analyzing nutritional impacts of policies an empirical study for malawi summary widespread malnutrition in developing countries calls for appropriate strategies presupposing good knowledge about nutritional impacts of policies little previous work has been carried out in this direction especially with respect to micronutrients we use representative household data from malawi and develop a demand systems approach to estimate income and price elasticities of food demand and nutrient consumption these estimates are applied for policy simulations given multiple nutritional deficiencies income related policies are better suited than price policies to improve nutrition while consumer price subsidies for maize improve calorie and mineral consumption they can worsen vitamin consumption in urban areas

impact of access to credit on labor allocation patterns in malawi summary this paper uses data from the malawi financial markets and household food security survey to examine the impact of gendered access to credit on labor allocation patterns within the household the paper corrects for potential endogeneity of access to credit in the estimations access to credit relies on the credit limit concept thus an individual has access to credit from a particular source if he she is able to borrow a positive amount from that source results suggest that the impact of access to credit depends upon both the gender of the recipient and whether it is formal or informal credit

input market surplus the case of imperfect competition abstract this note establishes the exact relationship among input and output market marshallian surpluses and input user industry profit when said industry is imperfectly competitive the results are useful both for valuing an input price change and for estimating the degree of competition in the user industry

the effect of physician advice on alcohol consumption count regression with an endogenous treatment effect although there are encouraging trends alcohol abuse continues to be a significant public health problem econometric studies of alcohol demand have yielded a great deal of information for alcohol abuse prevention policy these studies suggest that higher alcohol taxes and stricter drunk driving policies can reduce heavy drinking and drunk driving in this paper we explore the role physician advice plays in the campaign to prevent alcohol related problems compared to alcohol taxation physician advice is a more precisely targeted intervention that does not impose extra costs on responsible drinkers compared to the resource costs of arresting processing and punishing drunk drivers physician advice may be a lower cost intervention to provide a basis for alcohol policy analysis we use an alcohol demand framework to test whether physician provided information about the adverse consequences of alcohol abuse shifts demand to more moderate levels there are three aspects of our alcohol demand model that complicate the estimation 1 the dependent variable is non negative it is a count variable number of drinks consumed 2 a non trivial number of sample observations have zero values for the dependent variable and 3 because the data we use is non experimental the treatment variable indicating receipt of advice from a physician may be endogenous we implement an estimation method that is specifically designed to deal with these three complicating factors our results show that advice has a substantial and significant impact on alcohol consumption by males with hypertension and that failing to account for the endogeneity of advice masks this result copyright 2001 john wiley sons ltd

non agricultural earnings in peri urban areas of tanzania evidence from household survey data abstract this study draws on purposive survey data of approximately 600 households in peri urban tanzania to describe the degree and nature of non farm diversification in these settings with the exception of relatively dynamic cities such as dar es salaam and arusha overall non farm incomes shares are not unambiguously higher than in rural areas as a whole non farm income shares rise sharply and monotonically with quintiles defined in terms of per capita food consumption in that sense the sector appears to offer an important route out of poverty the evidence suggests that education and access to infrastructure are important determinants of non farm incomes in peri urban areas women appear to be poorly placed vis a vis the non farm sector even after controlling for education age and other characteristics kinship and tribal affinities and time devoted to communal activities appear to deter entrepreneurial activity and non farm employment but trust in officials and public servants and strong heterogeneous village associations are important in stimulating non farm activity

economywide impacts of climate change on agriculture in sub saharan africa two possible adaptation scenarios to climate change for sub saharan africa are analyzed under the sres b2 scenario the first scenario doubles the irrigated area in sub saharan africa by 2050 compared to the baseline but keeps total crop area constant the second scenario increases both rainfed and irrigated crop yields by 25 for all sub saharan african countries the two adaptation scenarios are analyzed with impact a partial equilibrium agricultural sector model combined with a water simulation module and with gtap w a general equilibrium model including water resources the methodology combines the advantages of a partial equilibrium approach which considers detailed water agriculture linkages with a general equilibrium approach which takes into account linkages between agriculture and nonagricultural sectors and includes a full treatment of factor markets the efficacy of the two scenarios as adaptation measures to cope with climate change is discussed due to the limited initial irrigated area in the region an increase in agricultural productivity achieves better outcomes than an expansion of irrigated area even though sub saharan africa is not a key contributor to global food production rainfed irrigated or total both scenarios help lower world food prices stimulating national and international food markets

inter vivos transfers and exchange most parents divide their bequests equally among their children whereas inter vivos transfers are usually unequal we propose that exchange is better for inducing inter vivos transfers than bequests inter vivos transfers can be adjusted quickly to the amount of care are less costly than writing a will and can be kept secret from other family members and the public the results from national longitudinal data show that as expected if a parent gives any inter vivos transfers she is more likely to give to children who provide informal care informal care has no effect on the equality of intended bequests

a cross country comparison of rural income generating activities summary this paper uses a newly constructed cross country database composed of comparable income aggregates to examine the full range of income generating activities carried out by rural households the analysis paints a clear picture of multiple activities across rural space in countries on all four continents though less so in the included african countries for most countries the largest share of income stems from off farm activities and the largest share of households has diversified sources of income diversification not specialization is the norm nevertheless agricultural sources of income remain critically important for rural livelihoods in all countries

nonfarm income diversification and household livelihood strategies in rural africa concepts dynamics and policy implications abstract asset activity and income diversification lie at the heart of livelihood strategies in rural africa this paper introduces a special issue on the topic income diversification and livelihoods in rural africa cause and consequence of change we concentrate on core conceptual issues that bedevil the literature on rural income diversification and the policy implications of the empirical evidence presented in this special issue

