input promotion within a complex subsector fertilizer in nigeria despite growing evidence that fertilizers can substantially increase yields and slow down environmental degradation in sub saharan africa ssa the region still lags far behind other developing areas in fertilizer use low use rates persist despite numerous efforts to ease farmers access to quality and affordable fertilizer this article reviews the effects of nigeria s fertilizer policies including fertilizer subsidies on fertilizer use we also compare the old government led fertilizer subsidy scheme with the more recent voucher based programs and their potential effects on private fertilizer sector development based on our analysis of nigeria s experience with fertilizer subsidies we identify the potential major challenges to be faced by the new fertilizer subsidy scheme currently being implemented nationwide

the impact of agricultural research in africa aggregate and case study evidence abstract this paper presents case study results and aggregate data to evaluate the impact of research in african agriculture of 32 case studies all but eight report annual returns over 20 and many are far higher with most gains arising in the late 1980s and 1990s spurred by policy reforms and changing incentives these innovations have led to sustained growth in aggregate cereal crop yields since 1985 africa s belated green revolution is based on new varieties often with early maturation for drought escape complemented by new management techniques typically labor intensive efforts to conserve soil moisture and build soil fertility

old problems in the new solutions politically motivated allocation of program benefits and the new fertilizer subsidies summary fertilizer subsidies have been reinstituted in many african countries with innovations seeking to avoid the downsides of past programs the new subsidy paradigm however does not address how to curtail political manipulation which exacerbated inefficiencies of previous programs this paper analyzes whether politics affected voucher allocations in ghana s 2008 fertilizer subsidy program we find that more vouchers were targeted to districts that the ruling party had lost in the previous presidential elections and more so in districts that had been lost by a higher percentage margin this evidence shows that a significant threat to the efficiency of fertilizer subsidies remains

what are the farm level impacts of malawi s farm input subsidy program a critical review this article provides a critical analysis of the current frontier of research evaluating malawi s farm input subsidy program fisp whose main objectives are increasing maize production promoting household food security and enhancing rural incomes we focus on farm level studies in malawi identifying consistent and contrasting research results in order to draw important policy lessons and provide suggested avenues for future research while national production estimates suggested dramatic increases in maize production and productivity during the years of the fisp the farm level studies found relatively modest increases in maize production and yields over the same period consistent with the farm level results of modest maize production increases there has been a relative increase in real maize prices and the country continued to import maize during most of the subsidy program years furthermore there is evidence that better off households gained substantially more than poorer households when they participated in the program together these findings cast some doubt on the fisp s ability to reduce food insecurity and poverty we propose a number of policy lessons and suggestions for rigorous investigation including research that directly measures the causal impacts of the fisp program on poverty in malawi

the economy wide impacts and risks of malawi s farm input subsidy program we estimate the impact of malawi farm input subsidy programme using an economywide approach we find potentially substantial net benefits with indirect benefits accounting for about two fifths of total benefits due to these indirect benefits the cut off

dis incentivizing sustainable intensification the case of zambia s maize fertilizer subsidy program abstract poor and declining soil fertility is a major constraint to increased cereal yields in sub saharan africa while input subsidy programs isps for inorganic fertilizer are a popular and expensive tool used by african governments to increase smallholder farmers cereal yields far fewer resources are devoted to promoting other soil fertility management sfm practices that can improve soil health increase cereal yield response to inorganic fertilizer and support sustainable agricultural intensification moreover little is known about how isps affect farmers use of such sfm practices we examine whether and to what extent household participation in zambia s maize fertilizer subsidy program affects the household s use of fallowing intercropping crop rotation and animal manure using nationally representative panel survey data from zambian smallholder farm households we find that zambia s maize fertilizer subsidy program reduces the probability and extent of fallowing and intercropping of maize with other crops in addition we find some evidence that the program induces an increase in continuous maize cultivation on the same plot over time however the weight of the evidence suggests no statistically significant isp effects on the use of animal manure the analysis uses the mundlak chamberlain device to control for time invariant unobserved heterogeneity and addresses concerns related to the endogeneity of selection into the subsidy program with an instrumental variables control function approach overall our results suggest that zambia s maize fertilizer subsidy program may have dis incentivized sustainable intensification rather than promoted it

measurement errors in agricultural data and their implications on marginal returns to modern agricultural inputs the low uptake of modern agricultural technologies in sub saharan african countries has encouraged researchers to revisit the returns to or profitability of these agricultural inputs a related strand of literature is exploring the allocative efficiency of these factors of production in african agriculture however all these studies rely on self reported agricultural data which are prone to nonclassical measurement errors the errors in these data are correlated with the true values of variables of interest in this article we investigate the implication of measurement errors in self reported agricultural input and production data on marginal returns to these modern agricultural inputs we consider a generic two sided measurement error problem where both production and inputs can be measured with error and these errors can be correlated we employ both self reported and objective measures of production and plot size to compute output elasticities under these alternative measurement scenarios we find that using self reported production and plot size overestimates output elasticities and hence marginal returns to modern agricultural inputs including chemical fertilizer and improved seed these results are noteworthy in terms of informing conventional technology diffusion strategies as well as in view of revisiting existing presumptions about the profitability of modern agricultural inputs

green revolution in sub saharan africa implications of imposed innovation for the wellbeing of rural smallholders green revolution policies are again being pursued to drive agricultural growth and reduce poverty in sub saharan africa however conditions have changed since the well documented successes of the 1960s and 1970s benefitted smallholders in southern asia and beyond we argue that under contemporary constraints the mechanisms for achieving improvements in the lives of smallholder farmers through such policies are unclear and that both policy rationale and means of governing agricultural innovation are crucial for pro poor impacts to critically analyze rwanda s green revolution policies and impacts from a local perspective a mixed methods multidimensional wellbeing approach is applied in rural areas in mountainous western rwanda here malthusian policy framing has been used to justify imposed rather than induced innovation the policies involve a substantial transformation for rural farmers from a traditional polyculture system supporting subsistence and local trade to the adoption of modern seed varieties inputs and credit in order to specialize in marketable crops and achieve increased production and income although policies have been deemed successful in raising yields and conventionally measured poverty rates have fallen over the same period such trends were found to be quite incongruous with local experiences disaggregated results reveal that only a relatively wealthy minority were able to adhere to the enforced modernization and policies appear to be exacerbating landlessness and inequality for poorer rural inhabitants negative impacts were evident for the majority of households as subsistence practices were disrupted poverty exacerbated local systems of knowledge trade and labor were impaired and land tenure security and autonomy were curtailed in order to mitigate the effects we recommend that inventive pro poor forms of tenure and cooperation none of which preclude improvements to input availability market linkages and infrastructure may provide positive outcomes for rural people and importantly in rwanda for those who have become landless in recent years we conclude that policies promoting a green revolution in sub saharan africa should not all be considered to be pro poor or even to be of a similar type but rather should be the subject of rigorous impact assessment such assessment should be based not only on consistent objective indicators but pay attention to localized impacts on land tenure agricultural practices and the wellbeing of socially differentiated people

