food aid food prices and producer disincentives in ethiopia although the short term aims of food aid are well conceived strong concerns have been voiced regarding the long term impacts of such aid on incentives for agricultural producers in recipient countries this article examines the statistical link between food aid shipments and food prices in ethiopia over the period 1996 2006 monthly data from three markets and three commodities are used to estimate a system of seemingly unrelated regression models for food prices results indicate that previous year food aid shipments reduce prices in all producer and consumer markets these effects however appear to be limited to the set of internationally traded commodities that are domestically marketed a recursive regression procedure is used to identify the food aid threshold at which a negative aid effect emerges food aid shipments that constitute less than 10 of domestic production appear to be benign but shipments above this level show signs of being disruptive to local markets we use a simple policy simulation to argue that production sensitive targeting e g conditioning food aid on local food production would help to circumvent disincentive effects copyright 2009 oxford university press

do free goods stick to poor households experimental evidence on insecticide treated bednets summary if the market allocates goods to those willing and able to pay the most for them efforts to target durable health goods such as insecticide treated bednets itns to poor populations may prove ineffective with the poor reselling donated goods to the non poor who value them more highly however low market demand may be due to liquidity constraints rather than low valuation of nets the endowment effect also militates against the resale of in kind transfers we quantify these two effects through a field experiment in uganda our results indicate that very few nets will be resold by recipient households

can food for work encourage agricultural production abstract food for work ffw is the most widely used type of public works program in ethiopia through which a high share of the food aid is distributed this paper assesses the impacts of ffw in tigray a chronically food insecure region in ethiopia in terms of relieving liquidity constraints and thereby improving input use in agriculture a heckman selection model on the adoption and intensity of fertilizer use demonstrated that ffw positively influenced the decision to adopt fertilizer and there was no evidence of disincentive effect

hunger inequality ethics and aid abstractthis article considers the inequality in the cross country distribution of hunger using multiple ethical underpinnings under sovereign equality each nation state receives equal weighting leading to the conclusion that hunger should be concentrated in a few large countries under the democratic ethic individuals receive equal weighting and the global distribution of hungry people is irrelevant inequality aversion deliberately prefers equal levels of hunger across countries these ideals are presented in a general social welfare function and compared to the actual changes in hunger during 1991 2001 the distribution of food aid to reduce both hunger and hunger inequality are considered

measuring food insecurity the frequency and severity of coping strategies abstract defining and interpreting food security and measuring it in reliable valid and cost effective ways have proven to be stubborn problems facing researchers and programs intended to monitor food security risks this paper briefly reviews the conceptual and methodological literature on food insecurity measurment describes a particular method for distinguishing and measuring short term food insecurity at the household level and discusses ways of generalizing the method the method developed enumerates the frequency and severity of strategies relied on by urban households when faced with a short term insufficiency of food this method goes beyond more commonly used measures of caloric consumption to incorporate vulnerability elements of food insecurity as well as the deliberate actions of household decision makers when faced with food insufficiency

does food aid have disincentive effects on local production a general equilibrium perspective on food aid in ethiopia this paper examined impacts of food aid on domestic food production employing a computable general equilibrium modelling technique and using data from ethiopia the simulation experiments have shown that food aid has unambiguous disincentive effects on domestic food production the removal of food aid caused a modest increase in food prices but this stimulated food production employment and income generation effects of the latter outweighed the adverse effect of the former consequently the removal of food aid led to improvements in aggregate household welfare contrary to some concerns in the food aid literature that any reduction in food aid would hurt the poor the simulation experiments suggested that actually poor rural households and urban wage earners are the ones who benefit most in absence of food aid but entrepreneurs are more likely to encounter a marginal welfare decline we have distinguished between in kind food aid and cash equivalent transfers in order to isolate the disincentives that in kind transfers would make to domestic production from those that are related to household purchasing power problem the expansionary effect of removing food aid becomes significantly larger when it is accompanied by cash equivalent payments because the latter would provide demand side stimulus to agriculture while the removal of in kind transfers would stimulate supply side with the supply and demand side effects reinforcing each other in our modelling framework the only adverse effect would be a modest deterioration in the external current account because the expansionary effects of food aid would cause imports to rise but exports to fall