a test of the structure of pac contracts an analysis of house gun control votes in the 1980s enactment of the bill was a major victory for the national rifle association which had worked for years to win relaxation of the landmark gun control act of 1968 congressional quarterly almanac 1986 p 82 i introduction every election the same political action committees pacs contribute millions of dollars to candidates for office well informed participants in the political process surely must get value for their money yet empirical research fails to provide systematic evidence that campaign contributions influence congressional roll call votes 1 a mischaracterization of the exchange between pacs and politicians may produce these contradictory results empirical studies of roll call voting typically use pac contributions from only one election cycle earlier studies generally assume prepayment in the prior congress while more contemporary studies assume a spot exchange recent empirical work however suggests another possibility interest groups may buy current influence with money spent over multiple election cycles stratmann 1995 shows that contributions from both the current and the previous election cycles influence floor votes on agricultural price supports snyder 1990 1992 presents evidence that interest groups make long term investments in politicians previous studies by arbitrarily imposing a payment structure may have produced erroneous estimates of the influence of pac money on legislative votes we examine roll call votes on gun control in the u s house of representatives during the 1980s to determine whether pacs make spot market purchases prepay for votes in the prior election cycle or make long term investments we investigate whether pac contributions have a durable long term investment effect as snyder 1992 suggests we consider two types of evidence concerning the campaign contribution contract first we examine the pattern of expenditures by the two dominant interest groups concerned with gun control the national rifle association nra and hand gun control hgc their expenditures provide strong evidence against the spot market exchange hypothesis both groups made significant expenditures in sessions of congress in which no floor vote occurred nor were these expenditures purchasing services such as committee work in a spot market exchange further 1986 nra expenditures are significantly higher for first term representatives which is consistent with long term investments but contradicts a spot exchange since freshmen have the least influence to sell second we include expenditures from both the current and the five previous election cycles as separate independent variables in a model of roll call voting to date no empirical paper tests whether pac money from more than two cycles influences roll call voting and only stratmann 1995 and grenzke 1989 use a model that specifies money from more than one cycle in an equation explaining roll call votes our probit estimates indicate that nra expenditures in the three most recent election cycles and hgc expenditures in the two most recent cycles buy votes the independent effect of expenditures from different cycles suggests that contributions are neither an unqualified one session prepayment nor a spot exchange the influence of nra expenditures two sessions prior to the roll call votes is evidence of a long term investment the literature on the determinants of roll call voting assumes that pac contributions alter representatives votes interest groups might instead simply provide campaign assistance to their supporters to affect the composition of congress stratmann 1991 bronars and lott 1997 if a difficult to quantify variable and thus omitted from regressions signals a representative s true position and interest groups make campaign contributions on the basis of this variable pac contributions might appear to influence votes the pattern of contributions and votes on gun control however indicates attempts by the nra and hgc to influence votes not merely the composition of congress

two stage residual inclusion estimation addressing endogeneity in health econometric modeling the paper focuses on two estimation methods that have been widely used to address endogeneity in empirical research in health economics and health services research two stage predictor substitution 2sps and two stage residual inclusion 2sri 2sps is the rote extension to nonlinear models of the popular linear two stage least squares estimator the 2sri estimator is similar except that in the second stage regression the endogenous variables are not replaced by first stage predictors instead first stage residuals are included as additional regressors in a generic parametric framework we show that 2sri is consistent and 2sps is not results from a simulation study and an illustrative example also recommend against 2sps and favor 2sri our findings are important given that there are many prominent examples of the application of inconsistent 2sps in the recent literature this study can be used as a guide by future researchers in health economics who are confronted with endogeneity in their empirical work

weathering climate change some simple rules to guide adaptation decisions this paper discusses some of the elements that may characterise an efficient strategy to adapt to a changing climate such a strategy will have to reflect the long time horizon of and the prevailing uncertainties about climate change an intuitively appealing approach therefore seems to be to enhance the flexibility and resilience of systems to react to and cope with climate shocks and extremes as well as to improve information in addition in the case of quasi irreversible investments with a long lifetime e g infrastructure investments development of coastal zones precautionary adjustments may be called for to increase the robustness of structures or to increase the rate of depreciation to allow for earlier replacement many of these measures may already have to be considered now and could be worthwhile in their own right independent of climate change considerations

the decision to work by married immigrant women using 1980 census data the authors analyze the labor force participation of married immigrant asian women in the united states by country of origin compared with that of married immigrant women from europe and canada the results suggest the existence of a family investment strategy evidence from both across groups and within groups indicates that a womans decision to work is affected by whether she has a husband who invests in skills specific to the u s labor market and also by the extent of that investment such a family response may help offset the low earnings of immigrant men who initially lack skills for which there is a demand in the american labor market excerpt

migration and income diversification evidence from burkina faso this paper uses limited dependent variable methods and new data from burkina faso to test the impact of inter continental and continental migration on activity choice and incomes in rural households econometric evidence supports our theoretical expectation that the impact of emigration varies both by migrant destination and production activity we find no evidence of either positive or negative effects of continental migration on agricultural or livestock activities and only a small negative impact on non farm activities however inter continental migration which tends to be long term and generates significantly larger remittances stimulates livestock production while being negatively associated with both staple and non farm activities

costs and benefits of livestock systems and the role of market and nonmarket relationships in developing countries livestock are kept not only for their physical products but also for insurance financing and to display status though this range of purposes is acknowledged livestock policies nevertheless often emphasize physical production a limited perspective that hampers the formulation and implementation of effective livestock policies this article presents a comprehensive appraisal of costs and benefits of livestock systems that takes into account the institutional environment of livestock keepers indicators are developed that capture quantify and organize not only the benefits resulting from the physical production but also those from the intangible functions the method is illustrated by an analysis of cattle in the western province of zambia the results indicate that the perspective on livestock systems developed more closely reflects the observed decisions of the livestock keepers

using evidence of household income diversification to inform study of the rural nonfarm labor market in africa abstract the labor market literature in developing countries has seldom drawn on the studies of rural household income diversification this paper draws on such studies to inform future study of the rural nonfarm labor market in africa the review of evidence provides some surprising departures from traditional images of nonfarm activities of rural households among the most striking is the dominant importance in the majority of case study areas of nonfarm wage labor as compared to self employment of nonfarm sector earnings as compared to farm sector wage earnings and of local nonfarm earnings as compared to migration earnings the most worrying finding was the poor distribution of nonfarm earnings in rural areas despite the importance of these earnings to food security and farm investments this poor distribution implies significant entry barriers and market segmentation it is probable that this will lead over time to an increasingly skewed distribution of land and other assets in rural africa

diversification strategies and adaptation deficit evidence from rural communities in niger summary the paper provides fresh empirical evidence on the adaptation process in niger rural communities using original longitudinal socio economic panel data merged with granular geo referenced climatic information we identify the main drivers and impacts of crop and labor diversification which constitute two livelihood strategies on moderating the adaptation deficit in doing so we account for the interdependence between the two diversification practices and potential reverse causality between welfare outcomes and diversification behavior moreover we condition the impacts of diversification on different sections of the welfare distribution to capture potential non linear effects our results reveal that the diversification has positive and significant welfare impacts when most vulnerable households rely on it as an adaptation strategy to mid run climate variability and as a coping strategy to short run market shocks at the same time our results find lower but still positive impacts for well endowed households that are likely to diversify their activity portfolio given the very limited presence of policy support we conclude that the rural nigerien communities are characterized by a large and autonomous adaptation response which constitutes a key leverage mechanism for policy makers we thus suggest government interventions aimed at supporting the most important diversification drivers but also aimed at straightening some channels such as network infrastructures or the promotion of local crop varieties which may have a greater potential in triggering diversification

