forest incomes and rural livelihoods in chiradzulu district malawi abstract this paper examines forest income among rural dwellers in one of malawi s most densely populated districts chiradzulu 160 households were interviewed in two sites only 20 km apart purposely selected on the basis of access to a forest reserve people are extremely poor with 97 having incomes of less than 1 usd day forest income constitutes around 15 of total income only non farm income 47 and agriculture 28 rank higher the poorest segment depends more on forest income than the least poor group but the medium income group exhibits the highest dependence fuelwood constitutes the major source of such income followed by fodder the incomes mainly support current consumption people with better access to the forest reserve have higher total income forest income and relative forest income as revealed through a gini coefficient analysis forest resources have an important income equalizing effect across rural households a particular group of resource poor farmers 8 1 of sample with little access to agricultural land and a high representation of female heads derives an average of 65 of their income from the forest an important policy lesson is that restricting people s access to forest resources can have substantial effects on household livelihoods and welfare and would serve to increase income inequalities in the area livelihood researchers should now recognize the substantial income from forest resources

impacts of the hara biosphere reserve on livelihood and welfare in persian gulf abstract despite the importance of biosphere reserves in iran s livelihood and welfare the economic significance of hara biosphere reserve has never been comprehensively studied this study examines the current importance of hara biosphere reserve hbr in local livelihood and welfare using a household survey data were collected through a questionnaire key informant interviews and direct observations two hundred and forty four households were randomly selected from 10 villages through proportional sampling results showed that non environmental income was the first driver of the total income poverty alleviation and narrowing income inequality gap park income was the second the results also showed that excluding park income from total income would significantly increase headcount poverty widen the poverty gap and raise the gini coefficient wealthier households had the greatest absolute income from the environment including forest fishing and fodder however the poorest group had smallest absolute income from these sources thus the study demonstrated that wealthier households are responsible for the overharvesting of environmental resources interestingly the study showed that wealthier households are more dependent on profitable environmental incomes sources while the poorest are more dependent on non profitable ones

does trading non timber forest products drive specialisation in products gathered for consumption evidence from the brazilian amazon abstract diversification is a hallmark of family based rural production but what happens when autarkic rural communities integrate into markets economic theory predicts that households will maintain diversified strategies when faced with risk however many studies have claimed that openness to markets drives specialisation to enhance returns nevertheless there is little evidence about the association between trade in non timber forest products ntfps and the diversity of ntfps consumed relying on a household survey and systematic observations of brazilian amazonian caboclos we evaluated whether exposure to ntfp markets effort and cash income correlates with the diversity of ntfps consumed richness and simpson diversity the results were conflicting first there was variation across ntfp subtypes although the variety richness of terrestrial ntfps consumed vegetables and hunted animals was greater in households trading ntfps the richness of fish consumed was lower because fishing could not be pursued concurrently with activities related to ntfp trade second the observed effects differed across indicators of diversity which shows that intensification in the use of a few resources may occur third the associations with alternative definitions of exposure to the ntfp market also differed these results indicate that ntfp markets do not necessarily undermine local consumption diversity

effects of wildlife resources on community welfare in southern africa abstract this paper demonstrates the importance of wildlife in the portfolio of environmental income in the livelihoods of poor rural communities living adjacent to a national park the results show that wealthier households use more wildlife resources in total than do relatively poor households however poorer households derive greater proportional benefit than wealthier households from the use of wildlife resources excluding wildlife understates the relative contribution of environmental resources while at the same time overstating the relative contribution of farm and wage income wildlife income alone accounts for about a 5 5 reduction in the proportion of people living below the poverty line furthermore wildlife income has an equalizing effect bringing about a 5 4 reduction in measured inequality regression analysis suggests that the likelihood of belonging to a wealthier category of income increases with an increase in environmental income as expected household wealth significantly and positively affects environmental income generated by households this seems to suggest that wildlife based land reform also needs to empower poor households in the area of capital accumulation while imposing restraints on the use of capital investments by well off households to harvest wildlife

