productive energy use and economic growth energy physical and human capital relationships abstract ecological and biophysical economists and historians of economics consider that availability of energy inputs has played a key role in driving economic growth in industrialized and emerging economies nevertheless being very sensitive to structural characteristics or stages of economic development the strength of this link differs among countries this study analyzes the role of energy in economic growth from a geographical standpoint by estimating an aggregate translog production function with human and physical capital and productive energy use as production factors within a growth framework panel data of 38 major countries for the period from 1995 to 2007 were used the strength of the link between energy and growth is analyzed for the whole sample and the following relevant country groups oecd bric nafta east asian east european and eu15 countries obtained results show that the calculated productivity elasticities with respect to energy use are positive for all country groups bric countries have higher elasticities around 0 37 and eu15 countries have lower elasticities around 0 12 weak substitutability relationships between energy and capital are observed for all groups except for bric and east european countries which show complementarity relationships

implementation of food distribution policies a case study in south india abstract public policy for foodgrains distribution and consumption in coimbatore district of south india involves processing through state trading institutions and distribution through fair price shops food for work and employment guarantee schemes policies are evaluated in terms of their objectives and institutions for the implementation of policy are analysed in terms of the way in which they mobilize and distribute resources foodgrains capital and labour although this deficit district has captured shares of tamil nadu state s publicly distributed grain which are disproportionate to its share of the state s vulnerable population nevertheless schemes to increase the latter s foodgrain consumption have been patchily implemented over space and time and they have had little measurable impact on intended beneficiaries

guaranteeing employment to the rural poor social functions and class interests in the employment guarantee scheme in western india abstract numerous observers rightly term the landless rural population the most intractable development problem in poor societies given the extraordinary political and administrative obstacles to redistrubution of rural assets in india the widely recognized failture land reforms attention and finances have recently been focused on public rural employment programmes to alleviate rural distribution within india the state of maharashtra with a size and population of a large european nation has instituted a striking departure from traditional rural works programmes a guarantee of employment to rural adults on demand the employment guarantee scheme in one state has since become a significant policy model and the experience in that state provides something like a laboratory for its analysis based on analysis of previous studies and original field work in rural maharashtra the article argues that the scheme is something of a rare bird a programme which seems to be in the objective and subjective interests of the rural poor as well as consistent with the interests of the rural landed elite despite their early political objections the fiscal structure of the scheme is a direct contradiction of lipton s 1977 model of urban bias in third world development strategies the employment guarantee scheme is rather more a manifestation of kulak power though promulgated as an alternative to policies entailing redistribution of rural assets and clearly superior to doing nothing about rural distribution the scheme is inferior to genuine redistribution in terms of altering the rural political economy the functions if not the motivations of the scheme are profoundly conservative in a structural sense politically and economically the philosophical underpinnings and perhaps potentially the consequences for mobilization of the rural poor are quite the opposite

the role of agriculture and its prerequisites in economic development a vision for foreign development assistance abstract the aim of this paper is to establish a vision for foreign development assistance based upon the evolution of thought and empirical evidence found in the development literature the paper spotlights the agricultural led approach the empirical record shows that agricultural growth had a more pronounced impact on increases in developing country income than did growth in the nonagricultural sector the reason for the differential impact is that developing countries focusing on agricultural development experienced more broad based income growth and increases in the demand for domestically produced goods whereas the developing countries promoting rapid industrialization experienced narrow based income growth with a demand pattern oriented toward nonfood and capital intensive products a precondition for agriculture to play its proper role is the existence of a conducive environment in which private enterprise can flourish developing country governments need to assume responsibility for the creation and maintenance of essential institutions government investments are required in education infrastructure and other areas where the commercial market is not capable of delivering critical services finally governments must responsibly manage the macroeconomy pursuing sustainable pricing policies and fiscal and monetary policies that are consistent with real equilibrium exchange rates

