spatial patterns of private sector and public sector non agricultural jobs in rural northeast thailand lohmann c and liefner i spatial patterns of private sector and public sector non agricultural jobs in rural northeast thailand regional studies published evidence from developing countries shows that in rural areas participation in non agricultural wage employment rises with proximity to urban centres while earnings do not this paper explores the reasons for this phenomenon analysing the job characteristics of rural workers in detail the data set consists of 900 jobs the results show that public jobs are over represented in rural remote regions driving up the mean wage of this type of region when considering private sector employment only spatial wage and income differentials do exist showing that workers in remote areas are economically more disadvantaged than workers in peri urban areas

rural nonfarm employment and incomes in latin america overview and policy implications abstract rural nonfarm employment rnfe and incomes rnfi are crucial to latin american rural households the 11 rural household income studies in this volume reviewed in this paper use 1990s data and show that rnfi averages 40 of rural incomes rnfi and rnfe have grown quickly over the past three decades the review of evidence provided some surprising departures from traditional images of nonfarm activities of latin american rural households in terms of shares of rural incomes 1 nonfarm wage incomes exceed self employment incomes 2 rnfi far exceeds farm wage incomes 3 local rnfi far exceeds migration incomes 4 service sector rnfi far exceeds manufactures rnfi these findings suggest the need for more development program attention to wage employment in the service sector versus the traditional focus on small enterprise manufactures moreover poor households and zones tend to have higher shares in their incomes but lower absolute levels of rnfi as compared to richer households and zones the rnfe of the poor tend to be the low paid nonfarm equivalent of semi subsistence farming raising the capacity of the poor to participate in the better paid types of rnfe is crucial via employment skills training education infrastructure credit finally rnfe has grown fastest and been most poverty alleviating where there are dynamic growth motors in particular in the agricultural sector but also in tourism links to urban areas mining and forestry this means that developing rnf jobs cannot be done at the expense of programs promoting agricultural development

nonfarm employment and poverty in rural el salvador abstract this paper analyzes two complementary data sets to study poverty and the nonfarm sector in rural el salvador we find that rural poverty in el salvador remains acute and significantly higher than in urban areas while the rural poor are mainly agricultural laborers and marginal farmers some nonfarm activities are also of importance to the poor in fact nonfarm activities in el salvador account for a significant share of rural employment and income for both the poor and the nonpoor the poor on the one hand are engaged in last resort nonfarm activities that are not associated with high levels of labor productivity the nonpoor on the other are engaged in productive nonfarm activities which are likely to present a potent force for upward mobility significant correlates of these high productivity occupations include education infrastructure location and gender while most of the analysis is at the household level the data also permit some focus on small scale rural enterprise activities it appears that in el salvador very few rural enterprises report utilizing formal credit in setting up their activities in addition a significant proportion of enterprises are engaged in subcontracting arrangements with some larger often urban based firm

intersectoral transfer growth and inequality in rural ecuador abstract in this paper we study intersectoral transfer and its impact on the distribution of income in ecuador we find that income shares between farm and nonfarm activities are roughly equal on average although the rich in rural areas typically receive a greater share of income from nonfarm sources thus decomposing inequality by income source reveals that a rise in nonfarm incomes increases inequality drawing on a new method to estimate local level distributional outcomes growth of the high productivity nonfarm sector is observed to have a strong and positive association with average consumption and inequality growth of the low productivity nonfarm sector is associated with little change in either average income or income inequality irrespective of subsector growth of the nonfarm sector is associated with a substantial fall in poverty

diversification and livelihood sustainability in a semi arid environment a case study from southern ethiopia abstract this paper examines the recently growing adoption of non pastoral livelihood strategies among the borana pastoralists in southern ethiopia a large portion of the current non pastoral participation is in petty and natural resource based activities pastoral and crop production functions are estimated using the cobb douglas model to analyse the economic rationale behind the growing pastoralist shift to cultivation and other non pastoral activities the low marginal return to labour in traditional pastoralism suggests the existence of surplus labour that can gainfully be transferred to non pastoral activities an examination of the pastoralist activity choices reveals that the younger households with literacy and more exposure to the exchange system display a more diversified income portfolio preference the findings underscore the importance of human capital investment and related support services for improving the pastoralist capacity to manage risk through welfare enhancing diversified income po