food aid and child nutrition in rural ethiopia abstract this paper uses a unique panel data set from ethiopia to examine the determinants of participation in and receipts of food aid through free distribution fd and food for work ffw results show that aggregate rainfall and livestock shocks increase household participation in both fd and ffw ffw also seems well targeted to asset poor households the probability of receiving fd does not appear to be targeted based on household wealth but fd receipts are lower for wealthier households the effects of fd and ffw on child nutritional status differ depending on the modality of food aid and the gender of the child both ffw and fd have a positive direct impact on weight for height households invest proceeds from fd in girls nutrition while earnings from ffw are manifested in better nutrition for boys the effects of the gender of the aid recipient are not conclusive

subnational climate justice adaptation finance distribution and climate vulnerability summary this article investigates subnational adaptation finance distribution within malawi malawi is highly climate vulnerable and a significant per capita recipient of adaptation finance this empirical study models distribution dynamics through need climate vulnerability and government interest patronage results indicate those areas most in need receive relatively little finance rather donor utility and the ability to absorb capital offer the most persuasive explanations for distribution across the state these findings suggest that the distribution of adaptation funds do not support the larger goal of climate justice

giving to the poor targeting of food aid in rural ethiopia abstract this study determines the factors underlying the allocations of food aid in ethiopia we focus on regional differences in targeting criteria and targeting accuracy according to per capita income data are drawn from two linked rural household surveys in 1995 96 we find large differences in food aid allocations across regions that cannot be explained by observable regional characteristics such as per capita income and rainfall these differences are consistent with speculation that food aid is being used by the ethiopian government to transfer resources to favored regions we also find wide variations in the criteria used to identify recipient households across regions we identify measurable indicators that could be used by food aid authorities to improve targeting effectiveness in the future both across and within regions finally we present simulation results on targeting accuracy under various targeting strategies and discuss potential benefits and shortcomings of those strategies

aid and agency in africa explaining food disbursements across ethiopian households 1994 2004 abstract we use a principal agent framework and data from the ethiopian rural household survey between 1994 and 2004 to understand biases in the distribution of food aid in ethiopia we show that even when aid is systematically misallocated aid recipients may match official classifications of needy households if agents deviate from allocation rules in ways that are difficult to monitor agent behavior is therefore best understood by comparing aid along dimensions of need that are visible to the principal with those that are difficult to observe outside the village we do this by using data on a panel of 943 households observed over six rounds of the ethiopian rural household survey in support of our model we find that while the demographics of aid recipients do match official criteria disbursements are increasing in pre aid consumption self reported power and involvement in village level organizations we conclude that the extent to which food aid insulates some of the world s poorest families from agricultural shocks depends on a nuanced interaction of policy constraints and informal structures of local power

too certain to invest public safety nets and insurance markets in ethiopia researchers efforts to introduce index insurance in developing countries have met with little demand despite its great potential to help farmers mitigate economic risk i argue that researchers have overlooked institutional context s critical role in the formation of private markets when designing insurance contracts using micro level evidence from ethiopia i show that recipients of a preexisting effective large scale public safety net fail to take up a new highly subsidized private insurance offer government safety net programs can decrease demand for private index insurance forming an additional barrier to index insurance take up a direct implication of this research is that policymakers should design private and public insurance products that account for or even complement each other

does food aid disrupt local food market evidence from rural ethiopia the paper examines the impact of food aid on households marketing behavior based on a panel of households followed during 1994 2009 in 15 villages of ethiopia the impact of aid is examined at the intensive margin on quantities produced sold or bought by the households and at the extensive margin on the number of producers sellers and buyers food aid reduces the probability of being a producer it also increases the probability of being a seller after a reform of aid policy in 2004 from repeated emergency distributions toward a multi year program aiming at agricultural development

