the flood risk they face moreover the wtp for flood insurance is less than proportionally related to increased flood probabilities that were presented to respondents in the questionnaire individuals follow a process of bayesian updating of flood probabilities since perceptions of flood risk are an important determinant of the wtp while objective risks derived from geographical characteristics influence the wtp to a lesser extent communication of baseline probabilities and changes in flood probabilities using risk ladders facilitate the comprehension of risk by respondents and has a considerable effect on the level of the wtp and its sensitivity to probability changes the results indicate that the current ex post public compensation scheme of flood damage lowers demand for private insurance

ex post impacts of improved maize varieties on poverty in rural ethiopia public agricultural research has been conducted in africa for decades while many studies have examined its aggregate impacts few have investigated how it affects the poor this paper helps fill this gap by applying a new procedure to explore the ex post impacts of improved maize varieties on poverty in rural ethiopia plot level yield and cost changes due to adoption are first estimated using instrumental variable and marginal treatment effect techniques where possible heterogeneity is carefully accounted for a backward derivation procedure is then developed to link treatment effect estimates with an economic surplus model to identify the counterfactual household income that would have existed without improved maize varieties poverty impacts are finally estimated by exploiting the differences between observed and counterfactual income distributions improved maize varieties have led to a 0 8 1 3 percentage drop of poverty headcount ratio and relative reductions of poverty depth and severity however poor producers benefit the least from adoption due to the smallness of their land holdings

rural finance and agricultural technology adoption in ethiopia does the institutional design of lending organizations matter summary it has now become almost a stylized fact that sustained agricultural growth is central to rapid poverty reduction and economic development yet world poverty is largely concentrated in the agrarian societies which have the potential for agricultural productivity growth this is particularly true for sub saharan african countries where the gaps between potential and actual yields remain high minimizing this gap through the promotion of modern inputs such as fertilizer and modern seeds has been at the core of almost all development strategies in ethiopia among other initiatives the country has promoted microfinance institutions and member owned financial cooperatives to alleviate credit constraints of the smallholder farmers this paper analyzes the impacts of these institutions using household survey data and a propensity score matching technique we examine the effects that institutional financial services have on farmers adoption of agricultural technology in ethiopia the results suggest that access to institutional finance has a significant positive impact on both the adoption and extent of technology use however when impacts are disaggregated by type of financial institution and farm size heterogeneities are observed in particular financial cooperatives have a greater impact on technology adoption than microfinance institutions and the results appear to vary depending on farm size and types of inputs the paper concludes with implications for policies to promote adoption of modern agricultural inputs

consumption versus asset smoothing testing the implications of poverty trap theory in burkina faso abstract despite solid theoretical foundations for the notion that poor borrowing constrained households will intertemporally manage assets to smooth consumption the consumption smoothing hypothesis has not always withstood empirical scrutiny this paper reassesses the intertemporal asset management problem with a poverty trap model and shows that we would expect to see asset smoothing not consumption smoothing in the neighborhood of critical asset levels at which optimal accumulation behavior bifurcates we then employ threshold estimation techniques to empirically confirm the co existence of consumption and asset smoothing regimes using a household panel data set from west africa households above the estimated threshold almost completely insulate their consumption from weather shocks whereas those below the threshold do not these results not only indirectly provide evidence of the existence of poverty traps but also speak to the level and incidence of the costs of uninsured risk

risk learning and technology adoption this article explores how decision makers learn and use information with an application to the adoption of biotechnology in agriculture the empirical analysis relies on experimental and survey data measuring risk preferences learning processes and the adoption of genetically modified gm seeds among u s grain farmers while controlling for risk aversion we link individual learning rules with the cognitive abilities of each decision maker and their actual gm adoption decisions we find evidence that very few individuals are bayesian learners and that the population of farmers is quite heterogeneous in terms of learning rules this suggests that bayesian learning as commonly assumed in the analysis of agricultural technology adoption is not an appropriate characterization in addition we do not find a strong relationship between observed learning styles and the timing of gm seed adoption to the extent that learning is a key part of the process of technology adoption this suggests the presence of much unobserved heterogeneity in learning among farmers

the employer size wage gap evidence for britain university of edinburgh and university of sussexfinal version received 5 may 1992 this paper presents estimates for the employer plant size wage gap for britain using anordered probit model selectivity corrected wage equations are estimated for three plant sizecategories in a comparison between plants with more than 500 workers and those with lessthan 100 a wage gap estimate of over 17 per cent is detected the wage effects of unionizationin plants with more than 500 workers is reported as insignificant in contrast to evidenceprovided by idson and feaster 1990 for the united states no evidence of non randomsorting of workers across plant size is detected