dependence on environmental resources and implications for household welfare evidence from the kalahari drylands south africa abstract this paper examines dependence on environmental resources and impacts on household welfare among the indigenous san and mier rural communities neighbouring kgalagadi transfrontier park in south africa data on the various household income types including environmental income were collected through a structured survey of 200 households environmental income constituted 20 of the total income the poorest income quintile showed the highest relative dependence on environmental income 31 though absolute environmental income increased with total income poverty analyses showed that poverty incidence and poverty gap would increase by 13 and 7 percentage points respectively without environmental income gini coefficient analyses revealed that income inequality would increase by 6 percentage points for all households if environmental income was excluded the results generally suggest that environmental income is important for both the poor and the well off and wealth accumulation might be tied to resource use there is a case for promoting sound environmental management and sustainable and fair resource use in the kalahari drylands in order to help pull more households out of poverty our findings also point to issues of heterogeneity in resource access even among indigenous communities previously thought to be homogenous these should be key considerations for conservation interventions

progressive taxation and the social marginal cost of public funds abstract this paper describes the calculation of the social marginal cost of public funds smcf for a progressive tax system which distorts individuals labour supply decisions a formula for the smcf indicates that the income and substitution effects of the labour supply response are weighted by the changes in individuals average and marginal tax rates respectively other well known formulas for the smcf are shown to be special cases of this formula the difference between this formula and the mayshar 1991 formula is shown to be due to different but equally valid ways of computing the change in the average tax rate the condition under which a marginal tax rate increase may lead to a reduction in revenues is derived

the economics of tropical deforestation and land use an introduction to the special issue this paper both introduces the special issue on the economics of tropical deforestation and land use and conducts a synthesis crosscountry analysis of tropical agricultural land expansion agricultural development is the main factor determining land expansion but institutional factors have an important influence income effects vary from region to region and do not always display an ekc relationship the case studies comprising this special issue provide further case study insights into tropical deforestation and land use through spatial analysis of locational factors cge modeling of policy scenarios assessing external market impacts on land clearing and modelling state interventions and taxation

an economic analysis of scrappage this article examines the impact of policies aimed at encouraging the retirement of older high polluting vehicles such as the cash for clunkers policy endorsed by president george bush in 1992 the analysis assesses the likely benefits and costs of vehicle scrappage programs i also address the interaction of a scrappage program with other ongoing policies such as improved inspection and maintenance finally the simulation for los angeles suggests plausible design values for a scrappage program

political internalization of economic externalities and environmental policy abstract this paper derives the characteristics of endogenous environmental policy in a common agency model of politics and proceeds to show that competition between lobby groups is an important source of internalization of economic externalities our analysis generalizes bhagwati s principle of targeting to the case of distorted political markets moreover we show that the politically optimal structure of environmental taxes incorporates a pigouvian adjustment however since lobby groups care about the distribution of income as well as about efficiency the equilibrium structure of taxes differs considerably from the pigouvian rule

a tale of two communities explaining deforestation in mexico summary deforestation policies in mexico need to recognize heterogeneity in community s management schemes in communities that extract wood from the forest for profit forestry projects generate funds whose investment in public goods increases the value of standing forest to those not receiving direct dividends from the projects increases in such investment help decrease deforestation in communities with other livelihoods deforestation decreases with the community s ability to form a coalition that cooperates in reducing forest clearing this is easier in smaller communities with more experienced leaders analysis using data collected in 2002 combined with satellite imagery verifies the models predictions