property rights and consumption volatility evidence from a land reform in vietnam summary during vietnam s transition from a socialist to a market economy household s property rights over agricultural land were considerably strengthened through a land certification program this resulted in active formal credit and land markets either of which potentially affects consumption levels and volatility this article evaluates the program impact with respect to consumption outcomes in particular it identifies the channel of impact through which improved property rights affect consumption volatility we find that land certification increases consumption levels for rural households but also consumption volatility for a subgroup of households identified by an instrument we show that the certification program affects consumption outcomes of this subgroup through presumably more risky credit based agricultural investment at the intensive margin

ethiopia food for work or food for relief abstract this article examines the aims context and experience of food aid projects in ethiopia the major focus is a case study of an ethiopian food for work project the largest in sub saharan africa and favourable conclusions are drawn factors are identified which have made for this apparent success since one factor is local food shortage consideration is also given to the proposition that the concept of relief aid needs a wider definition than heretofore

rural public works and food for work a survey abstract there are three separate strands to the debate on food for work first issues concerning labor intensive public works more generally in particular the tension between short run employment creation income generation and the size and distribution of the longer term income stream second how useful is food as a wage good in rural works overall generalizations as to the superiority of cash as against wages in kind are not sustainable third is food aid an appropriate resource to support rural works the relative success over the past decade of major schemes in south asia with food widely used as wage good justifies a reassessment of the potential of rural works both as food security mechanism and in expanding employment of disadvantaged groups in a situation of widespread structural underemployment less satisfactory longer term income distributional and asset generating impact of such schemes must remain a serious source of concern the impact of food aid to rural works appears more problematic in sub saharan africa scope exists for more flexible and innovative use of this resource

reconciling food for work project feasibility with food aid targeting in tigray ethiopia abstract food for work ffw projects face the challenge of addressing three kinds of objectives to feed hungry people to build public works where needed and to be feasible for prompt project implementation in the debate over how to target ffw to the poorest of the poor the last two program objectives are often overlooked this research examines ffw afforestation and erosion control programs in central tigray ethiopia during 1992 95 in order to understand how these sometimes conflicting objectives were reconciled statistical analyses examined the factors that influenced 1 in which villages ffw projects were located 2 which households were deemed eligible to participate in ffw in those villages having ffw projects and 3 which eligible households elected to participate and 4 how much time the participating households dedicated to ffw activities project feasibility outweighed the needs for food security or natural resource conservation in influencing whether an ffw project would be located in one of the 25 villages surveyed in villages where ffw was available anti poverty targeting appears to be taking place since smaller households with less land were more likely to be eligible to participate in ffw projects but although the poor were likely to be eligible for ffw some non poor households were also eligible which suggests that anti poverty targeting was not efficient among households eligible for ffw those that were relatively better off larger families that did not lease out land tended to participate and supply more days of ffw labor than the poorest households the only households eligible for ffw which did not participate were headed mostly by elderly women and hence unable rather than unwilling to participate overall anti poverty targeting was sub optimal but reasonable considering that these resource conservation projects need to be located where labor and materials could be made available

economic reform and armed conflict in mozambique abstract this paper discusses the evolution of the mozambican economy in the 1980s particular emphasis is placed on the effects of the policy reform package implemented by the government beginning in 1987 this reform centered around the restoration of economic incentives to the agricultural sector is an example of a structural adjustment package pursued under extremely adverse conditions the new strategy has yielded some favorable results but also illustrates some of the limits of price policy in sub saharan africa

technological change rediscovering the engine of productivity growth in china s rural economy abstract this paper focuses on measuring the relative importance of the role of technology versus that of institutional innovation in china s rural economy a six equation rice sector model explaining provincial level technology adoption yield and factor demand are econometrically estimated using data from china s 13 rice growing provinces for the period 1975 1990 growth decomposition analysis identifies technology adoption as the most important determinant of rice yield growth during 1978 1984 accounting for nearly 40 percent the change institutional reform accounted for 35 percent of the growth in 1985 1990 technology accounts for all of the increase in rice yields the study demonstrates earlier studies may have over estimated the impact of decollectivization