unraveling the effect of targeted input subsidies on dietary diversity in household consumption and child nutrition the case of malawi abstract malawi s farm input subsidy program fisp has generated significant attention with several studies showing an increase in maize production since the inception of the program in 2005 but stagnating poverty levels in this study i examine whether and how fisp has affected dietary diversity in household food consumption and child nutrition i find that children under the age of five living in households that received a voucher between 2008 and 2013 for the purchase of fertilizer have a statistically significantly higher at the 1 level weight for age weight for length height and body mass index than children living in non recipient households i also find that households having received a voucher consume cereals nuts vegetables meats and fruits more frequently than non recipient households the analysis uses two stage least squares to account for the endogeneity of selection into the fertilizer subsidy program i test the robustness of these results using child fixed effects the results indicate that past studies evaluating fisp failing to account for the positive gains in child nutrition and household food consumption diversity may be underestimating its benefits

investment subsidies and pro poor growth in rural india this article reviews the trends in government subsidies and investments in and for indian agriculture develops a conceptual framework and a model to assess the impact of various subsidies and investments on agricultural growth and poverty reduction and presents reform options with regard to re prioritizing government spending subsidies in credit fertilizer and irrigation have been crucial for small farmers to adopt new technologies particularly during the initial stage of the green revolution in the late 1960s and 1970s but it is now investments in agricultural research education and rural roads that are the three most effective public spending items in promoting agricultural growth and reducing poverty

who is vouching for the input voucher decentralized targeting and elite capture in tanzania input subsidy programs carry support as instruments to increase agricultural productivity provided they are market smart this requires especially proper targeting to contain the fiscal pressure with decentralized targeting of input vouchers currently the instrument of choice nonetheless despite clear advantages in administrative costs the fear of elite capture persists these fears are borne out in the experience from the 2008 input voucher pilot program in kilimanjaro tanzania examined here elected village officials received about 60 percent of the distributed vouchers a factor that significantly reduced the targeting performance of the program especially in more unequal and remote communities when targeting the poor greater coverage and a focus on high trust settings helped mitigate these concerns the findings highlight the continuing need for scrutiny when relying on decentralized targeting a clearer sense of purpose increasing productivity among poorer farmers versus increasing aggregate output could also enhance the targeting performance

input subsidy programs in sub saharan africa a synthesis of recent evidence input subsidy programs have once again become a major plank of agricultural development strategies in africa ten african governments spend roughly us 1 billion annually on input subsidy programs isps amounting to 28 6 of their public expenditures on agriculture this article reviews the microlevel evidence on isps undertaken since the mid 2000s we examine the characteristics of subsidy beneficiaries crop response rates to fertilizer application and their influence on the performance of subsidy programs the impacts of subsidy programs on national fertilizer use and the development of commercial input distribution systems and finally the impact of isps on food price levels and poverty rates the weight of the evidence indicates that the costs of the programs generally outweigh their benefits findings from other developing areas with a higher proportion of crop area under irrigation and with lower fertilizer prices factors that should provide higher returns to fertilizer subsidies than in africa indicate that at least a partial reallocation of expenditures from fertilizer subsidies to r d and infrastructure would provide higher returns to agricultural growth and poverty reduction however because isps enable governments to demonstrate tangible support to constituents they are likely to remain on the african landscape for the foreseeable future hence the study identifies ways in which benefits can be enhanced through changes in implementation modalities and complementary investments within a holistic agricultural intensification strategy among the most important of these are efforts to reduce the crowding out of commercial fertilizer distribution systems and programs to improve soil fertility to enable farmers to use fertilizer more efficiently the challenges associated with achieving these gains are likely to be formidable

the instability of fixed exchange rate systems when raising the nominal interest rate is costly abstract this paper points to a vicious circle which may arise when a government tries to defend its currency by raising the nominal interest rate in a fixed exchange rate system we present a stylised model in which raising the nominal interest rate helps to maintain the parity but is costly for the government the speculators are aware that this cost gives incentives for the government to stop defending the parity which in turn reinforces the speculation against the currency we show that this mechanism can generate self fulfilling currency crises the outcome of which depends on the level of sacrifice that the government is ready to endure and the evolution of domestic economic conditions we provide some informal evidence showing that this model explains some features of the 1992 93 ems crisis

on the impact of fundamentals liquidity and coordination on market stability complex interactions between fundamentals and liquidity during unstable periods in financial markets are succinctly modeled with co ordination games we propose a flexible framework to estimate such a model and use the efficient method of moments as estimation proce dure we illustrate the model by using exchange rates from the yen dollar carry trade induced uncertainty in 1998 interest rate spreads and global market volatility the model fits the data well with ev idence of low information disparities the market is generally very deep where global volatility is more important than fundamental un certainty in the determination of liquidity there is clear evidence of asymmetry between the buy and sell sides of the market

economic research in europe abstract the purpose of this paper is to give an account of the resources devoted to economic research at the national for the e e c level and at the european level and in addition to give a summary account of the output from that activity the findings permit us to make a certain amount of comparison between countries though no doubt some of the measures used will be subject to criticism the outcome of the study should serve to stimulate a more informed debate on the state of economic research in europe

the impact of seed vouchers on poverty reduction among smallholder rice farmers in nigeria in response to the global food crisis of 2008 the united states agency for international development usaid funded an emergency rice initiative eri program to boost rice production in nigeria the supplementary seed voucher program implemented alongside the eri adopted a randomized control trial to grant randomly selected farmers access to subsidized certified improved rice seed using the seed voucher system svs in this study we provide a consistent estimate of the impact of the svs on poverty reduction using mixed methodologies such as inverse propensity score weighing ipsw and the local average treatment effect late estimation techniques results show that the svs has a positive and statistically significant impact on annual household income and per capita consumption expenditure this study shows that availability of good quality seed at an affordable price can raise agricultural productivity increase household income and contribute to poverty reduction