the dynamics of livelihood diversification in post famine ethiopia abstract based on data for almost 300 households this paper explores associations among income diversification household perceptions of livelihood risks and changes in consumption outcomes across two points in time in post famine ethiopia four key questions are addressed i to what extent did households emerging from the famine period with relatively higher income and calorie consumption levels also have a more diversified income base ii was higher income diversification in 1989 associated with higher income and consumption levels by 1994 iii which households increased their share of income from non cropping activities most during the inter survey years and iv did household heads perceive a lack of non farm income activities to be an important risk factor in famine vulnerability we find that wealthier households tended to have more diversified income streams those initially more diversified subsequently experienced a relatively greater increase in both income and calorie intake households with a greater concentration of assets were more likely to fall in their relative outcome ranking as were female headed households and initially less diversified households subsequently realized greater gains in income diversification we also find suggestive evidence that personal perceptions of risk factors guided subsequent diversification decisions

in the same boat but not equals the heterogeneous effects of parental income on child labour this paper examines the impact of parental income on child labour the empirical literature has found conflicting results regarding whether poverty leads parents to send their children to work mos

on input market surplus and its relation to the downstream market game in order to analyze the welfare effects of price changes in input markets following for example a price fixing conspiracy economists have studied the relationship between the surplus measured in the input markets and the surplus in the output markets the latest results hinge on simplifying assumptions which are relaxed here by linking the input markets surplus question to another stream of literature which characterizes functions that oligopolists collectively yet unintentionally maximize it is shown that the area under the input demands is equal to the change in a function for which critical points coincide with the equilibria of the downstream game a particular case of these functions is the exact potential function afin d analyser les effets de bien etre des changements de prix dans le marche des intrants a la suite par exemple d une conspiration pour fixer les prix les economistes ont etudie la relation entre le surplus mesure dans les marches des intrants et le surplus dans les marches des produits les derniers resultats dependent de postulats simplificateurs qu on relaxe ici en reliant la question du surplus dans les marches des intrants avec un autre courant de la litterature specialisee qui caracterise les fonctions que les oligopoleurs collectivement mais sans en faire leur but avoue maximisent on montre que l espace sous les courbes de demandes des intrants est egal au changement dans une fonction pour laquelle les points critiques coincident avec les equilibres dans le jeu de marche en aval un cas particulier de ces fonctions est la fonction potentielle exacte

household strategies and rural livelihood diversification this article reviews the recent literature on diversification as a livelihood strategy of rural households in developing countries with particular reference to sub saharan africa livelihood diversification is defined as the process by which rural families construct a diverse portfolio of activities and social support capabilities in order to survive and to improve their standards of living the determinants and effects of diversification in the areas of poverty income distribution farm output and gender are examined some policy inferences are summarised the conclusion is reached that removal of constraints to and expansion of opportunities for diversification are desirable policy objectives because they give individuals and households more capabilities to improve livelihood security and to raise living standards

risk crop choice and savings evidence from tanzania rural households engaged in agricultural activities face considerable risks in their income process these income risks are especially important if they result in consumption fluctuations this is likely if insurance and credit markets are absent one possible strategy for household is to take up low risk activities even if they imply lower returns such response cannot be viewed independently from the other options available to households to reduce consumption fluctuations this paper focuses on the importance of liquid asset formation for risk taking behaviour by households an intertemporal model of consumption under liquidity constraints is developed in which households can choose between income activities with different returns and riskiness it shows that if liquid asset holdings are large providing a buffer for consumption shortfalls then households will be more willing to take up high risk activities evidence based on survey data from shinyanga district tanzania is presented consistent with this prediction this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

crop diversity household welfare and consumption smoothing under risk evidence from rural uganda abstract in the wake of climate change there is now a resurgence of interest in the promotion of crop diversification as a climate smart agricultural practice in sub saharan africa the development economics literature suggests that increasing crop diversity is an effective risk management and consumption smoothing strategy in a context characterized by repeated exposure to shocks but weak institutional innovations using panel survey data from rural uganda merged with historical weather data this paper sheds light on the household welfare and consumption smoothing effects of crop diversity we employ instrumental variables methods to control for unobserved heterogeneity and potential reverse causality our study finds that crop diversification is a welfare enhancing strategy that increases consumption and aggregate household diets instrumental variables quantile regression results show that crop diversification generates higher consumption benefits for poorest households in the lower quantile of the consumption distribution than for relatively richer households crop diversification also improves consumption smoothing through reducing households reliance on less effective strategies such as informal insurance and involuntary diet changes as risk coping mechanisms overall the findings suggest that transforming agriculture towards a more diversified cropping system is a viable pathway for improving diets welfare risk management and the resilience of rural households

impacts of prices and transactions costs on input usage in a liberalizing economy evidence from tanzanian coffee growers despite improvements in production incentives agricultural output in africa remained sluggish through the 1990s low use of purchased inputs may be part of the cause of persistently low productivity in african agriculture this article analyzes the roles of relative prices and transactions costs in explaining low use of chemical inputs among tanzanian coffee growers a sample selection model indicates that output prices exert great influence on input purchases and that both fixed and variable transactions costs affect input use decisions travel costs in input and output markets have distinct effects on input usage implying distinct avenues for interventions to promote more intensive use of agricultural inputs

the macro dimensions of food security economic growth equitable distribution and food price stability abstract rather than asking how to cope with hunger and famine the question might be how to escape their threat altogether important in this regard is recognizing that agriculture and the rural economy are greatly influenced by policies and outcomes in the rest of the economy strategies include economic growth with unchanging income distribution and growth with redistribution the latter encourages balanced growth to create non farm employment opportunities while investing in rural infrastructure

does adaptation to climate change provide food security a micro perspective from ethiopia we examine the driving forces behind farmers decisions to adapt to climate change and the impact of adaptation on farmers food production we investigate whether there are differences in the food production functions of farm households that adapted and those that did not adapt we estimate a simultaneous equations model with endogenous switching to account for the heterogeneity in the decision to adapt or not and for unobservable characteristics of farmers and their farm we compare the expected food production under the actual and counterfactual cases that the farm household adapted or not to climate change we find that the group of farm households that adapted has systematically different characteristics than the group of farm households that did not adapt the relationship between production and average temperature is inverted u shaped for farm households that adapted while it is u shaped for farm households that did not adapt and vice versa in the case of precipitation we find that adaptation increases food production however the impact of adaptation on food production is smaller for the farm households that actually did adapt than for the farm households that did not adapt in the counterfactual case that they adapted