economic efficiency and supply response of women as farm managers comparative evidence from western kenya summary this paper assessed the relative economic efficiency and output supply and input demand responses of women farmers in western kenya the results showed that women are as technically and allocatively efficient as men however neither men nor women have absolute allocative efficiency women farmers are equally responsive to price incentives in terms of output supply and input demand while education and extension contact have significant effects on overall maize supply and input demand only extension contact has significant effects among women farmers the paper discusses a number of significant results and concludes with implications for policy

global growing area elasticities of key agricultural crops estimated using dynamic heterogeneous panel methods we estimate the short and long run global response of corn soybeans wheat and rice growing areas to output price changes allowing responses to vary across countries using methods from the panel time series literature our estimates of growing area response are considerably lower than estimates obtained using more traditional models previous findings appear biased due to the assumption of homogeneous response across countries our aggregate estimates of short and long run elasticities of four crop growing areas with respect to average price are 0 024 and 0 143 respectively crop specific results indicate that both corn and soybean growing areas are generally more responsive than wheat and rice for corn and soybeans the long run own price growing area elasticities are 0 274 and 0 793 respectively the long run own price elasticities for wheat and rice are 0 279 and 0 045 respectively the short run own price elasticities for corn and soybeans are 0 133 and 0 199 respectively which are higher than wheat 0 037 and rice 0 00001

remittances and income smoothing due to inadequate savings and binding borrowing constraints income volatility can make households in developing countries particularly susceptible to economic hardship we examine the role of remittances in either alleviating or increasing household income volatility using mexican household level data over the 2000 through 2008 period we correct for reverse causality and endogeneity and find that while income smoothing does not appear to be the main motive for sending remittances in a non negligible share of households remittances do indeed smooth household income on average other variables surrounding income volatility are also considered and evaluated

the effects of a large discrete maize price increase on the distribution of household welfare and poverty in rural kenya1 this study estimates the effects of a large discrete maize price increase on the welfare of a sample of rural kenyan households the usual first order welfare approximation formula is extended to a second order formula that allows for supply and demand responses to the price change results show that many rural households are not affected greatly by the price change and there are about as many gainers as losers however these full sample results mask important differences across regions welfare gains generally take place in major production areas while losses are in areas where most households are net buyers of maize semiparametric methods are used to investigate the relationship between income and the size of the welfare effect and poverty dominance techniques are applied to study the impacts of the maize price increase on rural poverty

agricultural supply response a survey abstract this paper surveys the literature on agricultural supply response to prices in developing countries empirical estimates of elasticities depend both on the methodology adopted and on country specific factors relating to technology economic structure and macro constraints the paper seeks to establish some general conclusions on supply responsiveness within these limitations supply response to output prices at the aggregate and at the crop levels is considered first crop specific acreage elasticities range between zero and 0 8 in the short run while long run elasticities tend to be higher between 0 3 and 1 2 yield elasticities are smaller and less stable than acreage elasticities clearly inter crop pricing can be relied upon to effect shifts in the commodity composition of agricultural output evidence also suggests that supply elasticities vary systematically with such factors as price and yield risks multiple cropping the importance of the crop farm incomes farm size tenancy and literacy the most controversial and important aspect of supply response is the effect on aggregate agricultural output of agriculture s terms of trade conventional time series estimates range from 0 1 to 0 3 a major cross country study reports an aggregate elasticity as high as 1 66 it is argued that cross country estimates are apt to exaggerate aggregate responsiveness while time series studies underestimate it somewhat for ldcs a tentative range of 0 4 to 0 5 seems plausible hence the distributive effects of the terms of trade are likely to be more significant than the allocative effects asian evidence shows that only a third of the inter country differences in fertilizer use can be attributed to fertilizer price policies provided new technologies and infrastructure are in place fertilizer subsidies can help in technology diffusion and in over coming credit constraints the choice between price supports and input subsidies will depend on a variety of country or situation specific factors nevertheless a significant general factor favoring price supports is that they can more easily be coupled with price stabilization goals than input subsidies though sparse the available evidence on the response of marketed surplus suggests that price policy is not a reliable instrument for regulating inter sectoral trade