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

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

rural income generating activities whatever happened to the institutional vacuum evidence from ghana guatemala nicaragua and vietnam this paper assesses the current rural development practice against the main trends in recent rural development thinking based on evidence from four country case studies while much progress has been made in understanding the need to look beyond only agriculture for the promotion of productive activities in rural areas and the institutional vacuum consistently identified in the rural non farm literature is gradually being filled much remains to be done one aspect on which more research is particularly needed is the development of better mechanisms to promote productive investment rather than just social investment and to assess the appropriate level community regional national at which to do this

rural nonfarm income and its impact on agriculture evidence from albania using data from the 2005 albania living standards measurement study alsms05 survey this article analyzes the overall impact of household nonfarm income generating activities riga on agricultural expenditures as well as technical efficiency of rural farm households we also differentiate the impact for subsistence and commercial farmers who are in the top 25 of the distribution of value of annual agricultural sales our results show that on the whole albanian rural households utilize their nonfarm earnings not to invest in time saving efficiency increasing technologies but to move out of crop production we derive similar findings when we try to estimate the same relation separately for commercial and subsistence farmers however for commercial farmers we find a positive impact of household nonfarm earnings on livestock expenditures

wage labour activities by agricultural households in nicaragua this article considers wage labour activities by agricultural households in nicaragua it analyses the role of 1 comparative advantage as determined by individual and household characteristics and 2 agricultural conditions and market imperfections in shaping wage labour supply an econometric specification is developed which allows for random household specific effects results reveal that non agricultural wage work is largely determined by comparative advantages whereas agricultural wage work is used to deal with a number of agricultural conditions and market imperfections

rural nonfarm employment in developing countries in an era of globalization rural nonfarm employment rnfe has become a topic of major importance in rural development as by the mid 2000s rnfe constituted 35 of rural incomes in africa and 50 in both asia and latin america the traditional view of rnfe was a sleepy hinterland activity cut off from changes in the national let alone the global economy that view was assailed by sweeping changes in rural areas starting with the green revolution then rur urbanization and lately by globalization intervening via both trade and modernization of the national economy including the rise of modern retail and processing in this article we hypothesize and offer emerging evidence that the strongest and most positive effects on rnfe of globalization come in the zones that are rur urbanized with a tradeables growth motor induced rnfe sector with clusters of small medium enterprises for manufactures and a preponderance of services surprisingly the trade effects are least and the domestic market transformation effects are the strongest the most challenges are posed for zones that are rur urbanized and dense zone rnfe with low moderate local growth motors the least effects are on hinterland zones the policy implications are to promote tradeables growth motors key to creating rnfe in services the major component of rnfe and to incorporate competitiveness in a changing urban and global economy into rnfe promotion

does the nonfarm economy offer pathways for upward mobility evidence from a panel data study in ethiopia summary empirical studies across many developing countries routinely document a positive correlation between participation in rural nonfarm employment and households wealth or income this paper explores whether nonfarm employment leads to higher consumption expenditure growth in ethiopia we find that 1 households consumption expenditure growth is positively correlated with the initial share of nonfarm income 2 the growth elasticity of nonfarm income share is higher for wealthier households and 3 the main source of growth for nonfarm participants comes from the higher rates of return participants enjoy on their human and physical capital

how do contribution limits affect contributions to tax preferred savings accounts abstract contributions to tax preferred savings accounts are typically constrained by a contribution limit these limits influence contributions not only for taxpayers currently constrained by the limit but also for those contributing less than the limit i develop a simple life cycle model in which taxpayers exhibit use it or lose it contribution behavior this connects current contributions to future contribution limits and implies that an increase in contribution limits can decrease contributions empirical evidence from microdata provides support for the model using variation from canadian limit reforms i find that larger future contribution room is associated with smaller contributions

rural nonfarm employment and incomes in the himalayas abstract nonfarm activities generate on average about 60 of rural households incomes in the himalayas this article analyzes the determinants of participation in nonfarm activities and of nonfarm incomes across rural households a unique data set collected in the himalayan region of india allows us to deal with the heterogeneity of rural nonfarm activities by using aggregations into categories that are useful both analytically and for policy purposes we conduct an empirical inquiry that reveals that education plays a major role in accessing more remunerative nonfarm employment other household assets and characteristics such as land social status and geographical location also play a role

da agrariedade a ruralidade novos enfoques a economia territorial in the first part the paper presents the evolution of the rural develoment theories from 50s to nowadays consequently in the second part it is addressed the issue of how the transition from subsistance economy to traditional economy to agricultural economy to rural economy could delineate virtuous processes of local development in specific contexts this concept is futher developed in the third part where territorial development is analysed in accordance with international studies and more specifically with european ones and in the forth where the topic is critically focused in the framework of the brazilean literature