the welfare effects of crop biodiversity as an adaptation to climate shocks in kenya abstract this paper investigates the effects of crop biodiversity on farm income and production risk using a large panel dataset of rural households in kenya we consider three different metrics of in situ on farm crop diversification richness evenness and concentration we apply a partial moments based model to test the effects of each strategy on welfare defined as expected crop income variability variance and downside risk skewness our comprehensive econometric approach differentiates climatic shocks weather and climate change the results suggest that the benefits from greater diversification in terms of enhanced land productivity and lower production costs could surpass the foregone benefit from greater efficiency associated with more concentrated production systems crop richness and evenness each reduce exposure to crop income risk especially for more vulnerable farmers who produce below the expected revenue threshold farmers who rely on greater crop specialization on the contrary are more exposed to crop income risk

capitals and capabilities a framework for analyzing peasant viability rural livelihoods and poverty abstract on the basis of themes emerging in current debates on rural development in latin america this paper develops an analytical framework for analyzing rural livelihoods in terms of their sustainability and their implications for rural poverty the framework argues that our analyses of rural livelihoods need to understand them in terms of a people s access to five types of capital asset b the ways in which they combine and transform those assets in the building of livelihoods that as far as possible meet their material and their experiential needs c the ways in which people are able to expand their asset bases through engaging with other actors through relationships governed by the logics of the state market and civil society and d the ways in which they are able to deploy and enhance their capabilities both to make living more meaningful and to change the dominant rules and relationships governing the ways in which resources are controlled distributed and transformed in society particular attention is paid to the importance of social capital as an asset through which people are able to widen their access to resources and other actors

on the equivalence of input and output market marshallian surplus measures in a series of papers which has appeared in this review the following question is raised given a change in the vector of unit factor prices to what is the resulting change in marshallian surplus in the factor markets equal as is probably now well known the first two papers in this series written by richard schmalensee 1971 and daniel wisecarver answered the above question incorrectly indeed james anderson and schmalensee 1976 in two separate papers discussed the error of the first two papers anderson answers the question correctly under the assumptions of linear homogeneous and single output production competition and a change in only one factor price schmalensee corrects his previous paper by correctly answering the question under the assumptions of general single output production competition and a change in only one factor price however schmalensee does not completely answer the question under monopolistic conditions and as a result appears to believe that it may be possible to infer marshallian surplus change in the final output market from marshallian surplus change in the factor markets the basic purpose of this article is to demonstrate the answers for both the monopoly and competitive cases under conditions more general than those of the above authors in particular the answers are derivable regardless of how many factor prices are changed and regardless of the number of final outputs which these factors produce the approach employed in the last two papers cannot provide this generalization i will show that under monopoly conditions the change in marshallian surplus in the factor markets due to a factor price vector change is precisely equal to the change in monopoly profits that occurs because of the factor price vector change also it will be shown that under competitive conditions the marshallian surplus change in the factor markets is precisely equal to the change in marshallian surplus measured in the final output markets plus the change in producer s surplus i e industry profits which is the correct answer arrived at by both anderson and schmalensee in his second paper under the above mentioned restrictive conditions the generality of the answers is demonstrated by utilizing i what w erwin diewert p 12 has called shephard s lemma for example see paul a samuelson p 68 ronald w shephard p i 1 or daniel mcfadden p 5 and ii the profit function from which the factor demands are derived

income smoothing and consumption smoothing one way that risk averse households protect consumption levels is to borrow and use insurance mechanisms another way common in low income economies is to diversify economic activities and make conservative production and employment choices households thus tend toward limiting exposure only to shocks that can be handled with available credit and insurance typically both types of mechanisms are studied independently but much more can be learned by studying them together first we obtain a more complete picture of risks costs and insurance possibilities second it opens the way to considering biases in standard tests of credit and insurance

estimating the moral hazard effect of supplemental medical insurance in the demand for prescription drugs by the elderly almost all persons over the age of 65 are insured under the medicare program for inpatient drug consumption this national insurance plan does not however generally cover the purchase of outpatient prescription drugs rx in 1992 more than onethird of all outpatient drug expenditures in the united states were incurred by medicare enrollees yet approximately 50 percent of the elderly did not have any coverage for this type of treatment daniel waldo 1994 in response to this and other gaps in medicare coverage private firms have offered insurance instruments specifically designed to fill such voids commonly known as medigap policies in addition to this form of financial protection contingent upon state of residency and economic status elderly persons may qualify and obtain coverage for rx through medicaid or a state sponsored drug program however even with these incomeand wealth sensitive options many relatively poor elderly are faced with significant outof pocket drug expenditures coverage is concentrated among those elderly with income over 200 percent of poverty and those below the poverty line stephen long 1994 the most vulnerable elderly seem to be protected from the financial hardship of excessive rx expenses through medicaid coverage but private supplemental insurance is potentially too expensive for seniors near the poverty line to alleviate this burden 11 states currently offer some form of rx insurance that is targeted at those elderly or disabled persons who are relatively poor but do not qualify for medicaid at the national level policymakers and interest groups have advocated adding coverage to the medicare program to assess such programmatic changes an accurate forecast of the potential change in rx usage is needed in this paper we use a 1990 sample of medicare enrolled pennsylvanians who may have private medigap insurance or coverage under the state s rx program to estimate the amount by which the rx demand of the average individual would change in the presence of insurance coverage ceteris paribus such a residual increase in the consumption of a medical commodity has been labeled the moralhazard effect of health insurance the estimation of this effect requires a nonstandard regression technique because insurance coverage for rx and those types of treatments that are complementary or substitutable for prescriptions may be endogenously determined those persons with a higher demand for drugs are more likely to demand supplemental insurance for rx coulson and terza department of economics pennsylvania state university university park pa 16802 neslusan division of economic research at the social security administration 4301 connecticut avenue n w washington dc 20008 stuart department of health policy and administration pennsylvania state university university park pa 16802 funding for survey design and implementation used in this research was supported by grants from the pew charitable trusts and the health care financing administration grant no 88 01439 001 the views expressed herein are not necessarily endorsed by either these agencies or the social security administration 1the now repealed medicare catastrophic coverage act of 1988 as well as many of the recent healthcare reform proposals would have provided for outpatient rx coverage for the elderly 122

child income appropriations as a disease coping mechanism consequences for the health education relationship this paper analyses the relationships between hiv aids and education taking into account the appropriative nature of child income using a theoretical model we show that considering remittances from one s child as an insurance asset can reverse the usual negative relationship between disease prevalence and educational investment this prediction confirms the results of an empirical study conducted on data compiled from the demographic and health survey dhs database for 12 sub sahara african countries for children aged between 7 and 22 years old using regional hiv prevalence as a measure of health risk we find that the sign of the slope between health risk and the enrolment of children is not constant splitting the data based on expected remittance patterns for example rural versus urban we obtain that the effect is most likely driven by household characteristics related to child income appropriation