remittances entrepreneurship and employment dynamics over the business cycle abstract we incorporate remittances and micro entrepreneurship self employment into a small open economy business cycle model with capital and labor market frictions countercyclical remittances moderate the decline of households consumption during recessions these remittances also are used to finance the start up costs of microenterprises that bolster households income during economic downturns we show that the positive income effect from countercyclical remittances also leads to a decrease in salaried labor supply which generates offsetting upward pressure on wages during recessions and adversely affects the recovery of the economy consistent with the microeconomic evidence the behavior of remittances decisively affects labor force participation and the composition of employment between non salaried and salaried employment over the business cycle the model delivers labor market and aggregate cyclical dynamics that are consistent with the mexican data including a highly volatile and countercyclical unemployment rate

third world development food employment and growth interactions over the next few decades an unprecedented number of people and proportion of the world s population will reside in countries passing through a development phase in which domestic demand for food grows at a high rate relative to domestic production of food that phase is described by high per capita income growth rates in a context of low base incomes and rapid population growth in this phase the innate difficulty for food production growth rates to keep pace with demand growth is enhanced by the still immature system for shifting agricultural supply schedules which is characteristic of this relatively early stage of economic growth a substantial proportion of the population now experiencing accelerating economic growth falls in countries which derive a major portion of income from exports of oil but increasingly the source is greater resource productivity through economic development and technological change the latter is the result of the past few decades of concentrated effort to lay the institutional and physical infrastructure of a modern economic system rising real food prices caused by greatly accelerated growth in demand for food will tend to restrain growth in developing countries and increase relative and absolute poverty the extent of real price increase for food will be substantially determined by the rate of technological change and supply elasticity in developed countries this is because in the eveloping countries says law tends to operate in the market for food and so accelerated growth in food production tends to create a roughly commensurate or even greater increase in demand for food in this context it becomes economic for developing countries to place a greater emphasis on agricultural production in their development strategies than was justified in earlier decades success in such an effort will diffuse the benefits of growth more widely than alternative strategies and will even accelerate growth if as has often been the case previous emphasis on agriculture was suboptimal for the earlier conditions thus over the next decade the economic pressures on the food front may well have a salutary effect on the pace and pattern of development

worldwide acreage and yield response to international price change and volatility a dynamic panel data analysis for wheat rice corn and soybeans this study estimates a worldwide aggregate supply response for key agricultural commodities namely wheat rice corn and soybeans by employing a newly developed multi country crop and calendar specific seasonally disaggregated model with price changes and price volatility applied accordingly the findings reveal that although higher output prices serve as incentives to improve global crop supply as expected output price volatility acts as a disincentive depending on the crop the results show that own price supply elasticities range from about 0 05 to 0 40 output price volatility however has negative correlations with crop supply implying that farmers shift land other inputs and yield improving investments to crops with less volatile prices simulating the impact of price dynamics since 2006 we find that price risk has reduced the production response of wheat in particular and to a lesser extent rice thus dampening price incentive effects the simulation analysis shows that the increase in own crop price volatility during the 2006 2010 period has dampened yield by about 1 2 for the crops considered

the potential benefits of herbicide resistant transgenic rice in uruguay lessons for small developing countries abstract in many developing countries the potential benefits from adopting a transgenic variety developed by a multinational corporation are limited by the crop s small production base this paper presents an ex ante evaluation of the economic impact of herbicide resistant transgenic rice in a small developing country uruguay to fully account for the multinational s market power the firm s seed markup is assumed to affect the adoption rate for the variety stochastic simulation techniques are employed to understand how potential benefits may vary with changes in technology yield costs and adoption parameters the results indicate a 1 82 million mean net present value for producers from the development and utilization of transgenic rice in uruguay and 0 55 million for the multinational these relatively small multinational firm benefits suggest that a firm will not undertake significant efforts to develop transgenic varieties adapted to local conditions without either strategic partnerships with local institutions or access to wider regional markets

estimating the supply response of cotton and cereal crops in smallholder production systems recent evidence from mali cotton is one of the most important crops in west africa and is a major catalyst of economic development in rural areas but the sector has suffered from a decline in the world cotton price after 1999 this article exploits an unusual data set following 82 farmers over 14 years from 1994 through 2007 to estimate a nerlovian supply response model for cotton maize sorghum and millet in long term rotation the resulting system of equations is estimated with two stage least squares 2sls showing that this sample of malian cotton producers have responded to prices in a relatively inelastic manner with supply elasticities only about one half of those estimated for producers in developed countries policy reforms could help producers respond more easily to prices changes as well as to raise average productivity levels