the role of natural capital in sustaining livelihoods in remote mountainous regions the case of upper svaneti republic of georgia in the greater caucasus of the republic of georgia proponents of a new ski tourism zone and long term timber concessions claim that new wage opportunities will benefit households these developments will also limit access to common pool resources cprs this study uses the sustainable livelihoods framework to identify the conditions under which a development strategy will improve livelihood outcomes in the region analysis of original household survey data in depth interviews and field observation reveals that households depend on cprs for a range of market and non market benefits low income households depend on cprs for up to 60 of their total income ols regression estimates show that households in villages farthest from market centers have a higher income dependence on cprs and are more likely to participate in forest use activities a majority of households report that there are few available substitutes to improve livelihood outcomes a development strategy should secure access to market benefits from cprs or wage income must increase in proportion to lost cpr income and affordable substitutes must be provided access to non substitutable components of cprs must be secured and the distribution of changes in access to natural capital and new wage opportunities must be accounted for

rural income and poverty in a time of radical change in malawi abstract malawi is one of the poorest countries in africa there is widespread though not universal agreement about the shape of poverty in the country and the policy challenge this sets agriculture continues to be the most obvious means to stimulate broad based rural growth and to provide levels of food security and income needed for the majority rural population a longitudinal study over a decade during which radical policy and political changes occurred provides the data and basis for discussing the appropriate policy directions for reducing poverty

agricultural expansion and deforestation modelling the impact of population market forces and property rights abstract this paper compares four different modelling approaches to agricultural expansion and deforestation and explores the implications of assumptions about the household objectives the labour market and the property rights regime a major distinction is made between population and market based explanations many of the popular policy prescriptions are based on the population approach assuming subsistence behaviour and limited market integration within a more realistic particularly for the long term effects market approach well intentioned policies such as agricultural intensification programmes may boost deforestation many forest frontier contexts are also characterized by forest clearing giving farmers land rights deforestation becomes an investment to the farmer and a title establishment strategy land titling and credit programmes may therefore increase deforestation

u turns and full circles two decades of agricultural reform in malawi 1981 2000 abstract this paper traces the evolution of malawi s agricultural policy over the past two decades during this period the world bank has played a key role in shaping policy reform through its adjustment loans three distinct reform phases can be identified 1981 87 when policy was dominated by the dogmatism of the world bank s pricist and state minimalist policies 1988 94 when a more flexible position was taken by both the bank and the malawi government both of whom acknowledged the structuralist critique of earlier policies and 1994 to the present when the reform process in agriculture became more politicized and a schism developed between the bank and the government this latter period is used to illustrate some of the unresolved policy issues pertaining to similar low income agrarian economies

stoves or sugar willingness to adopt improved cookstoves in malawi malawi has set a target of adoption of two million improved cookstoves ics by 2020 meeting this objective requires knowledge about determinants of adoption particularly in rural areas where the cost of traditional cooking technologies and fuels are non monetary and where people have limited capacity to purchase an ics we conducted a discrete choice experiment with 383 households in rural malawi asking them if they would chose a locally made ics or a package of sugar and salt of roughly equal value six months later we assessed adoption and stove use patterns sixty six percent of households chose the ics we find that having a larger share of crop residues in household fuel supply awareness of the environmental impacts of woodfuel reliance time the primary cook devotes to collecting fuelwood and peer effects at the village level increase the odds of choosing the ics having a large labor supply for fuelwood collection and experience with a non traditional cooking technology decreased the odds of choosing the ics in a rapid assessment six months after stoves were distributed we found 80 of households were still using the ics but not exclusively our findings suggest considerable potential for wide scale adoption of ics in malawi

environmental and market determinants of economic orientation among rain forest communities evidence from a large scale survey in western amazonia abstract large scale surveys of rain forest livelihoods open up new possibilities for understanding the role of forest resources in the well being of forest peoples but often overlook the factors that influence the diverse economic foci of forest based communities in this paper we describe the peruvian amazon rural livelihoods and poverty parlap project which seeks to identify the factors that contribute to rural poverty among indigenous and folk peoples through the first large scale survey conducted in this data poor region our paper draws upon a community census undertaken in four major river sub basins in eastern peru n 919 communities and asks the question how do environmental and market factors influence the economic orientation of rain forest communities recognizing that standard approaches that explain activity choice by current conditions are problematic because of potential endogeneity we propose a new analytical framework that examines how historical initial conditions determine current conditions and thus current economic activities our approach produces a rich array of results that point to the importance of initial environmental endowments and market access of communities in shaping their economic orientation interacting in different ways depending on the key natural resource upon which they rely