crop biodiversity risk management and the implications of agricultural assistance this paper presents a theoretical and empirical analysis of the impact of financial assistance to farms on crop biodiversity in an uncertain setting the findings reveal that risk aversion is an important driving force for crop biodiversity conservation risk averse farmers can hedge against the uncertainty they face by allocating land to different crop species however policies intended to stabilize revenues by supporting particular species may alter this link by delinking crop biodiversity from the management of revenues risk

peasant household behaviour with missing markets some paradoxes explained a model of peasant household behavior under varying degrees of household specific food and labor market failures is constructed to show that these structural features can explain several well known patterns of peasant response which have often been attributed to peculiar motives presumed specific to peasants the model explains sluggish response to cash crops prices and high instability in perceived food and labor scarcities the key role of manufactured consumer goods prices in stimulating peasants effort in cash crops production the effectiveness of taxation as opposed to incentives in stimulating cash crops production and the key role of technological change in food production to enhance cash crop production results are obtained analytically in the case of one market failure and by numerical simulation with more than one

illegal drug use and employment this article investigates the relationship between employment and the use of marijuana and cocaine for males in national longitudinal survey of youth data from 1984 and 1988 previous studies yielding mixed evidence may have inadequately accounted for the simultaneity between drug consumption and employment i implement an instrumental variable procedure that identifies drug use with variables that are empirically unrelated to employment including the regional cocaine price and a state marijuana decriminalization indicator results indicate that the use of each drug substantially reduces the likelihood of employment exogeneity tests reveal that standard probit estimates are severely biased toward zero

labor market effects of marijuana and cocaine use among young men using data on marijuana and cocaine use from the 1984 national longitudinal survey of youth the authors examine the hypothesis that drug use reduces labor market productivity as measured by wages from an analysis that controls for the probability of employment and the endogeneity of drug use they find that although long term and on the job use of marijuana negatively affected wages the net productivity effect for all marijuana users both those who engaged in long term or on the job use and those who did not was positive no statistically significant association was found between cocaine use and productivity

payments for agrobiodiversity conservation services for sustained on farm utilization of plant and animal genetic resources abstract this paper discusses the potential application of payment for ecosystem services like schemes to tackle market failures associated with the public good characteristics of agrobiodiversity conservation services so called payments for agrobiodiversity conservation services pacs would increase the private benefits from utilizing local plant and animal genetic resources on farm through voluntary reward mechanisms so as to sustain their on farm conservation theoretical and applied insights about pacs are discussed and attention drawn to some of the challenges to be overcome in implementing pacs in particular these relate to the identification of potential buyers the complex institutional setting in which pacs might operate and the articulation of a meaningful conservation goal based on a safe minimum standard approach the latter is urgently needed so as to ensure that additional agrobiodiversity services are generated relative to a fixed pricing approach pacs schemes that seek to overcome information asymmetries through the use of conservation auctions may be associated with significant efficiency gains however potential trade offs between ecological effectiveness economic efficiency and social equity considerations need to be carefully evaluated

gender and education impacts on employment and earnings in west africa evidence from guinea this study examines the determinants of labor force participation for men and women in guinea for three sectors and for earnings employment includes self employment private wage employment and public wage employment data were obtained from a survey of 1725 households in the capital city of conakry in 1990 labor force participation lfp was 40 for women aged 15 65 years and almost 100 for men aged 30 50 years men were engaged almost equally in all three sectors while women were mostly engaged in self employment self employed women tended to come from low income households all public sector employees were well educated about 10 12 years average levels of education among the self employed were very low 2 3 years in the private wage sector men averaged 5 years and women averaged 9 years of schooling 47 of men and 59 of women in the public sector were in professional or managerial jobs in the private sector over 50 of women were in professional managerial or clerical jobs compared to only 16 of men few women in the private sector were engaged in skilled trades or unskilled work most self employed women and only 50 of men tended to work in retail trade migration during the past 5 years was positively associated with mens entry in self employment and the private sector and negatively associated with their public sector employment determinants of womens self employment included residence near commercial areas of the center city electricity in the house and work activity during the rainy season of april september fulani and malinke women were less likely to be self employed for women the benefits of education and experience declined after a certain level returns to schooling were high for both genders men earned more than women there is a need to increase educational and employment opportunities for women

cropping system diversification conservation tillage and modern seed adoption in ethiopia impacts on household income agrochemical use and demand for labor the type and combination of sustainable agricultural practices saps adopted have a significant effect on agricultural productivity and food security this study develops a multinomial endogenous switching regression model of farmers choice of combination of saps and impacts on maize income and agrochemicals and family labor use in rural ethiopia four primary results were found first adoption of saps increases maize income and the highest payoff is achieved when saps are adopted in combination rather than in isolation second nitrogen fertilizer use is lower in the package that contains system diversification and conservation tillage third conservation tillage increased pesticide application and labor demand perhaps to compensate for reduced tillage however when it is used jointly with system diversification it does not have a significant impact on pesticide and labor use fourth in most cases adoption of a package of saps increases women workload suggesting that agricultural intensification technology interventions may not be gender neutral this implies that policy makers and other stakeholders promoting a combination of technologies can enhance household food security through increasing income and reducing production costs but need to be aware of the potential gender related outcomes

can modern input use be promoted without subsidies an analysis of fertilizer in ethiopia fertilizer use in ethiopia has nearly quintupled since official elimination of direct input subsidies in the early 1990s during this time policies changed from liberalization with both private and public sector participation to a government monopoly over imports along with exclusive marketing through farmers cooperatives this article presents estimates of detail costs and margins in the value chain econometrically derived profitability and yield responses as well as costs of the government s fertilizer promotion policies results suggest that a irrespective of the methods of calculation fertilizer use in major cereal is profitable b while there is no official subsidy program fertilizer promotion has involved large fiscal costs estimated at us 40 million per year since 2008 and c there has been a mismatch between government s policy targets and the effective fertilizer demand resulting in large carryover stock with estimated implicit costs of us 30 million per year during 2008 2011 areas of policy attention value chain improvements and ongoing efforts to improve for fertilizer use and profitability are discussed

measuring the true harm from price fixing to both direct and indirect purchasers legal actions by direct and indirect purchasers to recover damages from price fixing common in the united states for years are now appearing in a number of other countries traditional measures of damages are flawed as measures of the true harm suffered and will often significantly understate that true harm this paper provides measures of the degree of understatement of the true harm when traditional approaches are used and shows how the size of the error depends on the degree of competitiveness of downstream markets the paper also provides measures of distribution of the true harm between direct and indirect purchasers