remittances and social spending remittances are a significant source of foreign exchange for developing economies i argue that remittances due to their compensation and insurance functions will increase the general income level and economic security of recipients thereby reducing their perceived income risk over time this will dampen demand from recipients for government taxation and social insurance therefore i expect increases in income remitted to an economy to result in reduced levels of social welfare transfers at the macro level this dynamic can help us to understand spending patterns in developing democracies and the absence of demand for social security transfers in countries with high levels of inequality and economic insecurity i test this argument with a sample of 18 latin american states over the period 1990 to 2009 and subject the central causal mechanism to a battery of statistical tests the results of these tests provide strong support for this argument

the sufficiency strategy would rich world frugality lower environmental impact abstract one alleged weapon against unsustainable environmental impact is for the wealthy to consume less this sufficiency strategy is to complement the efficiency strategy of lowering ratios of resource inputs to economic outputs the former would reduce the affluence factor in i pat the latter the technology factor that the latter strategy suffers from a consumption rebound is widely recognized this paper identifies a similar rebound when the affluence factor is autonomously lowered the lower initial demand lowers prices which in turn stimulates new demand by others the strategy moreover addresses only the rich raising questions of its theoretical maximum efficacy its proponents usually conflate frugality with the north south dichotomy and intra generational with inter generational equity moreover there are difficulties with the supporting arguments that frugality is good for one s own sake as well as for the environment and that the rich should lead the way to living more lightly personal behaviour change is furthermore not a substitute for international political efforts finally since all changes in right side factors of the i pat equation change other right side factors such indirect attacks on impact should be abandoned in favor of supply and emissions quotas

happy degrowth through more amateur economy abstract this paper outlines a simple aggregate descriptive model of what is here termed a whole economy covering all human involvement in the economy from ultimate means or ecological sacrifices to the ultimate ends of human satisfaction the model embraces not only the formal professional economy driven by money but also the parallel non paid voluntary economy here termed amateur economy driven by peoples affective motivations the input of work to the economy plays an essential role in the paper s analysis of options for reducing ecological sacrifices hence part of the paper is devoted to a brief historical overview of the role of work including turning points in the 1930s in the united states when work sharing was displaced by work creation through consumerism and in the post war economy when gdp became the dominant economic indicator the paper proposes the aim of a happy and sustainable degrowth for affluent countries implying the transfer of some activities from the professional economy to the less labor productive amateur economy this will tend to reduce overall labor productivity and hence resource throughput but increase satisfaction and happiness a key element in the analysis is combining a reduction in consumption with a reduction in production which is obtainable through lowering either working time or work productivity and turning some of the leisure time into voluntary activities economic growth is not a law of nature but the consequence of explicit political decisions taken hence growth is also open to new political decisions in recognition of physical limits to growth and the human quest for replacing economic growth with life satisfaction including increased free time

climate change and energy policy in chile up in smoke this paper provides an ex post assessment of the climate and energy policy developments in chile emerging from a neoliberal economic model during the period 1971 2007 first correlation and regression analyses were performed to analyse historical co2 emissions as a product of demographic economic and energy wide drivers then i estimate indicators related to co2 emissions energy use and economic activity in the light of empirical results i identify policy instruments and structural issues finally i present a comparative analysis of chile and other latin american countries statistical tests show that variability of co2 emissions is explained mostly by gdp per capita affluence than any other tested variable indicators show that the diversification and decarbonisation of the energy mix has been a major policy challenge with two notable exceptions hydro and natural gas the co2 intensity of the energy supply mix suggests no effective policies while energy security crises triggered negative carbon effects and increased prices no clear policies to promote energy efficiency can be identified until 2005 explicit policy instruments to promote renewable energy are only recognized after 2004 the results strongly suggest that chile lacked of policies to effectively decarbonise its energy economy system