unique equilibrium in a model of self fulfilling currency attacks even though self fulfilling currency attacks lead to multiple equilibria when fundamentals are common knowledge we demonstrate the uniqueness of equilibrium when speculators face a small amount of noise in their signals about the fundamentals this unique equilibrium depends not only on the fundamentals but also on financial variables such as the quantity of hot money in circulation and the costs of speculative trading in contrast to multiple equilibrium models our model allows analysis of policy proposals directed at curtailing currency attacks

a policy agenda for pro poor agricultural growth abstract sub saharan africa and parts of south asia are likely to hold large numbers of very poor rural people into the foreseeable future although both history and theory suggest a pre eminent role for agricultural growth in poverty reduction in poor agrarian economies such growth today faces new difficulties many of these difficulties are endogenous to today s poor rural areas others result from broader processes of global change but some are due to changes in the dominant policy environment emphasizing liberalization and state withdrawal examination of 20th century green revolutions suggests that active state interventions were important in supporting critical stages of agricultural market development unfortunately such interventions benefits in institutional development are easily overlooked whereas their high costs are much more visible policy implications are discussed

the last mile s in modern input distribution pricing profitability and adoption increasing adoption of modern inputs remains one of the best hopes for greater agricultural production in developing countries based on unique data from northwestern ethiopia this study examines the last mile s from the input distribution center to the farmer in the chemical fertilizer and improved seed distribution system we find that increasing transaction and transportation costs over a 35 km distance along a route mainly accessible to only foot traffic lead to a 50 increase of the price of chemical fertilizer and to a 75 reduction in its use farmers who live about 10 km from the distribution center face per unit transaction and transportation costs as high as the costs needed to bring the fertilizer from the international port to the input distribution center about 1 000 km tackling the last mile s costs should thus be a priority to improve modern input adoption and use in these settings

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

effect of changes in population density and crop productivity on farm households in malawi this study examines the ex ante farm household effects of changes in family size yield potential and yield gaps using a farm household simulation model that reflects the economic and biophysical conditions of central malawi disparities between growth in human population and crop yields present challenges for farm household crop production and income in sub saharan africa we focus on the effect of growth in yield potential and a more efficient use of livestock manure as approaches to improving crop production and incomes in the face of looming population pressures our results suggest that even without considering climate change expected changes in population density and crop prices in 2050 mean that per person crop production and income may fall by 21 compared to 2013 values if yield potential and yield gaps remain constant however per person crop production and income could increase in 2050 by 8 compared to 2013 values if 1 growth rates of yield potential rise for maize by 1 13 each year and for legumes rise by at least 0 4 each year and 2 farmers use livestock manure more efficiently our foresight approach to considering crop production at the farm household scale supplements macro scale analyses of the production dimension of food security

payments for ecosystem services and agricultural intensification evidence from a choice experiment on deforestation in zambia agriculture is considered to be one of the major drivers of deforestation worldwide in developing countries in particular this process is driven by small scale agriculture at the same time many african governments aim to increase agricultural productivity empirical evidence suggests however that win win relationships between agricultural intensification and forest conservation are the exception payments for ecosystem services pes could be linked to agriculture support programmes to simultaneously achieve both goals due to potentially higher profits from intensified agriculture than from pure cash transfers potential payment recipients may prefer in kind over conventional cash payments nevertheless little scientific evidence exists regarding the preferences of potential pes recipients for such instruments we report from a discrete choice experiment in zambia that elicited preferences of smallholder farmers for pes contracts our results suggest that potential pes recipients in zambia value in kind agricultural inputs more highly than cash payments even when the monetary value of the inputs is lower than the cash payment highlighting that pes could potentially succeed in conserving forests and intensifying smallholder agriculture respondents who intended to clear forest within the next three years were found to require higher payments but could be motivated to enrol in appropriately designed pes

economics in europe note by the editors the paper below by richard portes is published at our initiative it makes a number of critical points about economics in europe which can obviously be argued about and have in fact been the object of lively debate among readers of the initial report in an age when economic science thinks it important to be empirical and quantitative a merit of the paper is surely its effort to support by numbers and facts the assertions that are made we think that in bringing richard portes s arguments before a broader audience the review is making a contribution to the ongoing debate about where europe s economics stands and about how fruitful is our discipline s contribution to economic science and to society the review is willing to publish other papers on this topic using the rule of editorial discretion that was applied to the present paper to the extent that they are similarly succinct and tightly reasoned

american and european economics and economists america and europe differ with regard to what economics is understood to be how it is practiced and how professional academic economists behave specifically 1 american u s and canadian economists contribute by far the largest share of journal publications and are cited much more often than european economists while west european economists consider other aspects of their professional activities more relevant in particular participating in local and national affairs 2 economic research by americans tends to focus on abstract issues defined within the profession itself and involves fads while the activities of european economists though not necessarily their research are more concerned with practical issues and follow a more steady course and 3 american academics are geared to postgraduate teaching while in europe they are mostly engaged in undergraduate teaching these differences can be explained by the different market conditions faced by american and european economists in america the academic market is much larger and the degree of government intervention is typically much smaller this paper explores how this leads to different focuses for european and american economists in addition it asks whether the ongoing economic unification in europe may not alter these patterns

state conditional fertilizer yield response on western kenyan farms 15 16 17 we acknowledge with gratitude support from the rockefeller foundation the united states agency for 18 international development usaid leadership enhancement in agriculture program leap and the 19 coupled natural and human systems program of the biocomplexity initiative of the national science 20 foundation through grant bcs 0215890 the world agroforestry center icraf graciously hosted 21 the lead author for part of the research and provided soil test results we are also grateful to james

european economics an analysis based on publications in the core journals abstract in this paper we provide a ranking of european economics institutions and countries based on publications in a core set of 10 economic journals from 1991 to 1996 we find that the three leading universities in europe are the london school of economics tel aviv university and oxford university while the three top ranked countries are the u k france and israel