adoption of modern varieties farmers welfare and crop biodiversity evidence from uganda abstract this paper assesses the impact of modern varieties adoption on farmers welfare and crop biodiversity conserved in situ using nationally representative data collected in 2009 2010 in uganda an endogenous switching regression model estimates the net economic and environmental effects of switching from local landraces to modern species results show that after controlling for market and agro ecological factors the local varieties perform better than modern ones in marginalized and climatic vulnerable areas crop biodiversity shows to play a fundamental role in farmers risk minimizing strategies when the available modern varieties are not adaptable to the local context and not supported by the required level of agro intensification rural development policies should consider the heterogeneity in the adoption returns and support diversity conservation as a national strategic asset for a suitable bioprospecting and a best fitting agricultural system implementation

missing women and the price of tea in china the effect of sex specific earnings on sex imbalance economists have long argued that the sex imbalance in developing countries is caused by underlying economic conditions this paper uses exogenous increases in sex specific agricultural income caused by post mao reforms in china to estimate the effects of total income and sex specific income on sex differential survival of children increasing female income holding male income constant improves survival rates for girls whereas increasing male income holding female income constant worsens survival rates for girls increasing female income increases educational attainment of all children whereas increasing male income decreases educational attainment for girls and has no effect on boys educational attainment

on crop biodiversity risk exposure and food security in the highlands of ethiopia this paper investigates the effects of crop genetic diversity on farm productivity and production risk in the highlands of ethiopia using a moment based approach the analysis uses a stochastic production function capturing mean variance and skewness effects welfare implications of diversity are evaluated using a certainty equivalent measured as expected income minus a risk premium reflecting the cost of risk we find that the effect of diversity on skewness dominates its effect on variance meaning that diversity reduces the cost of risk the analysis also shows that the beneficial effects of diversity

cropland allocation effects of agricultural input subsidies in malawi summary we measure the impacts of malawi s farm input subsidy program on the cropland allocation decisions of farmers in kasungu and machinga districts in central and southern malawi using a two step regression strategy to control for endogenous selection into the program we find positive correlations between participation in the program and the amount of land planted with maize and tobacco furthermore results suggest that participating households simplified crop production by allocating less land to other crops e g groundnuts soybeans and dry beans our findings have implications for policies aimed at promoting both food self sufficiency and crop diversification in low income settings 2011 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

earnings convergence does it matter where immigrants come from or why recent immigrants to the us are starting their economic lives at substantially lower earnings than previous cohorts of immigrants this decline attributed to high family admissions and changes in the country of origin composition of us immigrants has fostered concerns about the quality of recent immigrants and motivated changes in us immigration law as well as calls for further change the importance of these concerns depends upon whether immigrants starting with low earnings remain at a disadvantage throughout their working lives this paper summarizes the research concerning the relationship between immigrant entry earnings and earnings growth and the effect on immigrant earnings growth of kinship admission and country of origin for cohorts from the same country of origin education group and age group the authors find strong evidence of a systematic inverse relationship between initial earnings and subsequent earnings growth with regard to the effect of greater admissions on the basis kinship the authors find that declines in admissions on the basis of occupational skills and corresponding increases in admissions on the basis of family are associated with both a decrease in initial earnings and an increase in earnings growth finally they find that the importance of country of origin as a determinant of immigrant earnings diminishes with time in the us the earnings of demographically comparable immigrants regardless of origin converge with time in the us authors

agricultural price policy employment and migration in a diversified rural economy a village town cge analysis from mexico using the village town computable general equilibrium cge model this paper explores the implications of resource mobility across farm and non farm activities and alternative model closure rules in shaping agricultural policy impacts two sets of agricultural policy experiments on three alternative model closure scenarios were conducted using data from a 1993 survey of 196 households in michoacan mexico including 53 in a town or county seat and 143 in the surrounding villages experiment 1 simulates the village town economy wide impact of a 10 decrease in the support price for staples experiment 2 combines this support price decrease with a compensating lump sum income transfer to staple producers similar to what actually occurred under mexicos procampo program results show that the prediction made by the aggregate cge model that mexicos agricultural price liberalization reduces rural employment and incomes and stimulates migration was not materialized the decline in staple production has been relatively small and it has concentrated on large commercial farms rather than in small farm sector in which most producers are found and from which most migrants originate however with the use of village town model and microsurvey data the authors demonstrated that under plausible market closure conditions mexicos staple price liberalization has a minimal effect on rural wagers and migration this is contrary to the predictions of the aggregated cge model

how costly is the maintenance of the coal mining jobs in europe the spanish case 1989 1995 abstract the aim of this paper is to estimate the welfare effects of the coal policy in spain for the period 1989 1995 in order to carry out the study a partial equilibrium analysis has been used and the so called conventional or neo classical cost of protection is calculated the results indicate that the coal policy produces an important conventional cost even when applied to the most profitable areas of the industry thus the maintenance of coal mining jobs in spain appears to be quite expensive in terms of protection costs

estimation in a class of simultaneous equation limited dependent variable models estimation in a class of simultaneous equation limited dependent variable models is considered the minimum chi squared method is used to compare the asymptotic relative efficiency of marginal and new conditional maximum likelihood estimators for this class of models efficient minimum chi squared estimation procedures are described a two step algorithm based on a conditional maximum likelihood estimator provides a natural framework for both computing a linearized and locating the joint maximum likelihood estimator the unimodality of the simultaneous equation tobit likelihood function is proved and this model is used to illustrate the empirical application of some of the estimators considered in the paper the relative efficiency of these estimators in the simultaneous equation tobit model is examined in a set of monte carlo experiments many applications of microeconomic theory to individual data face the joint problems of censoring and simultaneity in particular the dependent variable under investigation may not be continuously observed and some of the conditioning variables representing the outcome of other decisions by the individual may be simultaneously determined smith and blundell 1986 developed an asymptotically efficient test for exogeneity or simultaneity in the simultaneous equation tobit model as a byproduct a conditional maximum likelihood estimator was obtained which is consistent under the alternative hypothesis of simultaneity nelson and olsen 1978 amemiya 1978 1979 and heckman 1978 consider a number of consistent marginal maximum likelihood estimators based on marginal maximum likelihood estimators of the reduced form parameters for the probit and tobit models in contrast the estimator derived from smith and blundell 1986 is based on the corresponding conditional maximum likelihood estimators this paper is concerned with estimation in a class of simultaneous limited dependent variable regression models which includes the simultaneous probit and tobit models as special cases analogous marginal and conditional maximum likelihood estimators to those of nelson and olsen 1978 amemiya 1978 1979 heckman 1978 and smith and blundell 1986 are derived and other new estimators are suggested the minimum chi squared approach discussed by ferguson 1958 malinvaud 1970 and rothenberg 1973 is used to compare the asymptotic relative efficiency of various estimators considered a simple two step algorithm based on the conditional maximum likelihood