the impact of prices and macroeconomic policies on agricultural supply a synthesis of available results abstract this paper reviews the literature dealing with the link of agricultural prices and macroeconomic policies to agricultural supply with particular emphasis on sub saharan africa although the study echoes the stylized facts on price elasticities underlined in previous literature reviews the paper points out that our understanding of the quantitative dimensions of agricultural supply response is weak given the importance of this assumed response for growth poverty alleviation and the environment indeed issues such as simultaneity of variables data pooling omission of variables and asymmetry in supply responses to price changes have not been adequately addressed in many instances

food policy conflicts in bangladesh abstract the objective of this paper is to show that the reality of a food policy aim of self sufficiency is very complex and full of internal inconsistencies in particular the author stresses the conflicts of interest between the consumers and producers of foodgrains in bangladesh which create obstacles to the success of their recently devised development goals he sets the scene by providing details of foodgrain production food availability per capita and levels of malnutrition and then introduces the policy conflicts in increasing food production the author then discusses several attempts to resolve the conflict through price control consumer subsidies and direct aid to producers through encouraging the use of fertilizers and irrigation this leads to the conclusion that government policy and outside aid must aim at both the production and the consumption of food in order for increased food supplies to reach those who need them most

getting agricultural prices right abstract are agricultural price policies in developing countries inimical to both growth and equity in recent critiques of govenment policy such a view has been repeatedly affirmed this paper takes the view that a positive analysis of the constraints under which price and tax policies must be set is seriously lacking and that without such understanding both the direction and the consequences of reform must remain uncertain it attempts to lay the groundwork for such analysis by specifying a number of hypotheses concerning government policies and their consequences

simulating the impacts of credit policy and fertilizer subsidy on central luzon rice farms the philippines the effects of credit policy and fertilizer subsidy on farmers input choices production and income are examined with a multiseason decision making model stochastic production technology risk neutral and risk averse decision rules short term savings consumption behavior and a dual financial market are considered results indicate the risk neutral rule is more consistent with actual choices than risk averse rules estimated yields increased 21 to 30 from joint credit and fertilizer subsidies benefits are greater on irrigated than on rainfed farms a substantial default rate in the institutional market reduces credit program benefits

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

supply response of u k milk producers short run own price response elasticities are estimated from two samples of panel data for specialist dairy farms in the northwest and southwest of england although these farms are subject to milk marketing quotas the free tradability of quotas enables them individually to adjust the output quite rapidly model specifications have been chosen to test the ability of panel data to directly reveal behavioral responses without the imposition of theoretical restrictions significantly the two independent samples generate quite similar results especially in terms of supply response measures stable and promising estimates are obtained with simultaneous models giving higher elasticities than single equation models

consumer efficiency in conflict with gdp growth abstract during the recent couple of decades some attention has been devoted to the potential for utilizing energy more efficiently most of this debate has not concentrated on the energy efficiency of the economy as a whole but merely addressed options for implementing more energy efficient technology this paper is an attempt to unfold the whole economy chain stretching from extraction of resources from nature to satisfying human needs ways are suggested to analyze the energy efficiencies of the various links in the chain mainly seen from the point of view of the consumers and for the three standard categories of consumption durable goods services and non durable goods real life cases illustrate the huge potential for overall energy efficiency improvement longevity of durable goods makes up one case another case is the often mentioned potential for more energy efficient end use technologies most discussion is however devoted to the third case the options for improving overall efficiency by satisfying people s wants through other means than economic throughput of energy etc such as by leisure time barriers for implementing efficiency options are discussed pointing out the inherited conflict in affluent regions between efficiency especially at the side of the consumers and the quest for increasing gdp