fertilizer market development a comparative analysis of ethiopia kenya and zambia abstract this article synthesizes case studies from kenya zambia and ethiopia to assess how differences in the implementation of fertilizer marketing policies have affected the costs and risks borne by marketing actors the investment response by private traders and fertilizer consumption financial cost accounting techniques indicate that domestic marketing costs account for 50 or more of farm gate prices the sum of importer wholesaler and retailer profit margins generally account for less than 10 there are opportunities to reduce domestic marketing costs through the following reducing port fees coordinating the timing of fertilizer clearance from the port with up country transport reducing transport costs through port rail and road improvements reducing high fuel taxes and reducing the uncertainty associated with government input distribution programs that impose additional marketing costs on traders estimated reductions in the farm gate price of fertilizer from implementing the full range of options identified in each country range from 11 to 18 price reductions of this magnitude if passed along to farmers would increase farmers effective demand for fertilizer investments in selected publically provided goods often considered outside the scope of fertilizer marketing policy per se strongly affect the costs of fertilizer farmers willingness to pay for it and hence the performance of markets

grain marketing parastatals in asia results from six case studies summary using case studies from six asian countries this paper assesses the relevance of underlying rationales for public intervention in food grain markets documents the existing policies and regulatory supports to grain marketing parastatals examines benefits and costs of parastatals and summarizes lessons from reforms and reduced interventions the results suggest that commonly cited rationales for food market intervention are no longer convincing the costs of parastatals led price stabilization are staggering and the price policies are being dictated by special interests the evidences from the early reformers indicate that reduced intervention can promote competition reduce subsidies and release funds for development and anti poverty programs all without jeopardizing price stability

factors influencing the profitability of fertilizer use on maize in zambia major findings the additional maize produced from a given amount of fertilizer applied varied widely across households even after largely controlling for soil and rainfall conditions the median estimated response rate was 15 9kgs of maize per kg nitrogen applied under the range of conditions and smallholder management practices average maizefertilizer response rates declined as the application rate increased beyond 2 bags of urea and 2 bags of d compound factors raising the response rate and profitability of fertilizer use included timely availability application rates less than the moa 4x4 recommendation use of animal draft power in land preparation and use of hybrid seed in remote areas and given current management practices fertilizer use appears to be profitable only for a minority of smallholder farmers in the relatively remote areas for farmers in the more accessible areas profitability of fertilizer use depends on timely availability if fertilizer is not available on time even farmers in the more accessible parts of this area of relatively high agronomic suitability for maize production are largely unable to use fertilizer profitably because over 30 percent of the households reported that fertilizer was delivered late these findings indicate that efforts to ensure timely distribution can contribute substantially to the productivity gains achievable from fertilizer use

agricultural growth poverty and nutrition in tanzania abstract rapid economic growth does not appear to have significantly improved poverty and nutrition outcomes in tanzania we link recent production trends to household incomes using a regionalized recursive dynamic computable general equilibrium and microsimulation model results indicate some inconsistency between recent growth and poverty measurements in tanzania we also find that the structure of economic growth may have constrained the rate of poverty reduction agricultural growth has been driven by larger scale farmers who are less likely to be poor and has been concentrated among crops grown in specific regions of the country slow expansion of food crops and livestock also explain the weak relationship between agricultural growth and nutrition outcomes we find that accelerating agricultural growth particularly in maize strengthens the growth poverty relationship and enhances households caloric availability while also contributing significantly to growth itself

agricultural transformation in africa assessing the evidence in ethiopia summary despite significant efforts africa has struggled to imitate the rapid agricultural growth that took place in asia in the 1960s and 1970s as a rare but important exception ethiopia s agriculture sector recorded remarkable rapid growth during 2004 14 this paper explores this rapid change in the agriculture sector of this important country the second most populous in africa we review the evidence on agricultural growth and decompose the contributions of modern inputs to growth using an adjusted solow decomposition model we also highlight the key pathways ethiopia followed to achieve its agricultural growth we find that land and labor use expanded significantly and total factor productivity grew by about 2 3 per year over the study period moreover modern input use more than doubled explaining some of this growth the expansion in modern input use appears to have been driven by high government expenditures on the agriculture sector including agricultural extension but also by an improved road network higher rural education levels and favorable international and local price incentives

limitations of contract farming as a pro poor strategy the case of maize outgrower schemes in upper west ghana summary contract farming cf arrangements have the potential to address market failures and improve technology adoption productivity and welfare in ghana government and donors use cf as a strategy for increasing adoption of new agricultural technologies and developing value chains yet to date there has not been a rigorous assessment of these cf schemes the focus in this paper is on different maize based cf schemes in the poorest and most remote region in ghana it assesses the profitability and potential impact of these cf schemes utilizing a unique plot level dataset that covers two periods of data and two maize plots scheme and non scheme per household and employing matching techniques and an instrumental variable approach to address selection bias and unobserved heterogeneity across farmers these are complemented by a community level survey in depth interviews with scheme operators and a series of key informant interviews results show that these schemes led to improved technology adoption and yield increases in addition a subset of maize farmers with high yield improvements due to cf participation have high profits maize cf schemes also enabled market coordination and consistent supply of quality maize to downstream industries however on average the impact of the cf schemes on profitability is negative even when input diversion is accounted for yield increases are not high enough to compensate for higher input requirements and the cost of capital under the schemes despite higher yields the costs to produce one metric tonne of maize under cf schemes are higher than on maize farms without cf schemes twice that of several countries in africa and more than seven times higher than that of major maize exporting countries the united states brazil and argentina sustainability of these cf schemes will largely depend on developing and promoting much improved varieties and technologies that boost yields in order to compensate for the high input and credit costs