the determinants of nonfarm activities and incomes of rural households in mexico with emphasis on education abstract this paper presents the main results of a study of the effects of education as well as other household assets on the choice of activities and incomes of rural mexican households our study examines the various income sources as well as the education of the household s head and its members implications are drawn for rural education and development policies to promote rural nonfarm incomes and employment

rural nonfarm employment and incomes in brazil patterns and evolution abstract in decades past a large contingent of workers left farms and small towns to move to the large cities of brazil but in the 1990s not only has this flow subsided but one even observes an urbanization of rural areas via a large increase in nonfarm activities in rural areas during the 1980s and 1990s especially in the center west and southeast regions of brazil exclusively agricultural rural households have lower incomes than multiactive households those with activities in both the farm and nonfarm sectors and than nonfarm rural households one even notes a significant reduction in the number of purely farm households over 1992 97 in all regions of the country

fair trade organic coffee rural livelihoods and the agrarian question southern mexican coffee families in transition summary we use a random sample of coffee producing households in southern mexico to compare opportunities associated with government subsidies and migration to the role of fair trade organic coffee in household livelihoods although land and labor returns among fair trade organic coffee growers are higher than for conventional growers differences in yields are more important than price premiums moreover investment in education and labor opportunities outside coffee dominate those in fair trade organic coffee the results highlight the value of an integrated approach to the agrarian question that improves productivity and prices and supports other pathways for improving incomes

rural nonfarm incomes in nicaragua abstract this paper examines nonfarm incomes of rural nicaraguan households using a nationwide survey lsms from 1998 the key findings are as follows a rural nonfarm income rnfi constitutes 41 of rural household incomes b rnfi is much more important than farm wage labor income c rnfi tends to be relatively concentrated geographically and socioeconomically toward the rural areas of the managua zone and the rest of pacific zone which are denser in infrastructure and population and toward the upper income quartile of rural households this concentration implies high entry barriers and capital requirements for rural nonfarm activity that the poor are simply not equipped to overcome equipping the rural poor through training and acquisition of diverse forms of capital to have a chance at the higher return nonfarm jobs would be a major step toward helping them to share the benefits of the rural nonfarm economy d self employment small enterprise income in manufactures is very minor probably due to the ease of obtaining manufactured goods from urban industries and imports wage employment constitutes the bulk of rnfi despite it receiving little attention in development programs and debate e three quarters of rnfi is in the service sector and only one quarter is from manufactures that can be contrasted with the emphasis on small manufactures enterprises in rural development programs and research f education road access as well as access to electricity and water were found to be important to nonfarm incomes

the effect of specialty coffee certification on household livelihood strategies and specialisation abstract farm certification is rapidly becoming a sine qua non for access to specialty coffee markets at the centre of these changes are smallholder coffee producers responsible for 80 of global coffee production although rural households are known to depend on more than agricultural production alone the literature on specialty coffee and certification has rather narrowly focused on coffee income and production in this study broader impacts are explicitly taken into account household income was decomposed into categories corresponding to specific income generating activities and coffee income was broken down into price yield and area effects results show that coffee certification encourages farmers to specialise in coffee production increasing coffee income but not total household income at least not in the short run the time and effort required to attain the higher coffee income offered by certified production means farmers have to give up other activities this substitution effect cancels out the income effect such that there is no increase in total household income the lack of an effect on total household income suggests the return to the additional labour effort required for certified coffee production is not higher than in other activities questioning the benefits of certification for small scale producers

non farm work and food security among farm households in northern ghana this paper examines the impact of non farm work on household income and food security among farm households in the northern region of ghana we analyze the impact by employing propensity score matching method that accounts for self selection bias the matching results show that participation in non farm work exerts a positive and statistically significant effect on household income and food security status supporting the widely held view that income from non farm work is crucial to food security and poverty alleviation in rural areas of developing countries

when does economic growth reduce poverty and strengthen the middle class a state level sector specific analysis of peru using novel state level data of peru from 1997 to 2010 we investigate how growth in different sectors affects poverty rates and the middle class our results indicate that only the manufacturing sector seems to robustly decrease poverty growth in the service sector emerges as a meaningful predictor of a rising middle class allowing for regional differences we find substantial variation across the 25 peruvian states with large shifts in magnitudes signs and statistical importance beyond the immediate implications for peru these findings highlight the importance of analyzing the link between economic performance and poverty rates on a subnational level policy implications are likely to differ substantially depending on the source of economic growth and regional particularities