food aid and adult nutrition in rural ethiopia insight into the role of safety nets that contribute to adult nutrition is an important component to understanding the dynamics of poverty in developing countries this article uses panel data from rural ethiopia on individual nutritional status to test for an effect of public transfers on adult body mass index bmi results show that among adult household members male members are the primary beneficiaries of food aid as male and female aid recipients tend to invest aid receipts in male household members these results are consistent with a theory in which additional resources are allocated to members of the household whose market returns are higher or those who engage in activities that expend higher levels of energy for high asset households female household members benefit if the aid recipient is a female women in low asset households appear to be adversely affected by aid receipts and evidence suggests that women with little bargaining power suffer the most the results suggest that aid receipts are useful in mitigating fluctuations in adult bmi over a short time period

food aid and food markets lessons from mozambique abstract a consensus has emerged on food aid policy acknowledging the importance of short run relief considerations while emphasizing that such policy must be driven by a long run developmental perspective this requires explicit attention to the effects of food aid on food markets yet it has long been clear that short and long run objectives of food aid may conflict this tension stands in high relief in mozambique one of the most food aid dependent countries in the world this paper examines the factors determining the effects of yellow maize food aid on markets for yellow maize and white maize the staple crop in mozambique the paper finds that a food aid has helped fuel the growth of a competitive small scale milling industry and informal marketing system b yellow and white maize are substitutes in consumption and c continued availability of yellow maize food aid at prices well below import parity will depress incentives for producers and traders to invest in the white maize production and marketing system this paper presents recommendations for reforming the monetized food aid program and coordinating it more effectively with emergency aid

how effectively does multilateral food aid respond to fluctuating needs abstract this paper tests the targeting efficacy of multilateral food aid at the level of nation states exploring whether it stabilizes food availability in recipient economies flows most to those with the greatest need or both we find that unlike bilateral flows from the united states under pl 480 multilateral food aid distribution by the world food programme flows countercyclically thereby stabilizing food availability in recipient economies wfp flows also exhibit significant progressivity at the regional level helping to resolve international inequalities in food availability per capita

targeting of food aid in rural ethiopia chronic need or inertia abstract this paper quantifies the factors underlying the allocations of food aid by the ethiopian government together with local and international non governmental organizations ngos both across rural regions and to households within regions we focus on reduced form specifications in which as little structure as possible is put on the decision rules because so little is known about these rules and their implementation nationally representative rural household data from ethiopia collected in 1996 are used the paper determines the extent to which food aid both free distribution and food for work is targeted to poor households and communities we also demonstrate that food aid allocations display a large degree of spatial continuity over time and are concentrated in areas that at least during the time of the survey are not the poorest the paper attempts to disentangle two competing explanations for the apparent spatial rigidity of food aid allocations that the recipient areas are chronically needy or that needs shift geographically from 1 year to the next but that fixed costs in setting up operations and in the process of identifying needs lead to a degree of inertia in the location of food aid programs over time we conclude that the evidence best fits the inertia explanation

does food aid really have disincentive effects new evidence from sub saharan africa summary limited empirical evidence exists either to refute or confirm the pervasive belief that food aid has significant disincentive effects on recipient food production using household level data from rural ethiopia we demonstrate that while simple descriptive statistics appear consistent with the disincentive effects hypothesis once one controls properly for the endogeneity of food aid receipt no empirical support remains for the hypothesis that food aid creates disincentive effects among recipient households the macro economic evidence yields similar findings applying vector autoregression methods to national level data controlling for possible confounding variables we find that food aid has no disincentive effect on food production