the impact of formal finance on the rural economy of india india has systematically pursued a supply led approach to increasing agricultural credit its objectives have been to replace moneylenders to relieve farmers of indebtedness and to achieve higher levels of agricultural credit investment and output india s success in replacing moneylenders has been outstanding between 1951 and 1971 their share of rural credit appears to have dropped from more than 80 percent to 36 percent it may have dropped to as low as 16 percent by 1981 but that estimate is disputed still institutional credit is far from reaching all farmers only about a quarter of cultivators borrow and no more than 2 percent take out long term loans most small farmers have little access to credit and long term credit goes mostly to large farmers overall farm debt has probably not increased sharply in real terms as formal credit has primarily substituted for credit from other sources moreover with the rapid growth of commercial banks in the 1970s the system mobilized more deposits than it lent in rural areas in 1981 of course enhanced deposit services are a useful service of the rural population but one must ask what has been the impact of heavy rural credit and better financial services on agricultural investment production and rural incomes the authors econometric results suggest that the rapid expansion of commercial banks in rural areas has had a substantially positive effect on rural nonfarm employment and output the availability of better banking facilities appears to have overcome one of the obstacles to locating nonfarm activities in rural areas expanded rural finance has had less of an effect on output and employment in agriculture than in the nonfarm sector the effect on crop output has not been great despite the fact that credit to agricluture has greatly increased the use of fertilizer and private investment in machines and livestock there has been more impact on inputs than on output so the additional capital investment has been more important in substituting for agriclutural labor than in increasing crop output but overall rural credit and expansion of the rural financial system have had a positive effect on rural wages creating nonfarm jobs has apparently added more to total employment than the substitution of capital for labor has subtracted it in agriculture so wages have risen even for agricultural workers albeit modestly the supply led approach to agricultural credit that has been pursued for three decades has clearly benefited current borrowers and farm households formerly indebted to moneylenders it has also spurred fertilizer use and investment in agriculture it has been less successful in generating viable institutions and has failed to generate agricultural employment the policy s costs to india s government have been high as portfolio losses associated with poor repayment ultimately have to be borne by the government or one of its institutions under optimistic assumptions the benefits of the agricultural income are at best no more than 13 percent higher than the cost to the government of the extra agricultural credit if assumptions about the cost of supplying the credit and about repayment rates are less optimistic the social costs and the costs to the government of providing the credit would have exceeded the benefits in agricultural income the expansion of commercial banks to rural areas paid off in nonfarm growth employment and rural wages the question is could these benefits have been achieved without imposing agricultural credit targets on the commercial banks and credit cooperatives or did the commercial banks expand only because they were forced to lend to agriculture the authors could not answer these questions with the data at hand

fiscal policy debt management and exchange rate credibility lessons from the recent italian experience abstract this paper explores some potential determinants of exchange rate credibility with reference to the italian experience of the 1990s the analysis relies on a nonlinear framework emphasizing shifts between credible and non credible states and assuming a significant degree of persistence in the above regimes almost all fiscal and debt management indicators display significant effects on devaluation expectations the main policy implications of the paper are that a restrictive fiscal stance a lengthening of average debt maturity and an increase in the share of foreign denominated debt are crucial to stabilize the lira exchange rate and to qualify italy in the former group of countries which will join emu

revealed performances worldwide rankings of economists and economics departments 1990 2000 in this paper i study the production of academic research by economics departments and economists worldwide rankings are provided based on both citations and publications these rankings reveal a dominant position of the united states in the production of economics literature over time however the extent of this dominance is decreasing jel a10 a14

wage and employment effects of malawi s fertilizer subsidy program this article uses three waves of nationally representative household level panel data from malawi to estimate how a large scale fertilizer subsidy program impacts the agricultural labor market known as ganyu in that country i find that when looking across the entire population of smallholders receiving an additional 100 kg of subsidized fertilizer causes the average household to supply about three fewer days of ganyu the fertilizer subsidy program also has a small positive effect on the probability that a household demands agricultural labor with the results approaching statistical significance in addition a 10 kg increase in the average amount of subsidized fertilizer acquired per household in a community boosts the median agricultural wage rate by 1 4 in that community the increase in wage rates translates to a us 1 40 per year increase in average household income in the years after malawi s subsidy program was scaled up and a us 1 86 per year increase in average household income for those who sold their labor before the subsidy program was scaled up this finding suggests that households who sell their labor off farm may experience some small spillover benefit from the program in the form of higher agricultural wage rates

a comparative political economic analysis of maize sector policies in eastern and southern africa abstract maize sector policies in eastern and southern africa are characterized by a large and often growing presence of the state yet the scope scale and modalities of state activities vary substantially across countries drawing on data from malawi zambia kenya and mozambique this article compares the relative degree of state intervention in the maize sector we show that relative preferences for output market subsidies input market subsidies trade restrictions or non interventionist approaches reflect the interplay of interest group lobbying patronage networks and ethnic and regional political affiliations these relationships have deep historical roots and have often been intensified in the context of the emergence of multiparty politics we show that interventionist orientations in output markets and trade do not translate into better performance or welfare outcomes input subsidy preferences produce more ambiguous welfare results when the opportunity costs are not fully accounted for

subsidies and crowding out a double hurdle model of fertilizer demand in malawi this article uses a double hurdle model with panel data from malawi to investigate how fertilizer subsidies affect farmer demand for commercial fertilizer the article controls for potential endogeneity caused by the nonrandom targeting of fertilizer subsidy recipients results show that on average 1 additional kilogram of subsidized fertilizer crowds out 0 22 kg of commercial fertilizer but crowding out ranges from 0 18 among the poorest farmers to 0 30 among relatively nonpoor farmers this indicates that targeting fertilizer subsidies to the rural poor is likely to maximize the contribution of the subsidy program to total fertilizer use

zambia s input subsidy programs over the last decade subsidies for fertilizer and hybrid maize seed have re emerged as a cornerstone of the government of the republic of zambia s grz s agricultural development and poverty reduction strategies this article reviews the farmer input support programme fisp and other grz input subsidy programs since structural adjustment it then synthesizes existing and presents new empirical evidence on the programs targeting outcomes and effects results suggest that although 73 of smallholder households cultivate less than 2 hectares of land and that these households constitute 78 of the smallholder farms below the us 1 25 capita day poverty line the majority 55 of fisp fertilizer goes to households that cultivate larger areas other factors constant wealthier households receive more subsidized inputs subsidized fertilizer promotes maize intensification and extensification at the expense of fallow land but an additional kg of subsidized fertilizer only raises maize output by 1 88 kg on average as a result of low maize fertilizer response rates poor targeting crowding out and diversion of fertilizer intended for the program financial benefit cost ratios for fisp fertilizer are well below one the article concludes with recommended reforms to fisp including that it be downsized and the savings invested in known drivers of pro poor agricultural growth

fertilizer market liberalization and private retail trade in kenya this paper examined the factors influencing the entry and sales decision of private traders in fertilizer retail trade in a liberalized market using survey data from kenya a two stage econometric model is used to examine traders entry and sales decision the results provide insights into factors that are associated with private retail traders entry and sales decisions in an era of liberalized fertilizer markets it shows substantial entry into fertilizer retail trade following market liberalization relatively limited investments in trading assets and equipment are predicted to hold back firm expansion implications drawn from the study provide insights into likely research and policy interventions