conceptualizing interventions to support on farm genetic resource conservation abstract interest is increasing worldwide in on farm conservation as a component of a strategy to conserve crop genetic resources this may require outside support to small scale farmers in areas of crop diversity this paper argues that crop diversity maintained by farming households results from the interplay between a demand and a supply for this diversity interventions to support on farm conservation can be conceptualized by the way they influence these two factors demand interventions should increase the value of crop diversity for farmers or decrease the farm level opportunity costs of maintaining it while supply interventions should decrease the costs of accessing diversity

economic development and the impacts of natural disasters abstract we use disaster impact data over time to examine the degree to which the human and economic losses from natural disasters are reduced as economies develop we find that countries with higher income higher educational attainment greater openness more complete financial systems and smaller government experience fewer losses

do hmo plans reduce health care expenditure in the private sector i introduction since the hmo act was passed in 1973 health maintenance organizations hmos have become one of the most popular types of managed care plans in the u s health delivery system faced with a dramatic increase in health care costs hmos are designed to implement a tight utilization review and authorization process along with restricted choice of providers as a means of managing utilization and quality by comparing health care expenditure patterns of hmo members with those of non hmo members among the privately insured nonelderly population this study seeks to understand the impact that hmos have on health care expenditure in the private insurance sector our data come from the 2000 medical expenditure panel survey meps a nationally representative survey of the u s civilian noninstitutionalized population despite the dramatic growth in the number and proportion of individuals enrolled in private hmo plans much of existing research on this issue has focused on the relationship between hmo enrollment and use of health care services miller and luft 1994 2002 whereas only a limited number of studies have been conducted on the role of prevalent hmo enrollment in saving health care expenditure kralewski et al 2000 analyses on expenditure performance are mostly carried out on the performance of the medicaid or medicare managed care plans buchanan et al 1996 mello et al 2002 this study extends previous research in several ways first rather than using localized or insurance group wise data johnson and aquilina 1986 kralewski et al 2000 mclaughlin et al 1983 mclaughlin 1987 robinson 1996 or employer data baker and corts 1996 feldman et al 1993 we use data provided directly by hmo members through nationally representative surveys second by using decomposed expenditure data we are able to ascertain whether the provision of financial incentives to both consumers and providers in hmo plans makes any differences in medical care expenditure by each party compared with traditional plans furthermore by testing the hypothesis of selectivity in health insurance choice we try to avoid the biased findings that often find in favor of hmo plans trends and relevance during the past two decades the number of hmo enrollees has proliferated from 9 1 million 4 of the total population in 1980 to 76 1 million 26 4 in 2001 health united states 2003 between 1977 and 2001 the percentage of the u s population under age 65 that joined private insurance hmos increased dramatically from 3 7 to 27 9 table 1 over the same time period per capita national health expenditure increased from 1 980 to 4 773 in 1995 constant dollars and total national health expenditure as a percentage of gross domestic product rose from 8 8 to 14 1 out of total national health expenditure the share of private expenditure decreased from 57 3 to 54 1 motivated by the prevalence of hmos in the private insurance market and the insufficiency in understanding its cost containment performance we investigate the patterns of health care expenditure among hmo members to understand whether hmos contribute to limiting medical expenditure relative to non hmo arrangement there are two main complications to our empirical analysis the first is selection bias due to endogenous health plan choice decisions previous studies buchanan and cretin 1986 jackson beeck and kleinman 1983 suggest that the utilization reduction effect of hmos may be a consequence of the selective enrollment of a healthier population in hmo plans rather than the more efficient medical care delivery management of hmos thus we first estimate the probit model of health insurance plan choice decisions and test this hypothesis in line with the analysis of taylor et al 1995 the second complication is that the dependent variables are nonnegative with a high frequency of zero observations

selling labor low wage responses to productivity shocks in developing countries productivity risk is pervasive in underdeveloped countries this paper highlights a way in which underdevelopment exacerbates productivity risk productivity shocks cause larger changes in the wage when workers are poorer less able to migrate and more credit constrained because of such workers inelastic labor supply this equilibrium wage effect hurts workers in contrast it acts as insurance for landowners agricultural wage data for 257 districts in india for 1956 87 are used to test the predictions with rainfall as an instrument for agricultural productivity in districts with fewer banks or higher migration costs the wage is much more responsive to fluctuations in productivity

men women and competition an experimental test of behavior this study reports a series of experiments that examine outcomes when agents are able to choose between a payment scheme that rewards based on absolute performance i e piece rate and a scheme that rewards based on relative performance i e a tournament we test for the presence and persistence of gender differences in performance and the rate of entry into the tournament option and whether these differences are sensitive to the structure of the tournament rewards in the winner take all wta condition only the best performer in the tournament for each round received a payment 4 50 in the graduated tournament condition the same payment 4 50 was divided among the first second and third finishers in the tournament in the wta condition men showed significantly lower forecast errors than women in addition a clear sorting effect occurs in the wta condition in early rounds of the wta condition male entrants into the tournament show significantly lower forecast errors than female tournament entrants however the difference disappears over time after controlling for forecasting skill gender did not predict entry into the tournament for the wta condition however lower forecasting skill reduced the probability of entry in the graduated tournament the situation was reversed men entered the tournament at significantly higher rates even after controlling for skill forecasting skill had no impact on the decision to enter the tournament while the average male entrant to the tournament had lower forecast errors than the average female entrant the men entered at much higher rates as a consequence men were much more likely than women to enter the tournament too frequently

hysteresis and the earnings of immigrants in the united states labour market the paper analyses the role of hysteresis in explaining the slow wage convergence between certain immigrant groups and native workers using the 1990 integrated public use microdata samples ipums the analysis reveals that past earnings history in the country of origin has a relatively smaller effect on post migration earnings when compared to past earnings history in the us in addition the paper suggests that the earnings history in the country of origin is more productive in the us labour market for immigrants from advanced economies as compared to those from less developed countries in particular we find that us labour market does not value the past earnings history of mexican immigrants as high as that of other ethnic groups with similar socioeconomic characteristics across successive cohorts