preference heterogeneity power and intrahousehold decision making in rural malaysia abstract this paper examines conjugal household responsibilities roles preference heterogeneity and intrahousehold power relations in rural malay families its three major contributions are to provide an effective initial indicator of separate spheres within the family develop and implement a method for measuring the extent of conjugal preference heterogeneity and illustrate the value of combining this direct measure of preference heterogeneity with a measure of power in estimating household expenditure patterns for three major items food schooling and housing improvement these three measurement innovations applied to the rural malaysia context demonstrate the potential for more direct efforts to model and measure intrahousehold decisions

the life cycle model of consumption and saving a central implication of life cycle models is that agents smooth consumption we review the empirical evidence on smoothing at frequencies from within the year up to across a lifetime we find that life cycle models particular those which incorporate realistic features of markets and goods have more empirical successes than failures we also show that some apparent deviations from theoretical predictions imply very small welfare losses for agents finally we emphasize that the coherence of life cycle models imposes an important discipline when incorporating new features into models

the relative size of windfall income and the permanent income hypothesis a reconciliation is offered for the diverse test results on friedman s permanent income hypothesis a large data sample of those receiving windfall income in the bureau of labor statistics 1972 1973 consumer expenditure survey is divided according to the size of the windfall relative to estimated permanent income a pattern of a declining marginal propensity to consume windfall income as the relative size of the windfall increases is apparent these results support the permanent income hypothesis for relatively large windfalls

food aid targeting in ethiopia a study of who needs it and who gets it abstract the need for systematic empirical analysis of food aid targeting and impacts is overwhelming especially given the large numbers of people concerned and volume of funds allocated to the problem of feeding ethiopia s food insecure this research examines the efficiency of food aid targeting in rural ethiopia based on empirical evidence from a nationally representative survey of 4166 farm households a key finding of the study is that there is no significant association between household food insecurity vulnerability and food aid receipts a result of high errors of exclusion and inclusion at both the wereda and household levels four factors are identified as causes of the high level of targeting error 1 the primary beneficiaries of food aid programs are found to be households at the extremes in terms of food availability those with the least and those with the most food available 2 a disproportionate number of female and aged heads of households received food aid irrespective of their food needs 3 an inability of the food aid system to reach households outside of the historically deficit areas and 4 a disproportionate concentration of food aid in the region of tigray

child growth shocks and food aid in rural ethiopia this brief summarizes the results of a gender impact evaluation study entitled child growth shocks and food aid in rural ethiopia conducted between 1995 and 1996 in ethiopia the study observed the impact of food aid on child growth and shocks in communities on the child level food aid has a positive significant impact on the growth in height of children the total amount of food aid appears on average to be sufficient to offset the negative effects of plot damage on child growth given the fact there remains a massive amount of child stunting there must be large amounts of mis targeting of aid girls seem to be more resilient to shocks than boys

the economics and nutritional impacts of food assistance policies and programs recent evidence on malnutrition and poverty raise important questions on the role of food assistance policies and programs in this review article we examine evidence on the economic and nutritional impacts of international food assistance programs faps and policies the returns on investments in faps are on average high but depend considerably on the targeting and cost structures as well as on food quality and role of complementary activities we disaggregate findings into four classes of recipients returns to faps are highest for children under two but faps oriented towards early childhood interventions are less well funded than are interventions aimed at school age children or at the broader largely adult population even though available evidence indicates that these latter classes of interventions offer considerably lower average returns in economic health and nutrition terms nonetheless fap effectiveness in achieving any of several objectives varies with a range of key factors including targeting additionality seasonality timeliness incentive effects social acceptability and political economy considerations

food aid dependency in northeastern ethiopia myth or reality summary food aid dependency among ethiopian farmers frequently is claimed with serious policy impacts this article explores this assertion with reference to south wollo ethiopia one of the country s largest recipients of food aid it uses household economic and ethnographic data from the 1999 2000 and 2002 03 droughts when food aid imports were very high by examining patterns of food aid distribution and resource allocation among groups of food aid recipients and non recipients the article suggests that food aid has not encouraged dependency like behaviors it suggests that few farmers would be foolhardy enough to significantly alter their actions since food aid delivery is too uncertain and poorly timed