the economic importance of non timber forest products ntfps for livelihood maintenance of rural west african communities a case study from northern benin non timber forest products ntfps contribute significantly to a rural household s livelihood in the african semi arid tropics this study examines the income from ntfps and the dependency on these of different socio economic groups in northern benin using survey data from 230 households of two villages we firstly compared incomes of five different ethnic groups being differentiated by their traditional source of livelihood and regional provenance secondly we investigated disparities between three income groups on average income from ntfps accounted for 39 of total household income and had a strong equalizing effect on it however the economic relevance of ntfps differs between households poorer households are relatively more dependent on ntfps in order to fulfill basic needs than wealthier households however the latter extract more ntfps in quantitative terms and have significantly higher cash returns than poorer ones this is mainly due to a significant greater land holding moreover our study revealed that net income from ntfps reflects traditional sources of livelihoods of different ethnic groups in conclusion both conservation and development strategies should take into consideration the socio economic context of different beneficiaries of savanna woodland resources in order to apply appropriate measures to poverty reduction

the demand for money in brazil some further results abstract a recent paper by cardoso using the simple koyck adjustment mechanism has estimated a money demand equation for brazil the results are said to show among other things that the inflation rate does not play a significant role in the brazilian money demand function this paper re examines and expands on the money demand relationship in brazil finding that cardoso s estimated equations are inherently unstable using a less restrictive dynamic adjustment mechanism an alternative money demand relationship has been estimated for brazil which proves well fitting and structurally stable over time the inflation rates variable furthermore is found to exert a significant influence on real money demand in brazil in fact without such a variable our estimated money demand relationship appears toe misspecified and structurally unstable

the cost of reducing gasoline consumption high nominal gas prices new awareness of threats to national security and growing concern about global warming have reignited discussion of ways to reduce gasoline consumption in the united states debate centers on changing two policies already in place the federal gas tax and corporate average fuel economy cafe standards two influential recent reports find that increasing the gas tax would attain a given reduction in gas consumption at lower cost than would tightening cafe standards national research council 2002 congressional budget office 2003 the gas tax has this advantage because it encourages not just increases in fuel efficiency but also reductions in miles driven in contrast cafe standards actually encourage more driving because increases in fuel efficiency reduce the cost of gas per mile driven we also compare the costs of the gas tax and cafe standard but take into account interactions with preexisting tax distortions many papers examine the effects of these tax interactions in other contexts but to our knowledge none of them considers the cafe standard see e g lars bovenberg and ruud de mooij 1994 ian parry 1995 lawrence goulder 1995 bovenberg and goulder 1996 parry et al 1999 don fullerton and gilbert metcalf 2001 these interactions reduce the cost of the gas tax but increase the cost of cafe thus expanding the cost advantage enjoyed by the gas tax this difference does not arise because the gas tax raises revenue while the cafe standard does not rather this result is similar to that in west and williams 2004a which showed that since gasoline and leisure are relative complements raising the gas tax will increase labor supply generating additional efficiency gains in this paper we estimate a consumer demand system using data from the consumer expenditure survey and the california air resources board and find that miles driven and leisure are relative complements thus the gas tax encourages labor supply by raising the cost per mile driven producing an additional efficiency gain conversely because cafe reduces the cost per mile it discourages labor supply and yields an additional efficiency loss while the induced changes in labor supply are tiny relative to the labor market they are still substantial relative to the gas market and thus have a dramatic effect on the relative costs of the two policies our point estimates imply that they reduce the social marginal cost of the gas tax starting from the status quo gas tax rate and ignoring the benefits of reduced gas consumption by almost 30 percent while increasing the marginal cost of cafe by nearly 60 percent this result implies that the case for raising the gas tax rather than tightening the cafe standard is far stronger than previous studies suggest indeed it strongly suggests that any tightening at all of the cafe standard would lower welfare unless the benefits of reduced gas consumption have been seriously underestimated