the role of agriculture in economic development visible and invisible surplus transfers the financial surplus of agriculture has been central to theories of the role of agriculture in economic development morrisson and thorbecke mt have used a constant price social accounting matrix sam framework to measure rigorously the financial surplus of agriculture and decompose the mechanisms of surplus extraction history and theory have however stressed the role of prices as an invisible transfer mechanism in addition to the visible transfers identified in the sam framework we extend the mt approach by defining and measuring the real surplus of agriculture and decomposing the mechanisms of surplus extraction between visible and invisible financial transfers using an archetype computable general equilibrium model for poor african nations we trace the generation transfer and use of an agricultural surplus created by a productivity gain in agriculture this shows that prices indeed play an overwhelmingly important role in transferring a surplus from agriculture to the benefit of the rest of

agricultural technology crop income and poverty alleviation in uganda summary this paper evaluates the ex post impact of adopting improved groundnut varieties on crop income and poverty in rural uganda the study utilizes cross sectional data of 927 households collected in 2006 from seven districts in uganda using propensity score matching methods we find that adopting improved groundnut varieties technology significantly increases crop income and reduces poverty the positive and significant impact on crop income is consistent with the perceived role of new agricultural technologies in reducing rural poverty through increased farm household income this study supports broader investment in agriculture research to address vital development challenges reaching the poor with better technologies however requires policy support for improving extension efforts access to seeds and market outlets that simulate adoption

agricultural technology adoption and poverty reduction a propensity score matching analysis for rural bangladesh this study aims at shedding some light on the potential impact of agricultural technology adoption on poverty alleviation strategies it does so through an empirical investigation of the relationship between technological change of the green revolution type and wellbeing of smallholder farm households in two rural bangladeshi regions as technology adoption is not randomly assigned but there is self selection into treatment the paper tackles a methodological issue in assessing the causal effect of technology on farm household wellbeing through the non parametric p score matching analysis it pursues a targeted evaluation of whether adopting a modern seed technology causes resource poor farmers to improve their income and decrease the propensity to fall below the poverty line it finds a robust and positive effect of agricultural technology adoption on farm household wellbeing suggesting that there is a large scope for enhancing the role of agricultural technology in directly contributing to poverty alleviation 2006 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

the role of preference shocks and capital utilization in the great depression the article examines the proposition that preference shocks play a central role in our understanding of the great depression i identify a series of unusually large negative shocks that destabilized the u s economy during the 1930s when the artificial economy is paired with variable capital utilization and mildly increasing returns to scale in production it is able to account for most of the decline in economic activity and it predicts a tepid recovery

the impact of improved maize varieties on poverty in mexico a propensity score matching approach summary this study examines the adoption of improved maize germplasm in oaxaca and chiapas in mexico it employs a propensity score matching approach to analyze the impact of the adoption of improved maize varieties on household income and poverty reduction using cross sectional data of 325 farmers from the two regions the findings reveal a robust positive and significant impact of improved maize variety adoption on farm household welfare measured by per capita expenditure and poverty reduction specifically the empirical results suggest that adoption of improved maize varieties helped raise household per capita expenditure by an average of 136 173 mexican pesos thereby reducing their probability of falling below the poverty line by roughly 19 31

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

adoption of improved wheat varieties and impacts on household food security in ethiopia this article evaluates the impact of the adoption of improved wheat varieties on food security using a recent nationally representative dataset of over 2000 farm households in ethiopia we adopted endogenous switching regression treatment effects complemented with a binary propensity score matching methodology to test robustness and reduced selection bias stemming from both observed and unobserved characteristics we expand this further with the generalized propensity score gps approach to evaluate the effects of continuous treatment on the response of the outcome variables we find a consistent result across models indicating that adoption increases food security and farm households that did adopt would also have benefited significantly had they adopted new varieties this study supports the need for vital investments in agricultural research for major food staples widely consumed by the poor and efforts to improve access to modern varieties and services policies that enhance diffusion and adoption of modern wheat varieties should be central to food security strategies in ethiopia