sifting through the weeds understanding heterogeneity in fertilizer and labor response in central malawi abstract despite heavy subsidies provided by the malawian government input use remains low estimated maize response rates to fertilizer vary widely across studies raising questions about the sources of this variability and whether fertilizer is generally profitable for most smallholder farmers at commercial prices this study uses survey and soil data from farmer identified most and least fertile maize plots in central malawi to explain the heterogeneity in maize response to inputs and to determine whether this heterogeneity explains low uptake of commercial fertilizer we estimate maize yield functions to characterize the range of maize response to fertilizer and weeding labor at locations that vary from marginal to mesic environments and show that differences in productivity persist with a plot level fixed effect and are not solely attributable to farmer skill using a range of price scenarios and classifying soil fertility by total organic carbon levels we find that fertilizer is more profitable on low fertility plots while current levels of weeding labor are more likely to be profitable on the high fertility plots the largest variation in profitability occurs between plots rather than price scenarios highlighting the importance of policies to improve soil fertility and address constraints to use of complementary inputs

rational contagion and the globalization of securities markets this paper argues that globalization may promote contagion by weakening incentives for gathering costly information and by strengthening incentives for imitating arbitrary market portfolios in the presence of short selling constraints the gain of gathering information at a fixed cost may diminish as markets grow moreover if a portfolio manager s marginal cost for yielding below market returns exceeds the marginal gain for above market returns there is a range of optimal portfolios in which all investors imitate arbitrary market portfolios and this range widens as the market grows numerical simulations suggest that these frictions can have significant implications for capital flows in emerging markets

agriculture aid and economic growth in africa how can foreign aid to agriculture support economic growth in africa this paper constructs a geographically indexed applied general equilibrium model that considers pathways through which aid might affect growth and structural transformation of labor markets in the context of soil nutrient variation minimum subsistence consumption requirements domestic transport costs labor mobility and constraints to self financing of agricultural inputs using plausible parameters the model is presented for uganda as an illustrative case three stylized scenarios demonstrate the potential economy wide impacts of both soil nutrient loss and replenishment and how foreign aid can be targeted to support agricultural inputs that boost rural productivity and shift labor to boost real wages one simulation shows how a temporary program of targeted official development assistance oda for agriculture could generate contrary to traditional dutch disease concerns an expansion in the primary tradable sector and positive permanent productivity and welfare effects leading to a steady decline in the need for complementary oda for budget support

adaptation to land constraints is africa different since the seminal works of malthus and boserup scientists have long debated the impact of population growth and land constraints on the wellbeing of rural people today these concerns are particularly relevant to africa with its rapid population growth very small farms and chronic food insecurity in this paper we examine adaptation to falling land labor ratios using a comprehensive theoretical framework in which households faced with binding land constraints can respond in three ways intensifying agricultural production diversifying out of agriculture and reducing fertility rates using cross country data and drawing upon the existing literature we reach three conclusions first population density is associated with reduced fallows and more intensive use of land but not fertilizer use or irrigation indicating major challenges in achieving sustainable intensification or agricultural productivity growth second there is little evidence of successful non farm diversification in response to land pressures in africa from domestic or international income sources third rural africans in land constrained countries desire smaller families but have thus far benefited little from family planning policies these findings underscore the need for a coordinated multi sectoral approach to sustainably reduce poverty in the region

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

understanding fertilizer adoption and effectiveness on maize in zambia abstract increased fertilizer use will likely be crucial for raising and sustaining farm productivity in africa but adoption may be limited by ineffectiveness under certain conditions this article quantifies the impacts of soil characteristics on maize response to fertilizer in zambia using a nationally representative sample of 1453 fields combining economic farm management and soil analysis data depending on soil regimes average maize yield response estimates range from insignificant 0 to 7 maize kg per fertilizer kg for the majority of farmers the estimated average value cost ratio is between 1 and 2 meaning fertilizer use would be fiscally rational barring uncertainty and transfer costs since transfer costs exist and outcomes are uncertain however many farmers may sensibly pause before deciding whether to adopt fertilizer this suggests shifting the emphasis of chronically low fertilizer use in africa away from explanations of market failure toward greater emphasis on improving fertilizer efficacy

how do fertilizer subsidy programs affect total fertilizer use in sub saharan africa crowding out diversion and benefit cost assessments a major determinant of input subsidy programs effects on the achievement of national policy goals is the extent to which they raise total fertilizer use this study synthesizes recent literature on how the new generation of targeted input subsidy programs has affected national fertilizer use after accounting for crowding effects and derives benefit cost bc estimates of the fertilizer subsidy programs for kenya malawi and zambia after accounting for crowding out and diversion we highlight two major findings first accounting for the illicit diversion of program fertilizer can profoundly influence estimates of how fertilizer subsidy programs affect total fertilizer use and program impacts given recent evidence that 33 or more of total program fertilizer may be diverted before being received by intended beneficiary farmers the failure to account for program diversion is shown to overestimate the contribution of the subsidy programs to national fertilizer use by 67 3 in the case of malawi by 61 6 for zambia and by 138 0 for kenya the second major finding is that the incremental value of maize output produced from these subsidy programs is considerably less than their costs in most years except under unusually high maize price assumptions conventional bc analyses that do not account for crowding out and diversion may seriously overestimate the benefits of input subsidy programs greater attention to program design and implementation details to reduce problems of crowding out and diversion can substantially raise the returns to such programs

the political effects of agricultural subsidies in africa evidence from malawi across sub saharan africa agricultural subsidy programs have again become a common strategy for combatting rural poverty increasing agricultural production and reducing food insecurity despite a large literature examining subsidies effects on output and welfare little is known about their political effects this paper examines malawi s agricultural input subsidy programme one of the largest and most expensive programs implemented which was launched by the government in 2005 we examine whether the incumbent party the democratic progressive party headed by president bingu wa mutharika benefited from malawi s subsidy program by examining a longitudinal dataset of 1 846 rural malawians interviewed in 2008 and again in 2010 the individual level data show no evidence that the subsidy program was targeted to mutharika s co ethnics or co partisans our analysis further demonstrates that the subsidy program increased support for the incumbent party these results suggest that even when parties are unable or unwilling to target distributional programs at the local level they may nonetheless derive political benefits as anti poverty programs including agricultural subsidies to small scale farmers become increasingly common across the continent our results suggest that they may help to explain patterns of party affiliation and vote choice particularly where traditional patterns of partisan affiliation related to ethnic or regional identities weaken