what is environmental income a growing number of studies have revealed the dependency particularly of poor people on income from wild and uncultivated resources inclusion and analysis of environmental income are important in diagnosing the extent of poverty for understanding its causes and in identifying policies for its alleviation the concept of environmental income is however poorly developed different studies use different measures while underlying assumptions are often neglected or only partly revealed in this paper we analyze the concept of environmental income with respect to its sources appropriate income measures and ways of separating environmental income from non environmental income we argue that natural rent realized through consumption or alienation within the first link of a market chain provides a precise and logically consistent measure of environmental income under conditions of perfect competition because of frequent imperfections in rural markets however and because estimation of rent may be infeasible a value added measure may sometimes have to be substituted regardless of which of the two concepts is chosen explicit specification would represent a significant improvement in much of the current literature

impact of a regional payment for ecosystem service program on the livelihoods of different rural households abstract payments for ecosystem services pes is popular despite little empirical evidence of their effectiveness in poverty alleviation using survey data on rural households livelihoods in changting county southeast china we evaluate the comprehensive and dynamic livelihood impacts of pes on participants and nonparticipants results show that pes programs have been beneficial for participants however negative impacts have been found for nonparticipants in detail the participants livelihood assets are greatly consolidated through a series of policies and institutions these institutions have empowered participants to access to natural resources and excluded the others participants livelihood strategies and sustainable livelihoods are further shaped and mediated by these institutions instead nonparticipants are excluded from the project and prohibited to access to natural resources their livelihood assets and strategies are negatively influenced by resources relocation given the minimal trickle down benefits and remarkable negative impacts the nonparticipants livelihoods are overall adversely affected by the project our study highlights the importance of disaggregated household analysis and dynamic perspective in evaluating livelihood impacts of pes policy strategies should consider household heterogeneity livelihood framework and dynamic impacts in related environmental and development programs

environmental income and rural livelihoods a global comparative analysis this paper presents results from a comparative analysis of environmental income from approximately 8000 households in 24 developing countries collected by research partners in cifor s poverty environment network pen environmental income accounts for 28 of total household income 77 of which comes from natural forests environmental income shares are higher for low income households but differences across income quintiles are less pronounced than previously thought the poor rely more heavily on subsistence products such as wood fuels and wild foods and on products harvested from natural areas other than forests in absolute terms environmental income is approximately five times higher in the highest income quintile compared to the two lowest quintiles

environmental entitlements dynamics and institutions in community based natural resource management abstract while community based natural resource management cbnrm now attracts widespread international attention its practical implementation frequently falls short of expectations this paper contributes to emerging critiques by focusing on the implications of intracommunity dynamics and ecological heterogeneity it builds a conceptual framework highlighting the central role of institutions regularized patterns of behavior between individuals and groups in society in mediating environment society relationships grounded in an extended form of entitlements analysis the framework explores how differently positioned social actors command environmental goods and services that are instrumental to their well being further insights are drawn from analyses of social difference new dynamic ecology new institutional economics structuration theory and landscape history the theoretical argument is illustrated with case material from india south africa and ghana

can income programs reduce tropical forest pressure income shocks and forest use in malawi summary seasonal household data from malawi are used to study links between income shocks and forest use a tobit model is estimated to examine whether household forest use responds to receipt of a positive income shock delivered as a technology assistance package and the characteristics of households reliant on forests for shock coping results show households experiencing an income boost had lower forest extraction compared to households that did not receive such a shock ceteris paribus we find households most dependent on forests for natural insurance are those located near woodlands and headed by an individual who is relatively young and male 2005 published by elsevier ltd