walking away from a low carbon economy recent and historical trends using a regional decomposition analysis using the latest available data this brief article attempts to provide the first regional decomposition analysis of co2 emissions from fuel combustion covering eight regions of the world determinants are estimated in relative and absolute terms for the period 1971 2010 we take the 2010 global surge in co2 emissions as an entry point for the analysis overall results show that most regions have recently performed worse than their historical trends and lack of meaningful progress is identified whereas specific drivers for certain regions suggest some level of continuous improvement e g reduced energy intensity in asia they are incapable of offsetting the effects of economic growth and energy use with the exception of africa most regions appear to have missed the low carbon economy opportunity provided by the 2008 2009 global financial crisis results suggest a lack of serious environmental effectiveness of regional policy portfolios aiming at reducing co2 emissions highly ambitious energy efficiency and renewable energy policies across all regions are immediately needed additionally absolute reductions in co2 emissions and energy use from fossil fuels are urgently required in rich regions if we are to align production and consumption patterns with maintaining global warming below the 2 c threshold

rules versus discretion in food storage policies this article compares various policies in a rational expectations food storage model with risk averse consumers and missing insurance markets calibrated to represent a developing country i consider an optimal storage policy under discretion and two optimal simple rules a constant private storage subsidy and a price band the storage subsidy achieves welfare gains similar to the discretionary policy the price band maximizing social welfare is a price peg scheme the floor and ceiling prices are the same and the capacity constraint represents 11 of the steady state production level this price band achieves three quarters of the gains from the optimal policy under discretion

uncertainty duality and perversity an empirical test of the schultz baron hypothesis it has been suggested that supply curves may be negatively sloped under conditions of output price uncertainty and risk aversion if the effect of an increase in expected price is offset by the effect of an associated increase in uncertainty risk this hypothesis first articulated by schultz and given a more rigorous theoretical exposition by baron is tested using aggregate time series data to estimate a stochastic model of us agriculture based on a generalized leontief certainty equivalent profit function evidence of risk aversion and a positive correlation between mean output price and its variance are found however these factors are not strong enough to generate perversity thus the own price elasticity of supply of agricultural output is found to be positive with a value of 0 25 although no evidence of perversity is found the empirical results suggest that ignoring price uncertainty may bias estimates of aggregate supply response downwards by between 5 and 47 as well as testing the schultz

are remittances insurance evidence from rainfall shocks in the philippines several facts motivate this study first life in developing countries is prone to many kinds of risk such as crop and income loss due to natural disasters weather insect infestations and fire and civil conflict second international migration and remittance flows are substantial and growing between 1965 and 2000 individuals living outside their country of birth grew from 2 2 to 2 9 percent of the world population totaling 175 million people in 2000 the remittances that these migrants send to their countries of origin are an important but poorly understood type of international financial flow this article examines a mechanism for coping with shocks ex post on which previous micro level studies have not focused remittances from family members overseas at the international level it is commonly posited that remittance flows from overseas buffer economic shocks in migrants home countries but there have been relatively few empirical tests of this claim with micro level household data related research on the role of domestic migration in pooling risk within extended families includes lucas and stark 1985 rosenzweig and stark 1989 and paulson 2000

estimation of dynamic maize supply response in zambia abstract increased attention on government pricing policies among african nations leads directly to a need for information about producer responses to price adjustments this is especially true in the case of zambian maize production maize is the most important crop grown in zambia it accounts for more than 80 of the value of marketed food crops is heavily relied on for subsistence consumption and is a staple food in the diet of all zambian citizens this paper analyzes the aggregate price response of maize supply in zambia using a dynamic regression analysis as a result short intermediate and long run multipliers elasticities are measured which can be used to analyze the effect of future price policy changes it was found that a second order rational distributed lag model best fits the available data estimates of short run elasticities of supply for maize and fertilizer prices are 0 54 and 0 48 respectively the corresponding estimated long run elasticities are 1 57 and 1 44

project food aid and equitable growth income transfer efficiency first abstract this paper discusses the income transfer properties of food aid in order to shed light on the inputs necessary to ensure a contribution to equitable growth particularly with reference to the alleviation of poverty and malnutrition the author defines the concepts of income transfer efficiency and nutrition efficiency and shows that food aid which is income transfer efficient is usually also nutrition efficient some empirical evidence of the income transfer efficiency of different commodities supplied to various countries is reviewed and policy implications for the selection of food aid commodities and projects are discussed the author concludes with some working propositions designed to stimulate further debate on the selection and administration of food aid projects