the system of rice intensification and its impacts on household income and child schooling evidence from rural indonesia the yield potential of a set of improved rice management practices known as the system of rice intensification sri has attracted much attention yet we know surprisingly little about sri s socio economic impact using data from indonesia in 2009 this study assesses the impact of sri on household incomes and child schooling we find that sri generates significant estimated yield gains however because sri induces a reallocation of family labor from non farm to farm sri users enjoy no household income gains despite the increased labor demand for farming we find no evidence that sri has a child labor effect

impact of contracts in high yielding varieties seed production on profits and yield the case of nepal abstract nepal s population continues to grow but the agricultural sector s performance remains almost stagnant this has led to a decline in the per capita availability of food increasing agricultural productivity is the key to agricultural growth and one strategy for increasing agricultural productivity is to use improved seeds this study investigates the impact of contract farming cf in high yielding varieties hyv of paddy seed production on costs yield and profits of smallholder farms in nepal using farm level data and a non parametric propensity score matching estimator the study finds a significant positive impact of contract hyv seed farming on revenues profits and yield and a significant negative impact on total costs of production additionally very small farms 0 43 ha with cf in hyv paddy seeds tend to gain the most when it comes to yield per hectare our estimates reveal that the average smallholder household in nepal engaged in cf with input conditions receives higher profits however farmers engaged in cf with output conditions tend to have higher yields but smaller profits finally farmers engaged in cf in hyv paddy seeds with both input and output conditions have the highest yield gains and significantly higher profits

welfare impacts of maize pigeonpea intensification in tanzania this article examines the driving forces behind farmers decisions to adopt improved pigeonpea and maize and estimates the causal impact of technology adoption on household welfare using data obtained from a random cross section sample of 613 small scale farmers in tanzania we use seemingly unrelated and recursive bivariate probit regressions to test the endogeneity and joint decision making of pigeonpea maize production a double hurdle model is used to analyze the determinants of the intensity of technology adoption conditional on overcoming seed access constraints to address the impact of adoption on welfare the article employs both propensity score matching and switching regression techniques results from bivariate probit models show that unobservable factors cause both decisions to be correlated but the finding does not support the conjecture that both decisions are made jointly overall the analysis of the determinants of adoption identifies inadequate local supply of seed access to information human capital and access to private productive asset as key constraints for pigeonpea technology adoption the causal impact estimation from both the propensity score matching and switching regression suggests that maize pigeonpea adoption has a positive and significant impact on income and consumption expenditure among sample households

the becker degroot marschak mechanism is not necessarily incentive compatible even for non random goods abstract this paper uses results from karni e safra z 1987 preference reversals and the observability of preferences by experimental methods econometrica 55 675 685 and karni e 1989 generalized expected utility analysis of multivariate risk aversion international economic review 30 297 305 to show that the becker degroot marschak mechanism is not always incentive compatible even when the item to be valued involves no uncertainty contrary to several recent assertions

poverty reduction effects of agricultural technology adoption a micro evidence from rural tanzania abstract this article evaluates the impact of adoption of improved pigeonpea technologies on consumption expenditure and poverty status using cross sectional data of 613 households from rural tanzania using multiple econometric techniques we found that adopting improved pigeonpea significantly increases consumption expenditure and reduces poverty this confirms the potential role of technology adoption in improving household welfare as higher incomes translate into lower poverty this study supports broader investment in agriculture research to address vital development challenges reaching the poor with better technologies however requires policy support for improving extension efforts access to seeds and market outlets that stimulate adoption

estimation of limited dependent variable models with dummy endogenous regressors applied economists have long struggled with the question of how to accommodate binary endogenous regressors in models with binary and nonnegative outcomes i argue here that much of the difculty with limited dependent variables comes from a focus on structural parameters such as index coefcients instead of causal effects once the object of estimation is taken to be the causal effect of treatment several simple strategies are available these include conventional two stage least squares multiplicative models for conditional means linear approximation of nonlinear causal models models for distribution effects and quantile regression with an endogenous binary regressor the estimation strategies discussed in the article are illustrated by using multiple births to estimate the effect of childbearing on employment status and hours of work

role of agricultural research in poverty reduction lessons from the asian experience abstract the poor spend much of their income on food depend primarily on labour earnings and tend to reside in marginal agricultural areas to reduce poverty agricultural research should aim to ensure adequate food supplies by developing yield increasing technologies to increase labour demand by developing labour using technologies and to develop technologies suitable for marginal areas this article seeks to identify appropriate technologies that agricultural research should generate for poverty reduction the identification is based on a review of the experience of the green revolution in rice production in asia and an assessment of the changing structure of income sources among rural households in the philippines