forest based livelihoods strategies conditioned by market remoteness and forest proximity in jharkhand india summary the study uses a novel method to investigate the role of forest proximity market remoteness and caste in determining household income especially forest income in an underdeveloped region of india a high 50 proportion of total income is earned in cash forest products contribute substantially to total income with fuelwood as the most important forest product proximity to forest is associated with higher forest incomes as expected but remote villages do not have higher forest incomes or lower cash incomes than less remote villages higher off farm income is associated with better road access and higher income households generally 2014 published by elsevier ltd this is an open access article under the cc by nc sa license http creativecommons org licenses bync sa 3 0

environmental externalities and immiserizing structural changes in an economy with heterogeneous agents the way in which natural and physical capital are accumulated distributed and harnessed underpins the functioning and sustainability of the productive system of each society as well as its social stratification significant changes in the interactions between natural and physical capital accumulation give rise to processes of structural change sc which affect not only sectoral composition of the productive system but also social equity and environmental quality we propose a taxonomy of different scs on the basis of distributive environmental and economic outcomes and we study a two sector model with environmental externalities to identify under which conditions each sc can occur our model shows how the type of sc is shaped by the link between agents heterogeneity in terms of productive asset endowment and their vulnerability to environmental degradation in particular we find that a sc associated with reduction in poverty and in environmental pressures can occur only if productivity of the physical capital intensive sector increases but its rate of environmental impact remains relatively lower than that of the natural capital intensive sector

are forest incomes sustainable firewood and timber extraction and productivity in community managed forests in nepal summary lack of combined forest productivity and income studies means there is scant evidence for the sustainability of rural household level forest incomes in developing countries this study examines levels and patterns of forest increment wood product extraction and household level incomes in three community managed forests in nepal using data from 240 permanent sample plots and a structured household survey conducted in 2006 and 2009 n 507 and 558 respectively we find that analyses of sustainability need to recognize the complexity of forest stand utilization and that there is considerable scope by altering how existing local forest management rules are implemented for increasing rural household forest incomes while keeping harvesting levels sustainable

poverty alleviation and tropical forests what scope for synergies abstract this paper explores the state of the art of the two way causal links between poverty alleviation and natural tropical forests microimpacts of rising poverty can increase or slow forest loss at the macrolevel poverty also has an ambiguous effect but it is probable that higher income stimulates forest loss by raising demand for agricultural land the second question is what potential forest led development has to alleviate a country s poverty in terms of producer benefits consumer benefits and economy wide employment natural forests widely serve as safety nets for the rural poor but it proves difficult to raise producer benefits significantly urban consumer benefits from forest an important target for pro poor agricultural innovation are limited and seldom favor the poor absorption of poor unskilled labor is low in forestry which tends to be capital intensive natural forests may thus lack comparative advantage for poverty alleviation there are few win win synergies between natural forests and national poverty reduction which may help to explain why the loss of tropical forests is ongoing this may have important implications for our understanding of sustainable forest development and for the design of both conservation and poverty alleviation strategies

quantifying rural livelihood strategies in developing countries using an activity choice approach this article uses a quantitative activity choice approach based on identification of activity variables and application of latent class cluster analysis to identify five major rural livelihood strategies pursued by households n 576 in bolivia nepal and mozambique income sources and welfare outcomes are compared across strategies and household differences in asset holdings are analyzed using multinomial logit regression findings reveal that income diversification is the norm that a higher degree of specialization does not characterize more remunerative livelihood strategies that nonfarm income significantly contributes to higher income earnings that environmental reliance does not vary across strategies and that small scale farmers are the largest and poorest livelihood group some livelihood strategies are superior to all other strategies in terms of income earned access to more remunerative livelihood strategies is determined by land ownership education and ethnic affiliation finally the article also highlights that additional work is required to determine the most suitable methods for livelihood strategy identification