sri lanka s rural non farm economy removing constraints to pro poor growth summary we use a survey of rural enterprises from sri lanka to explore characteristics of the informal non farm sector and identify obstacles to its expansion and productivity value added in this sector amounts to 80 of agricultural gdp participating households incomes are significantly higher than those of households who do not participate barriers to entry are low and the impact of non farm development on inequality modest implying a large potential contribution to growth and poverty reduction infrastructure constraints negatively affect new startups investment in and productivity of existing enterprises with small enterprises being particularly affected

education labor supply and market development in rural peru summary research suggests that education has a limited effect on subsistence farm productivity yet rural incomes include more than farming as households diversify their income portfolios furthermore education may affect the number of labor hours supplied utilizing data from peru this paper finds that farm households benefit from more education by finding more lucrative opportunities characterized by fewer hours the extent to which this is possible depends on how well local markets are developed since education policy takes time to yield returns policy makers have an additional tool at their disposal improving market access will also increase the returns to education

the rural non farm sector issues and evidence from developing countries abstract the rural non farm sector has traditionally been viewed as a low productivity sector which produces low quality goods it is often expected to wither away as a country develops recent years have seen a shift away from this position towards recognition that the rural non farm sector can and often does contribute to economic growth rural employment poverty reduction and a more spatially balanced population distribution this paper reviews the literature on the conceptual and empirical underpinnings of this more recent perspective focussing on the experience in developing countries the paper documents the size and heterogeneity of the sector pointing to evidence that in many countries the sector is expanding rather than declining the issues associated with measuring the sector s economic contribution are discussed followed by empirical assessments for several countries and regions the distributional impact of non farm earnings is examined and it is found that a pro poor impact while by no means inevitable can be considerable the sector s trajectory over time in different settings is reviewed and the scope for and experience of various policy interventions is discussed

nonfarm employment and poverty alleviation of rural farm households in honduras abstract this paper analyzes the role of nonfarm income of rural farm households in honduras it uses the national income and expenditure survey from 1993 to 1994 income from nonfarm wage and self employment represents 16 25 of farm household income and is especially important for middle and higher income strata nonfarm wage labor is geographically concentrated in small rural towns and in the industrial free zones located in the northern region while self employment is particularly developed in the southern region access to nonfarm wage employment is confined to educated individuals that belong to large households while female members of wealthier households are mainly involved in self employment food security is strongly enhanced through the engagement in nonfarm activities moreover nonfarm income enables farmers to purchase external inputs for improving yields and labor productivity suitable policies to enhance nonfarm employment include education training and technical assistance to reduce labor intensity in agricultural production as well as public investment and credit services to improve access to nonfarm activities

rural nonfarm employment and income diversification in colombia abstract using data for rural households from colombia we find that off farm employment contributes a significant share 45 on average to household income but that the importance of off farm income and returns to household labor vary over the income distribution analysis reveals significant gains from specialization but for households able to specialize no systematic differences in returns to labor between farm and nonfarm sources we conclude that in colombia there is no conflict between development of the farm and the nonfarm sector but that to maximize gains from nonfarm development and reduce the scope for undesirable distributional consequences policies enabling households to specialize might be called for

off farm labour allocation decisions in small scale rural households in zimbabwe the double hurdle model is used to analyse the off farm labour decisions of small scale agricultural household members in the shamva district of zimbabwe the approach permits the joint modelling of the decision to participate in the labour market and the decision regarding the amount of time allocated to work results indicate that a number of variables notably gender education and assets indeed have effects which are qualitatively and quantitatively different in terms of participation and hours worked overall the empirical analysis confirms the importance of individual characteristics such as gender and education and household farm characteristics e g land area accessible to the household productive assets remittances and the agricultural terms of trade in influencing the labour market decisions of rural household members

the housing led growth hypothesis revisited evidence from the chinese provincial panel data this paper investigates the relationship between housing investment and economic growth in china utilising province level data via recently developed panel unit root tests and panel co integration analysis the empirical results suggest a stable long run relationship between housing investment non housing investment and gdp in china in addition the existence is demonstrated of bi directional granger causality between housing investment and gdp at the national level the panel error correction model supports the hypothesis that housing investment appears to have a dual role acting as both a driver and follower in china s economic fluctuations however the impacts of housing investment on economic growth in three sub regions are found to be strikingly different