remittance income volatility and labor supply in mexico author affiliation catalina amuedo dorantes camuedod mail sdsu edu corresponding authorsusan pozo susan pozo wmich edu acknowledgment we would like to thank the anonymous referees and the editor for their comments and suggestions on how to improve the manuscript 1 background and significancea significant body of academic and policy research analyzes the impact of international remittances the earnings that emigrants send home in economies around the globe studies have been carried out to ascertain the effect of remittances on a wide range of economic outcomes including household decisions concerning capital accumulation health and housing expenditures country exchange rates economic growth income distribution poverty rates and as we do in this study labor supply evidence of the impacts of remittances on the well being of recipients and on economic progress is mixed some studies find that countries and households reap positive benefits from these resource transfers e g adam and page 2005 while others find negative or ambiguous effects e g narayan narayan and mishra 2011 an overall consensus on the impacts of remittances is unlikely to emerge for some time given the complexity of this research topic not to mention the varying characteristics of countries under analysis 1we propose to contribute to this important debate using an expanded approach for assessing the effects of remittances on individual and household decision making our contribution is to note that while the level of resource transfers received by the household is likely to influence individual and household behaviors volatility with regard to the stream of inflows is also likely to play an important role to date research on the impact of remittances on remittance receiving households has tended to focus on the way in which the level of remittance inflows affects either individual or household behavior without considering the volatility surrounding these inflows however if the volatility that surrounds remittance inflows influences individual and household behaviors a strategy that only examines the level of inflows is likely to miss out on a more complete understanding of the effects of remittances on individual and household decision making and therefore of their impacts on remittance receiving economies amuedo dorantes and pozo 2010 in this study we focus on the labor market and investigate how volatility of remittance inflows influences male and female labor supply a crucial dimension in the influence of remittances on remittance receiving countries limited numbers of studies have examined the impact of the incidence and level of remittance income on labor supply patterns although conclusions differ owing in part to the various data sources and methodological approaches being used a majority of the studies have concluded that the receipt of remittances results in labor supply reductions for instance rodriguez and tiongson 2001 report that remittances lower employment in the philippines while funkhouser 1992 estimates that remittances reduce the employment likelihood of nicaraguan men and women by 2 and 5 percentage points respectively studies by amuedo dorantes and pozo 2006 and hanson 2007 found that the impact of remittances on the labor supply of mexicans is conditioned on gender they conclude that mexican women reduce labor supply on account of remittance inflows whereas men do not in contrast limiting their study to mexican households that receive persistent remittances cox edwards and rodriguez oreggia 2009 conclude that remittances have no impact on the labor supply of household members remaining in mexico with the exception of urban women in traditionally low migration states for whom labor supply rises however we still lack an understanding of the ways in which the volatility in remittance inflows can impact labor supply in remittance receiving countries

fishing and nonfishing income decisions the role of human capital and family structure resource dependent households often diversify their income we model demand for remittances and supply of off resource labor as a joint decision and discuss household trade offs we extend the off farm labor supply literature to a rural fishery contrasting our results to common findings in the farm literature and providing empirical evidence of the interdependence between education and family structure in determining income diversification using a unique dataset from malaysia we find that more educated households are less likely to diversify their income with caveats depending on family composition policy implications for resource management in a remittance economy with alternative livelihoods are discussed

a model of an agricultural household in a multi crop economy the case of korea it is the purpose of this paper to describe one method of extending the empirical applicability of the theory of the farm household to multi crop economies by integrating the econometric and linear programming models already available in the literature section i introduces the subject in section ii the theoretical model is presented in section iii korean data are used to assess the quantitative significance of the approach by calculating and comparing household response to changes in input and output prices for two different specifications of the models first the household is analyzed from the consumption side on the assumption that farm profits are exogenous this corresponds to the standard approach in consumer demand theory and second results are presented for a model in which consumption and production responses are integrated in a theoretically consistent fashion and farm profits are allowed to reflect production responses to price changes the results from this and other studies that use an integrated approach to production and consumption decisions highlight the need to change perceptions concerning agricultural household response to economic incentives in developing countries and to revise the design of economic projects and policies accordingly