for Malawi, 2010; Oyekale & Gedio, 2012), and the strong link between maize production and food security (World Bank, 2007). Households’ mean consumption per capita in 2013 was approximately USD 396 while mean income per capita was USD 188.<sup>4</sup> As has been amply noted elsewhere, income per capita figures are often lower than consumption per capita figures, largely thought due to under‐reporting of some income sources. Consumption is traditionally considered to be a good indicator of the individuals’ capability to achieve a certain living standard and is usually better captured than income in household surveys, but we include income to evaluate whether different explanatory factors are associated with vulnerability to income poverty. The three variables are related primarily through crop production, since part of income is comprised of the value of crop production, and part of consumption is comprised of consumption from own production. The correlation amongst the three ranges from .48 and .57, with the highest correlation between maize harvest and income per capita.

# **_Well‐being threshold_**

To identify the poor, we use the 2010 MWK 37,002 consumption per capita per year threshold identified by the National Statistical Office as the poverty line (NSO, 2012). Their calculation is based on the cost of a basket of food that provides sufficient daily calorie intake plus an allowance for basic non‐food needs (NSO, 2012). Corrected for 132% inflation between 2010 and 2013, the poverty threshold then becomes 2013 MWK 85,845. We apply this same poverty line for both consumption and income. Because income per capita is much lower than consumption per capita, this results in far more households being below the poverty line when using the income per capita figures at the consumption poverty line. Thus, we generate an income poverty line that results in the same proportion of poor households as under consumption per capita. For maize harvest, we take the median level of maize harvest across both 2010 and 2013 (100 kg per capita per year) as the “poverty” line.

Table 1 below gives the poverty transitions for rural households between 2010 and 2013. The percent of rural households that escaped poverty over the period was greater than households who fell into poverty for overall consumption, food consumption and income per capita. The maize harvest per capita transition matrix shows that a relatively similar proportion of households transitioned from above to below median maize harvests as those who transitioned from below to above median values, as expected.

**Table 1. Poverty transitions between 2010 and 2013 for selected welfare indicators**

|**Welfare Indicator**|**Stay**<br>**non‐poor**|**Become**<br>**non‐poor**|**Become**<br>**poor**|**Stay**<br>**poor**|**Total**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|Consumption|47.3|19.7|13.2|19.8|100|
|Food Consumption|43.3|23.4|14.4|18.9|100|
|Income|48.7|21.5|13.0|16.8|100|
|Maize Harvest|33.5|17.0|16.4|33.1|100|

_Source_ : Authors estimations

> 4 Because the analysis performed in the paper is at the household, we report descriptive statistics on household‐level variables, including poverty and vulnerability rates, at the household level.  The poverty and vulnerability rates would be higher if calculated at the individual level, since households with more members have lower per capita consumption, income and maize harvests.

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