creating an enabling environment policy conditions for less favored areas abstract within the rural areas those with a low productive potential usually home to poor agricultural households with limited access to assets are often the core of rural poverty and under constant threat of resource degradation there is ample evidence that neither trickle down effects in high potential areas nor structural adjustment measures have generated much poverty reduction in these less favored areas lfas often due a lack of attention to the development of factor and commodity markets sustainable and pro poor development of lfas therefore poses formidable challenges and requires special measures to achieve an enabling institutional and policy environment it needs to be based on viable sources of growth that imply considerable investments in physical and human capital and appropriate technology recognize positive externalities and add equity and natural resource management concerns in a context of heterogeneity to establish policy conditions that favor such development the role of and experience with major policy interventions incentives and institutions relevant to lfas is reviewed and an attempt is made to generalize these findings to this effect the different interventions are grouped into three broad categories viz price and market policies public services and investment and institutions and governance while countries should adopt the relevant market and trade policies the case is made for greater awareness of the adverse impact these policies can have in lfas and on their poor and complementary policies and investments need to be put in place to buffer or offset adverse outcomes key complementary interventions include public investments in infrastructure human capital and technology to enhance the competitiveness of lfas and policies to improve their market access there is also need for appropriate phasing of policy and market reforms to give people time to adjust and effective safety nets to cushion loss of livelihood options

implications of non farm work to vulnerability to food poverty recent evidence from northern ghana summary using survey data from northern ghana this study seeks to establish the impact of participation in non farm work on the vulnerability of resource poor households to food poverty vulnerability to food poverty is assessed based on expected future food expenditure of households the potential endogeneity problem associated with participation in non farm work by households is overcome using a novel instrumental variable approach analysis of the determinants of expected future food expenditure is done using a standard feasible generalized least squares fgls method demographic and socioeconomic variables location variables and household facilities are included in the model as control variables our study finds that participation in non farm work significantly increased the future expected food consumption thereby alleviating the vulnerability of households to food poverty our study also confirms that current food poverty and future food poverty i e vulnerability to food poverty are not independent from each other non farm work plays a crucial role in providing the means to overcome the risk of food poverty in these resource poor households policies that promote off farm income generating activities such as small businesses and self employment as well as the creation and support of businesses that absorb extra labor from the farm should be encouraged in the study region because households in the study region are exposed to above average levels of hunger and food poverty the study recommends the government of ghana and development partners to take measures that enhance the resilience of these resource poor households

participation and returns in rural nonfarm activities evidence from the kyrgyz republic this article uses two representative household budget surveys from the kyrgyz republic to analyze factors influencing participation and returns from different types of nonfarm activities in 2005 and 2006 we use the double hurdle and heckman models which allow us to demonstrate that a number of variables has different effects on participation and income from nonfarm activities for example residing in remote areas and lack of capital are found to stimulate participation in nonfarm activities but decrease nonfarm income results are robust but using the heckman model seems to produce more accurate results for returns to education and gender under the presence of selection bias overall nonfarm activities are found to be most important for the poor who are pushed out of agriculture due to limited and poor land resources this indicates that equipping poor households to enable them to move towards better remunerative nonfarm activities should be a priority for kyrgyz rural policy makers

income strategies among rural households in mexico the role of off farm activities abstract off farm activities generate on average more than half of farm households incomes in the mexican ejido sector participation in these activities helps reduce poverty and contributes to greater equality in the distribution of income this paper analyzes the determinants of access to off farm sources of income across households we find that education plays a major role in accessing better remunerated nonagricultural employment adults of indigenous ethnic origin suffer from an educational lag and have less access to off farm nonagricultural employment than non indigenous adults at identical educational levels the regional availability of off farm employment strongly affects participation in addition women are differentially limited by distance to urban centers in their ability to gain off farm employment

rural poverty in latin america determinants and exit paths abstract while rural poverty in latin america has declined over the last three decades success has been uneven across countries and rural poverty remains huge reduction in the number of rural relative to urban poor has been mainly the outcome of migration not of successful rural development we show that rural incomes are explained by the asset position of households and the characteristics of the context where assets are used given heterogeneity in asset positions and contexts many strategies to escape poverty consequently exist we identify four paths out of poverty exit agricultural pluriactive and assistance successful rural development to promote the agricultural and pluriactive paths requires a wholesale new approach based on regional development decentralization and participation agricultural technology has a role to play in these two strategies in latin america however the bulk of the benefits from technological change has been captured through indirect effects via the price of food employment creation and contributions to aggregate growth