intra household resource allocation an inferential approach if household income is pooled and then allocated to maximize welfare then income under the control of mothers and fathers should have the same impact on demand with survey data on family health and nutrition in brazil the equality of parental income effects is rejected unearned income in the hands of a mother has a bigger effect on her family s health than income under the control of a father for child survival probabilities the effect is almost twenty times bigger the common preference or neoclassical model of the household is rejected if unearned income is measured with error and income is pooled then the ratio of maternal to paternal income effects should be the same equality of the ratios cannot be rejected there is also evidence for gender preference mothers prefer to devote resources to improving the nutritional status of their daughters fathers to sons

how accurate is food for work self targeting in the presence of imperfect factor markets evidence from ethiopia effective targeting of transfers is a key issue in public policy to combat poverty much faith is presently placed in self targeting mechanisms such as public employment schemes supported by food for work transfers where targeting errors have been observed these are usually attributed to mismanagement of key operational details such as the project s wage rate using a unique data set from rural ethiopia we demonstrate that targeting errors may also have structural causes in some low income countries we hypothesise that imperfect factor markets generate a predictable dispersion across households in reservation wage rates that breaks down the unconditionally positive relation between income and shadow wages on which the theory of self targeting public employment programmes rests our results confirm that the inaccuracy of ffw targeting stems from the fact that in rural ethiopia higher income households are endowed with more labour per unit of land or animal due to poor factor markets in land and liv

political connections and social networks in targeted transfer programs evidence from rural ethiopia abstractdespite increasingly large scale social protection programs in africa we have limited evidence on the local political economy of their allocation we investigate community based processes for food aid allocation and the role of political and social networks using the case of ethiopia in the aftermath of a serious drought in 2002 local political authorities are in charge of food transfers in terms of free food aid or food for work programs we find that although targeting is clearly imperfect free food aid is responsive to need as well as targeted to households with less access to support from relatives or friends we also find a strong correlation with political connections households with close associates in official positions have more than a 12 higher probability of obtaining free food than households that are not well connected this effect is large someone without political connections has the same probability of getting food aid as someone more than twice as rich but with these conne

is monetary union necessarily counterproductive abstract this paper analyses the case of a monetary union between identical countries characterised by oligopolistic competition in their labour market it suggests that the switch to a common currency may improve their macroeconomic performances depending on labour market features

risk pooling through transfers in rural ethiopia abstract it is often assumed that transfers received from government nongovernment organizations ngos friends and relatives help rural households to pool risk in this article i investigate two functions of transfers in ethiopia risk pooling and income redistribution unlike most of the literature this article investigates not only whether but also how much risk pooling is achieved i find evidence that transfers from government ngos play a role in insuring covariant income shocks and evidence that transfers from both government ngos and friends relatives redistribute income however the contributions of these transfers to risk pooling and income redistribution are economically very limited moreover transfers from friends relatives do not play a role in risk sharing although transfers only play a minor role in risk pooling households in the study villages are found to be able to insure most of their idiosyncratic income shocks and part of their covariant income shocks

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

food aid domestic policy and food security contrasting experiences from south asia and sub saharan africa abstract food aid both for short term emergency relief and as program food aid that helps address medium term food deficits is often a major component of food security strategies in developing countries this study reviews the experience with food aid of four major recipients of food aid india bangladesh ethiopia and zambia regarding food production trade markets consumption and safety nets as well as the policy responses to food emergencies the widely varying experiences of the study countries suggest that food aid that supports building of production and market enhancing infrastructure is timed to avoid adverse price effects on producers and is targeted to food insecure households can play a positive role in enhancing food security however food aid is not the only or in many cases the most efficient means of addressing food insecurity in many cases private markets can more effectively address shortfalls in food availability and cash transfers may be a viable alternative to food transfers in kind