how high are rates of return to fertilizer evidence from field experiments in kenya the idea that peasant farmers are rational profit maximizers has been a staple of development economics since theodore schultz 1964 it has also been influential in shaping policy for example agricultural experts have stressed the importance of fertilizer use in raising agricultural yields pointing to impressive results on experimental farms and to huge differences in agricultural productivity across countries with different levels of fertilizer use robert evenson and douglas gollin 2003 historically many countries subsidized fertilizer in response but economists have been skeptical of claims that farmers are leaving money on the table noting that fertilizer may not have the same returns on real world farms as on experimental farms that returns to fertilizer may be low for many farmers even if they are high on average tavneet suri 2007 that fertilizer may require complementary inputs or may be risky many countries have withdrawn or scaled back fertilizer psychology and development theory and experimental evidence

what are the effects of input subsidy programs on maize prices evidence from malawi and zambia an important hypothesized benefit of large scale input subsidy programs in africa is that by raising maize production the subsidies should put downward pressure on retail maize prices to the benefit of urban consumers and the rural poor who tend to be net food buyers to inform debates related to this rationale for input subsidies this study estimates the effects of fertilizer subsidies on retail maize prices in malawi and zambia using market or district level panel data covering the 2000 2001 to 2011 2012 maize marketing years results indicate that roughly doubling the size of malawi s subsidy program reduces maize prices by 1 2 2 5 on average in zambia roughly doubling the scale of the country s subsidy program reduces maize prices by 1 8 2 8 on average the results are robust across countries and model specifications and indicate that the fertilizer subsidy programs in malawi and zambia have had a minimal effect on retail maize prices

fertilizer subsidies and food self sufficiency in indonesia indonesia is a net importer of almost all of its staple foods national self sufficiency in food especially the main staple rice is a core objective of economic policy poverty reduction is also a core policy objective since the 1970s indonesia has used agricultural input subsidies especially on fertilizer to stimulate agricultural production largely in pursuit of the goal of rice self sufficiency more recently it has also used output protection especially in rice for the same purpose this article utilizes a multisectoral multihousehold general equilibrium model of the indonesian economy to study the trade offs between the goals of self sufficiency and poverty reduction when two alternative means are used to achieve them a fertilizer subsidy on the one hand and output protection on the other it does this by analyzing the aggregate and distributional effects of these two sets of policies and by comparing their effects with nonintervention the analysis shows that in terms of its effects on poverty a fertilizer subsidy can be a more effective instrument for achieving the goal of rice self sufficiency than final product import restrictions

fertilizer subsidies political influence and local food prices in sub saharan africa evidence from nigeria abstract the last decade has seen a resurgence in the use of fertilizer subsidies in sub saharan africa however there is limited empirical evidence on the effects of fertilizer subsidy programs on local food prices using an instrumental variables approach we explore the effect of a fertilizer subsidy program on the seasonal growth rates of grain prices in nigeria our results suggest that the fertilizer subsidy program had very small effects on the growth rates of grain prices between the post planting and post harvesting seasons we also find that political influence played a role in the distribution of subsidized fertilizer we discuss how the weak effects on the price growth rates may be caused by low market orientation output market structures greater focus on farmers incomes low marginal productivity of fertilizer and politically influenced targeting

crowding out diversion and benefit cost assessments in fertilizer subsidy programs in sub saharan africa a comment on jayne t s mather d mason n ricker gilbert j 2013 how do fertilizer subsidy programs affect total fertilizer use in sub saharan africa crowding out diversion and benefit cost assessments agric econ 44 6 687 703 jayne et al make a valuable contribution to emerging empirical evidence on agricultural input subsidy programs in africa by examining the effects of corrupt diversion of subsidized fertilizers on the displacement or crowding out effects of farmers purchases of subsidized fertilizer on purchases of unsubsidized fertilizer unfortunately their estimation of the effects of this on economic and financial benefit cost ratios bcrs is methodologically flawed and for malawi is also undermined by problematic use of data this comment presents a consistent methodology for revised estimates of both economic bcr and fiscal efficiency for the malawi program this shows that the underlying economic bcr of subsidized fertilizers in malawi has been higher than estimated by jayne et al and is largely unaffected by diversion and displacement but that the fiscal efficiency of investments in the program is strongly affected by diversion and displacement in program implementation

heterogeneous returns to chemical fertilizer at the intensive margins insights from nepal increased fertilizer use is considered important for agricultural development in low income countries promoting increased use of chemical fertilizer by lowering its price may be ineffective if demand is price inelastic in theory the price elasticity of demand depends on the returns to its use but the evidence is scarce furthermore while returns are often estimated for small changes in chemical fertilizer use returns to larger changes in its use intensive margins are less understood through the inter zonal comparisons in nepal we provide indicative evidence that greater returns to chemical fertilizer are associated with greater price elasticities of demand moreover the evidence suggests that returns at the intensive margins rather than returns to small changes may largely account for inter zonal differences in returns to chemical fertilizer within nepal the results suggest that better understanding the returns at the intensive margins is critical for effective agricultural inputs policies in developing countries

do input subsidy programs crowd in or crowd out commercial market development modeling fertilizer demand in a two channel marketing system many governments in developing countries distribute fertilizer at subsidized prices in an effort to stimulate small farmers agricultural productivity and food security prior fertilizer demand studies have largely failed to account for the effects of government programs on farmers commercial purchases using a double hurdle model and nationally representative rural household panel data in zambia we distinguish between these sources and measure the contemporaneous crowding in and crowding out effects of government input programs on commercial fertilizer sales where the private sector is relatively active and average wealth is higher areas seemingly more likely to be targeted by government programs results indicate that subsidies have substantially crowded out the private sector in some cases to the point that such programs could actually lower overall fertilizer use on the other hand in poorer areas where the private sector is relatively inactive subsidies help to generate demand and crowd in private sector retailers empirical studies explicitly modeling farmers fertilizer purchase behavior within a dual marketing framework can provide important insights for agricultural policy discussions in developing countries