the determinants of nonfarm income diversification in rural peru abstract this paper shows that in peruvian rural areas there has been substantial growth over the past decade in household employment outside of own farming at present 51 of the net income of rural households comes from these off farm activities and thus they certainly cannot be considered as marginal the reasons households diversify their incomes are several access to public assets such as roads and private assets such as education and credit is an important factor in diversification increasing access to these assets will help rural households to increase their self employment as well as wage employment in the nonfarm sector

rural nonfarm employment and incomes in chile abstract this article analyzes the evolution of rural nonfarm employment rnfe and income in chile during 1990 96 the data used come from the national socioeconomic survey casen and from a household survey undertaken by the authors in two municipalities in 1999 the latter contrasted two zones very different in terms of economic dynamism and rural poverty we show that during the period rnfe and incomes increased 10 and 18 respectively in 1996 reaching 39 of rural employment and 41 of rural incomes the rate of multiactivity the share of households participating in more than one sector was only 20 lower than expected indicating a tendency toward economic specialization in rural income strategies the determinants of such employment are mainly household characteristics in particular variables related to human capital such as the age and gender of the household head and the schooling of the household members although also important are access to credit and physical capital the level of nonfarm income of rural households is determined mainly by the economic context in particular the economic level and dynamism of the overall zone and the quality of the roads it is proposed that policies to develop rnfe should be geared to zone characteristics and should in general favor investments in education in roads and in access to credit moreover households headed by women should be the object of special attention to promote such policies it will be necessary to address important gaps and weaknesses in the public institutional structure

the potential of land rental markets in the process of economic development evidence from china abstract we develop a model of land leasing with agents characterized by unobserved heterogeneity in ability and presence of an off farm labor market in this case decentralized land rental may contribute to equity and efficiency goals and may have several advantages over administrative reallocation the extent to which this is true empirically is explored using data from three of china s poorest provinces land rental markets and administrative reallocation reallocate land to those with lower endowments but the former are more effective in doing so and have a bigger productivity enhancing effect information on hypothetical market participation suggests that reducing transaction costs in land rental markets could help to realize significant additional productivity gains

rural nonagricultural activities in development theory and application abstract this paper focusses on the potentially important role of rural nonagricultural activity in the development process using the hymer resnick z goods model as a point of departure we first show that its pessimistic conclusions are based on rather restrictive assumptions as applied to the colonial period we relax these assumptions indicating the theoretical possibility of a substantially more positive scenario for that period subsequently we analyze the role of z goods traditional and nontraditional in the post independence era again distinguishing between archetypal pessimistic and optimistic cases finally the comparative historical experience of the philippines and taiwan is brought to bear to illustrate the argument empirically

rural nonfarm activities and poverty in the brazilian northeast abstract this paper combines two complementary data sets to present a disaggregated spatial profile of poverty in the brazilian northeast and to investigate the importance of nonagricultural activities for its rural dwellers we present both univariate and multivariate profiles of nonagricultural employment and discuss its determinants while the main occupational difference between the rural poor and the rural nonpoor in brazil seems to be the greater reliance of the former on paid agricultural employment vis a vis own cultivation rather than access to nonagricultural activities the evidence nevertheless suggests that diversification into this growing sector provides both an important complement to the budgets of the poor and possibly a self insurance mechanism against negative shocks despite the substantial heterogeneity of the sector two general findings are robust returns to education are comparatively high and location in relation to urban areas is an important determinant of both employment and earnings in rural nonagricultural activities

rural nonfarm employment and farming household level linkages this article introduces the articles in agricultural economics vol 40 no 2 march 2009 first we introduce their objectives in a brief review of existing literature on developing country trends in rural income diversification in particular rural nonfarm employment rnfe and its impact on farm technology choice in crops and livestock and thus on agricultural modernization and diversification then we preview the key points of the articles which use distinctive primary datasets from albania bulgaria china india mexico nigeria the philippines senegal and vietnam to document the impacts of rnfe and their implications for farm technology and farm activity

does nonagricultural labor relax farmers credit constraints evidence from longitudinal data for vietnam we examine the relationship between participation in nonagricultural labor activities and farming production decisions focusing on the use of inputs using longitudinal data for vietnam from 1993 to 1998 we find that households engaged in nonagricultural labor spend significantly more on seeds services hired labor and livestock inputs this is consistent with the hypothesis that nonagricultural labor income relaxes credit constraints to farming