the impact of group based credit programs on poor households in bangladesh does the gender of participants matter this paper estimates the impact of participation by gender in the grameen bank and two other group based micro credit programs in bangladesh on labor supply schooling household expenditure and assets the empirical method uses a quasi experimental survey design to correct for the bias from unobserved individual and village level heterogeneity we find that program credit has a larger effect on the behavior of poor households in bangladesh when women are the program participants for example annual household consumption expenditure increases 18 taka for every 100 additional taka borrowed by women from these credit programs compared with 11 taka for men

agricultural trade liberalization and low income countries a general equilibrium multimarket approach integrated multimarket general equilibrium models are constructed to analyze the impact on poor cereal importers of rising world prices following oecd trade liberalization archetypes contrast african countries in which cereal imports are not competitive with domestic production africa i to african and asian countries where they are competitive results show rising food import bills and exchange rate depreciation in africa i and the opposite in the other two regions policy implications include promoting agricultural exports from africa i and promoting food crops for import substitution in the other regions food aid needed to shelter the poor during the transition period is calculated

analysis of adoption and impacts of improved maize varieties in eastern zambia summary this paper analyzes the adoption and welfare impacts of improved maize varieties in eastern zambia using data obtained from a sample of over 800 farm households using both propensity score matching and endogenous switching regression models the paper shows that adoption of improved maize leads to significant gains in crop incomes consumption expenditure and food security results further show that improved maize varieties have significant poverty reducing impacts in eastern zambia the paper concludes with implications for policies to promote adoption and impacts of modern varieties in zambia

bayesian herders updating of rainfall beliefs in response to external forecasts summary temporal climate risk weighs heavily on many of the world s poor model based climate forecasts could benefit such populations provided recipients use forecast information to update climate expectations we test whether pastoralists in southern ethiopia and northern kenya update their expectations in response to forecast information the minority of herders who received these climate forecasts updated their expectations for below normal rainfall but not for above normal rainfall this revealed preoccupation with downside risk highlights the potential value of better climate forecasts in averting drought related losses but realizing any welfare gains requires that recipients strategically react to these updated expectations

the impact of a food security program on household food consumption in northwestern ethiopia a matching estimator approach abstract with the financial support from various development partners ethiopia has designed and implemented several programs to improve household food security yet food insecurity is still a major challenge to several millions of people in the country and it is questionable whether the different food security programs implemented over the past years have been successful using a propensity score matching method to control for pre intervention differences this study examined the impact on household food calorie intake of an integrated food security program ifsp which had been implemented in northwestern ethiopia by two non governmental organizations as a case study the estimated results provide evidence that ifsp has a positive and statistically significant effect on food calorie intake in particular ifsp has raised physical food calorie intake by 30 among the beneficiary households however we also found that ifsp has differential impact depending on family size landownership and gender of head of household overall the paper provides evidence that supporting integrated food security programs is important to improve food security in rural areas

the impact of water conservation and intensification technologies empirical evidence for rice farmers in ghana this study employs the propensity score matching model to examine the impact of the adoption of water conservation and intensification technologies on farm output and income among small scale lowland rice farmers in the northern region of ghana the matching was conducted based on the mahalanobis distance combined with the propensity score balancing tests by checking the mean standardized absolute bias in the matched sample were conducted as well as a sensitivity analysis was conducted to check for hidden bias due to unobservable selection the empirical results show a positive and significant impact of the adoption of bunds technology on input demand as well as a positive but insignificant impact on output supply and net returns adopters of the dibbling technology were found to have higher output supply whereas no statistically significant difference was found between the incomes of adopters and nonadopters of dibbling seed method the results however reveal a positive and significant effect on output and net returns when the dibbling method is combined with intensified weeding the estimates were found to be relatively insensitive to hidden bias

climate change and index insurance demand evidence from a framed field experiment in tanzania abstract index insurance has been touted as part of an adaptation strategy to mitigate climate risks among smallholder farmers however in the face of increasing drought probabilities demand for index insurance may decrease compared to a scenario with no climate change if farmers learn slowly or place considerable weight on prior beliefs using data from a framed field experiment in tanzania we estimate a structural learning model based on a bayesian change point inference method and separately identify the effect of learning expectations recency bias and ambiguity on insurance demand furthermore by simulating the supply side of the insurance market under a set of plausible assumptions we show that climate change results in reduced uptake rates in most cases although demand may increase if the severity of climate change is sufficiently low overall our results provide an alternative explanation for the puzzle of low index insurance demand