combining income and assets measures to include the transitory nature of poverty in assessments of forest dependence evidence from the democratic republic of congo abstract a considerable amount of research on poverty environment relations in developing countries under the cifor pen initiative focuses on household income generation from forests using total annual income as a measure of poverty however income alone produces a static picture in a snapshot of time while poverty is a dynamic state that can be a transitory phenomenon using income only also fails to consider that households can liquidate asset to overcome income shocks here we show that using asset quintiles measured by value of assets produce a distinctly different pattern than the commonly observed negative relation between income and forest dependence we then present an approach enabling categorization of households as chronic or transient poor transient rich and rich providing a more nuanced picture than that provided by cifor pen studies so far the validity of groupings is tested by comparing household characteristics and exposure to shocks we then show that the chronic poor are most reliant on forest income while the transient poor consume a higher share of harvested forest products the transient rich have higher agricultural productivity and absolute forest income rich households relies more on business based on the results we suggest recommendations for improving future studies on poverty environment relations

a theory of competition among pressure groups for political influence this paper presents a theory of competition among pressure groups for political influence political equilibrium depends on the efficiency of each group in producing pressure the effect of additional pressure on their influence the number of persons in different groups and the deadweight cost of taxes and subsidies an increase in deadweight costs discourages pressure by subsidized groups and encourages pressure by taxpayers this analysis unifies the view that governments correct market failures with the view that they favor the politically powerful both are produced by the competition for political favors

environmentalism stimulus and inequality reduction through industrial policy did cash for clunkers achieve the trifecta the 2009 american cash for clunkers program which subsidized consumers who scrapped old vehicles and purchased new vehicles was promoted by appealing to multiple constituencies we evaluate the policy and alternatives according to its stated goals emissions reductions economic stimulus and reducing inequality we calibrate a dynamic partial equilibrium portfolio model to match consumer expenditure data from 1998 to 2011 focusing on heterogeneity across cars and trucks we find the program generated 0 17 in environmental benefits 0 28 in consumer surplus and 0 31 in net discounted additional spending per subsidy dollar since subsidies largely went to middle income infra marginal consumers the program exacerbated consumption inequality we evaluate alternative policy designs and find no policy which simultaneously improves all outcomes jel h23 l52 l92 d63

the effects of fiscal stimulus evidence from the 2009 cash for clunkers program we evaluate the impact of the 2009 cash for clunkers program on short and medium run auto purchases our empirical strategy exploits variation across u s cities in ex ante exposure to the program as measured by the number of clunkers in the city as of summer 2008 we find that the program induced the purchase of an additional 370 000 cars in july and august 2009 however we find strong evidence of reversal high clunker counties bought fewer autos in the 10 months after the program expired which offset most of the initial purchases we find no evidence of an effect on employment house prices or household default rates in cities with higher exposure to the program jel codes h20 e62 copyright 2012 oxford university press

forest reliance across poverty groups in tanzania an emerging body of knowledge has established that poorer households in forest adjacent communities in developing countries are generally more forest reliant higher forest income share while richer households tend to extract more and generate higher absolute forest income these studies commonly categorize households based on observed income in cross section data presenting a snap shot reflecting both inter household and inter annual income variation in this paper we introduce a new approach to categorize households based on a combination of the observed one year income and predicted income by an augmented asset approach applying this approach on household data from tanzania we find forest reliance to be high among structurally poor households low observed income and assets the highest forest reliance is found among the stochastically non poor households high income and low assets and this group also has the highest absolute forest income

adapting to adjustment smallholder livelihood strategies in southern malawi abstract this study uses the sustainable livelihoods framework to analyze changes in livelihood strategies for 50 case study households in the blantyre shire highlands southern malawi during 1990 2000 although evidence from rapid rural appraisal rra suggests that the poor are becoming poorer the majority 56 reported an improvement in their economic status improvement was linked to market liberalization through higher income from crops burley tobacco vegetables grain legumes and microenterprise one quarter of households were worse off downward economic mobility was attributable partly to market liberalization but also to the adverse consequences of widowhood or divorce for female headed households monitoring livelihoods under adjustment requires a pluralist approach that relies not just on rra but also on quantitative methods household case studies and insights from farming systems research