improving the efficiency targeting of malawi s farm input subsidy programme big pain small gain abstract the farm input subsidy programme fisp in malawi was introduced in the 2005 2006 season against a background of bad weather affecting production and prolonged food shortages vouchers are distributed empowering eligible farmers to exchange them for fixed quantities of inputs at subsidized prices since its inception there has been a debate at national level about whether the fisp s potential has been fully exploited with policy makers exploring options to improve the programme proposals include targeting efficient and productive farmers to maximize returns in this paper we evaluate the effectiveness of these proposed changes to the existing fisp design by utilizing two waves of the lsms isa survey merged with climatic data we estimate how the national demand for agricultural inputs varies according to a variation in the targeting criteria by means of a two stage demand system then we identify more efficient farmers by means of a stochastic frontier approach we observe a mismatch between voucher recipients and efficiency with approximately 60 of vouchers being allocated to the three bottom quintiles of efficiency this mismatch is observed also at the spatial level with more vouchers going to districts characterized by less efficient production while concerns on the distributional impacts of the new criteria are discussed together with some suggestions for spatially diversifying the structuring of the policy and incentivizing crop diversification our results highlight a high substitutability of commercial with subsidized inputs by new eligible farmers consequently simulating the targeting policy variation we obtain an outcome that would lead only to a limited increases in predicted food expenditure ranging from 0 27 to 0 8 and maize production from 0 2 to 1 3 scope for analysing different adjustments in the functioning of fisp are thus proposed to policy makers

the significance of diversification for rural livelihood systems abstract there is an increasing awareness that diversification plays a strategic role in rural livelihood systems the principal question to be addressed in this paper pertains to the conditions and the ways in which rural households diversify their livelihood activities and strategies to answer this question empirical evidence will be reviewed specific attention will be paid to perspectives that may shed new light on the issue of rural livelihood diversification a gender perspective a temporal perspective and the hiv aids lens in the paper the livelihood system is seen as an open system interfacing with other systems and using various resources and assets to produce livelihood with the household as the locus of livelihood generation diversification is defined as the process by which households construct increasingly diverse livelihood portfolios making use of increasingly diverse combinations of resources and assets

microcredit social capital and common pool resources abstract the paper presents a conceptual scheme for understanding the impact of microcredit small loans to poor borrowers on common pool resources impacts on common pool resources are posited to occur through changes in household production and consumption the focus on women and the social capital created from group training decision making and risk bearing with the group lending techniques characteristic of many microcredit programs enhanced human and social capital can improve environmental outcomes a nonrandom survey of microfinance organizations suggests increased environmental awareness and potential cpr stewardship through microcredit but empirical research is needed to demonstrate actual impacts

the role of microfinance in household livelihood adaptation in satkhira district southwest bangladesh summary there is increasing interest in the potential of microfinance to foster climate change adaptation however existing literature over relies upon theoretical arguments rather than empirical evidence and until now the emphasis has been on potential positive linkages we address these weaknesses by empirically examining the role of microfinance in adaptation drawing from household level quantitative and qualitative data gathered from satkhira district southwest bangladesh we find evidence that microfinance facilitates coping by reducing sensitivity to environmental and climate hazards credit is especially important because its availability is uncorrelated with the occurrence of flooding unlike many other traditional coping responses we also find evidence that microfinance facilitates adaptation by helping households to overcome financial barriers of adopting adaptation options which reduce exposure or sensitivity however credit limits are likely to restrict its role to incremental adaptations which may not meaningfully reduce vulnerability transformational adaptations at times required access to bank credit which the poorest cannot access this restricts their ability to effectively adapt and are penalized financially by having to obtain loans to cope we also find evidence that microfinance can lead to maladaptation when used in non profit generating activities as income streams are not produced to help repay associated costs almost a fifth of all loans were obtained for repaying existing loans thus microfinance may undermine longer term adaptive capacity

an exogeneity test for a simultaneous equation tobit model with an application to labor supply a test of weak exogeneity in the simultaneous equation tobit model is proposed and illustrated using a female labour supply model estimated using cross section data the test statistic can be simply output from any standard tobit maximum likelihood package and is asymptotically efficient the procedure provides consistent estimators for the simultaneous tobit model whose asymptotic covariance matrix is a simple extension of the usual tobit formula we also provide the lagrange multiplier test of weak exogeneity this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

skill transferability migration and development evidence from population resettlement in indonesia we use a natural experiment in indonesia to provide causal evidence on the role of location specific human capital and skill transferability in shaping the spatial distribution of productivity from 1979 1988 the transmigration program relocated two million migrants from rural java and bali to new rural settlements in the outer islands villages assigned migrants from regions with more similar agroclimatic endowments exhibit higher rice productivity and nighttime light intensity one to two decades later we find some evidence of migrants adaptation to agroclimatic change overall our results suggest that regional productivity differences may overstate the potential gains from migration

surplus may measure waste abstract when production decisions are distorted by externalities the traditional marshallian surplus in the input markets contains in addition to its other components a measure of the waste benefit so generated in an extreme example of the common property type it is shown to contain nothing but waste that suggests another reason for caution in interpreting surpluses but also opens a new way for measuring the cost of distortions

non farm income gender and inequality evidence from rural ghana and uganda abstract this paper examines how the distribution of earnings in rural ghana and uganda differs by income type and by gender we find that non farm earnings contribute to rising inequality but that lower income groups also benefit due to strong overall growth in non farm earnings the inequality inducing effect is driven by self employment income wage income on the other hand reduces inequality the tendency of non farm income to contribute to inequality is greater among female headed households for whom self employment is important and non farm opportunities more constrained determinants of non farm income are estimated and appear to be strongly related to location education age and distance to market estimates of the linkages to agriculture in ghana are weaker than expected showing the non farm sector to be functioning more as an alternative activity to agriculture than as a complement

unleashing waste pickers potential supporting recycling cooperatives in santiago de chile summary the informal economy currently provides two out of three jobs worldwide with waste picking activities providing employment for millions of the poorest of society moreover waste picking could provide a sustainable solution for solving the waste management crisis that affects the 3 billion people lacking access to waste services governmental policies toward waste pickers in particular and the informal economy in general have been fundamentally based on four policy approaches 1 dualist and voluntarist which proposes repressive policies against waste picker activity and the expansion of formal solid waste management systems 2 structuralist which argues for weak supporting policies aimed at reinforcing waste picker associations 3 legalist which promotes the competition of waste picking with other recycling alternatives without government intervention and 4 co production which supports waste picking with local policies as a means of enhancing waste pickers productivity both qualitative and particularly quantitative evidence testing the impact of these four approaches is scarce in this paper we attempt to fill this gap in the literature by operationalizing concepts building a waste picker sustainable performance index and estimating the impacts of these four competing policy approaches an exploratory sequential design method is used to analyze data first a thematic analysis to examine 40 in depth interviews and then multiple linear regressions to analyze a census survey of 100 waste pickers in four cooperatives in santiago de chile our empirical results suggest a positive association between the level of government support and waste pickers sustainable performance consequently further positive government intervention particularly in supporting a stronger structural organization for the waste picker recycling system is advocated as the primary policy recommendation of this paper