donors and domestic policy makers two worlds in agricultural policy making in recent decades many developing countries have moved from taxing their agricultural sector to subsidizing it a phenomenon referred to as overshooting using ghana and uganda as case study countries this study aims to contribute to explaining this phenomenon by examining the role of policy beliefs the study is based on the advocacy coalition framework and relies on discourse analysis as analytical method in depth interviews with policy actors in both countries served as empirical basis a quantitative analysis of the transcripts was used to identify different discourse coalitions and a qualitative analysis was conducted to examine the discourses and identify their underlying policy beliefs the paper identified far reaching differences in the agricultural policy beliefs between domestic policy makers and donors regarding the question what does it actually take to develop small holder agriculture the evidence from this analysis highlights the role that divergent policy beliefs can play in influencing agricultural policy choices

the political economy of fertilizer subsidy programs in africa evidence from zambia fertilizer subsidy programs have re emerged as popular policy tools in sub saharan africa despite a burgeoning body of literature on program impacts the political economy of the programs remains poorly understood in particular there is a dearth of empirical evidence to support or refute the conventional wisdoms that governments systematically target subsidized inputs to certain areas based on past voting patterns and that fertilizer subsidies win votes this article discusses the theoretical links between government targeting of subsidized fertilizer and voter behavior then uses panel data from zambia to empirically test these conventional wisdoms results suggest that zambia s movement for multi party democracy governments targeted more subsidized fertilizer to households in areas where it had strong support in the previous presidential election however contrary to conventional wisdom marginal changes in the scale or coverage of the fertilizer subsidy program had no statistically significant effect on the share or number of votes won by incumbent presidents

productivity and welfare effects of nigeria s e voucher based input subsidy program summary in an attempt to go beyond the so called smart subsidies nigeria has embarked on a potentially innovative mobile phone based input subsidy program that provides fertilizer and improved seed subsidies through electronic vouchers in this article we examined the productivity and welfare effects of the program using household level data from rural nigeria the article employed instrumental variable regression approach to control for the potential endogeneity of the input subsidy program our results suggest that the program is effective in improving productivity and welfare outcomes of beneficiary smallholders the size of the estimated effects suggests a large improvement in productivity and welfare outcomes moreover the distributional effects of the program suggest no heterogeneity effects based on gender and farm land size these results are robust to using alternative measurements of program participation the benefit cost ratio of 1 11 suggests that the program is marginally cost effective overall our results suggest that while improving average productivity is a good outcome for improving food security improving the distributional outcome of the program by targeting the most disadvantaged groups would maximize the program s contribution to food security and poverty reduction

are kenyan farmers under utilizing fertilizer implications for input intensification strategies and research abstract it is widely perceived that african farmers are under utilizing inorganic fertilizer however very little long term evidence from farmers fields accounting for variations in agro ecological conditions has been assembled to back this claim or determine the conditions under which it is true using five waves of nationwide household survey data from kenya covering 13 years we estimate the relative and absolute profitability of nitrogen application rates on maize fields and compare these profitability conditions to observed nitrogen use patterns over time in general we find that farmers are consistently and steadily increasing towards risk adjusted economically optimal rates of fertilizer application over time and that in the most agriculturally productive areas farmers application rates on maize sometimes exceed rates that maximize profitability fertilizer use rates may nevertheless be profitably raised in these areas but doing so will require the adoption of complementary inputs and management practices that raise maize response rates to fertilizer application this motivates a more holistic approach to input intensification strategies in the region

adoption and welfare impacts of multiple agricultural technologies evidence from eastern zambia using plot level panel data and multinomial endogenous switching regression this article analyzes the adoption and welfare impacts of multiple agricultural technologies in eastern zambia we adapt a multinomial endogenous switching treatment effect regression framework to correct for selection bias and endogeneity originating from both observed and unobserved heterogeneity results indicate that joint adoption of multiple agricultural technologies had greater impacts on crop yields household incomes and poverty than the adoption of individual components of the technology package our findings suggest that efforts aimed at raising household incomes and reducing poverty should focus on promoting the adoption of multiple agricultural technologies through provision of improved support services such as extension and input supply

factors explaining the low and variable profitability of fertilizer application to maize in zambia it is widely recognized that an african green revolution will require greater use of inorganic fertilizers often made comparisons note that fertilizer use rates in africa are just 10 20 of those in asia europe and the americas most attempts to explain relatively low adoption of fertilizer assume yield responses to inorganic fertilization warrant higher application rates and hypothesize that observed use rates are limited by market based factors another explanation may be that application rates are low because african yields are less responsive to inorganic fertilizer than yields in other regions and less responsive than analysts perceive examining the case of zambia we evaluate whether yield response to fertilizers could explain adoption and application rates a model of yield response is constructed and a combination of estimators is employed to mitigate potential biases related to correlation between fertilizer use and unobserved heterogeneity as well as stochastic shocks results indicate higher fertilization rates would be marginally profitable or unprofitable in many cases given commercial fertilizer and maize prices phosphoric fertilizer is particularly unprofitable on acidic soils which are common in zambia and other areas of sub saharan africa we propose feasible recommendations for diversifying the current government strategy to enhance crop productivity

fertilizer subsidy and agricultural productivity in senegal in a consistent effort to raise productivity and unlock the economic and social potential of the agricultural sector the senegalese government has implemented heavy subsidy programs some of which target the use of inputs this paper assesses the potential impact of the fertilizer subsidy on farmers productivity we use data envelopment analysis to generate efficiency scores which are then related to the subsidy program using an endogenous treatment regression model that accounts for potential endogeneity and self selectivity issues the results indicate that the subsidy program appears to be associated with increased efficiency hence providing empirical support to the political will to revamp the program the results also suggest ways to improve the effectiveness of the subsidy program as well as additional policy options to further unlock the agricultural potential

disparate information and the probability of currency crises empirical evidence abstract this paper tests the impact of the distribution of information on the probability of currency crises within a markov switching framework less disparate information among domestic and foreign investors proxied by premia on country funds lowers the probability of a crisis

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

agricultural technology productivity and poverty in madagascar summary this paper uses a unique spatially explicit dataset to study the link between agricultural performance and rural poverty in madagascar we show that controlling for geographical and physical characteristics communes that have higher rates of adoption of improved agricultural technologies and consequently higher crop yields enjoy lower food prices higher real wages for unskilled workers and better welfare indicators the empirical evidence strongly favors support for improved agricultural production as an important part of any strategy to reduce the high poverty and food insecurity rates currently prevalent in rural madagascar

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