policy watch the economics of fuel economy standards one of the most hotly contested of all energy policy issues involves corporate average fuel economy or cafe standards for new cars and light duty trucks tighter standards would reduce gasoline consumption and hence both greenhouse gas emissions as well as this country s vulnerability to oil price shocks but they would also increase the price of new vehicles worsen traffic congestion and depending on how they are phased in possibly even reduce occupant safety these effects are amenable to economic analysis and we review the evidence to date bearing on this interesting and important question

population tenure and natural resource management the case of customary land area in malawi abstract this paper analyzes the factors determining conversion of woodlands to agricultural land changes in tree cover and maize yield for the last two and a half decades by using aerial photos and field survey data in 57 communities in malawi the econometric analysis revealed that population pressure led to greater land conversion but had no effect on yield or tree cover changes areas where greater changes in traditional tenure systems have occurred are associated with reduction in tree cover and expansion of agricultural land these results suggest the importance of strengthening institutions to manage natural resources

deforestation and agricultural productivity in the cote d ivoire an optimal control model is used to determine the optimal steady state forest stock in the cote d ivoire this stock is shown to increase with increases in the forestry returns relative to those in agriculture technological progress in agriculture and increases in the social discount rate serve to lower the optimal steady state forest stock based on an estimated aggregate yield function the optimal forest stock is shown to be most sensitive to changes in the social rate of discount assuming current 1985 technology deforestation appears socially optimal only for values of the discount rate greater than 8

empirical regularities in the poverty environment relationship of rural households evidence from zimbabwe abstract analysis of rural households and environmental resources is beset by inadequate data especially in africa using purpose collected panel data from zimbabwe we demonstrate seven empirical regularities in the rural poverty environment relationship most important environmental resources make a significant contribution to average rural incomes poorer households also depend heavily on these resources which contribute c 40 to their incomes richer households however use greater quantities of environmental resources in total finally considerable differentiation exists in the economic characteristics of environmental goods these results demonstrate the considerable economic significance of environmental resources to rural households surveys which ignore them miscalculate rural incomes and welfare

economic policy and special interest politics a great deal of research has been done on the boundary between economics and political science in the last five to ten years this research in political economics spans many subfields such as macroeconomics trade public finance regulation rational choice politics and game theory a common denominator has been to study structural models of the political process agents behave rationally within well specified economic and political institutions where the policymaking process is formulated as an extensive form game methodologically much progress has been made relative to traditional approaches which were often based on inconsistent or irrational political and economic behaviour relying on non derived influence functions political support functions or vote functions yet the modem work has largely developed separately in each subfield without much contact with other subfields and each of the resulting literatures tends to focus on a distinct but partial aspect of the political process in this lecture i shall argue that even though the progress to date has been substantial we can gain a better understanding of policymaking in democracies by combining the insights from different strands of thinking on some economic policy issues the conflicting views both among citizens and politicians basically reduce to a single left to right dimension examples may include the politics of inflation vs unemployment capital taxation or the size of government we can think about policy issues within this domain of general interest politics as being resolved via traditional downsian electoral competition at least to a first approximation but the economic policy process also allows narrow interest groups ample opportunities to concentrate benefits to their own group at the expense of the population as a whole the resulting policy conflict is generically multi dimensional resolving it by voting alone would thus result in condorcet cycles we therefore need to go beyond the simplest electoral models to understand policy determination within this domain of special interest politics this lecture deals with special interest politics to make my point about fruitful analytical arbitrage i will stick to the same underlying policy example throughout this will be a simple model of a society where the government uses