Seasonal Hunger and Its Mitigation in North-West Bangladesh

Seasonal hunger may result from seasonality of agriculture when households fail to smooth income and consumption. Using household survey data from the north-west region of Bangladesh, this article examines alternative measures of seasonal hunger, and provides some evidence to support policies and programmes needed to mitigate seasonal hunger. The results suggest that a large majority of food-vulnerable households are the perpetual poor, as opposed to a small percentage of households who are subject to food deprivation only during the lean period. Findings suggest that government safety net programmes and microcredit provide a cushion for the poor to stave off seasonal hunger.     

Rural Electrification and Fertility – Evidence from Côte d'Ivoire

Using household-level survey data from Côte d'Ivoire, this paper investigates the determinants of fertility with a particular focus on the effect of electrification. Based on a Poisson regression model, our analysis suggests a highly significant relationship between fertility and electricity, but one that is only revealed when the model distinguishes between rural and urban areas. Specifically, we find a positive association between electricity and fertility for urban households, contrasted by a negative relationship for rural households. This dichotomy is suggested to reflect the influences of electricity in facilitating child care, offset by its modernising impacts through the provision of information.     

Private Transfers,Informal Loans and Risk Sharing Among Poor Urban Households in Ethiopia

In this paper we examine how households in poor urban areas manage risks by use of transfers and loans. Compared to the sizeable literature dealing with the rural poor the literature on the urban poor is limited. This paper attempts to fill this gap by using household survey data from urban Ethiopia. We find that whereas both instruments – private transfers and informal loans – help households augment low and uncertain incomes, only transfers respond to observable signals of vulnerability, thus likely serving risk sharing purposes, while loans are largely dictated by household demand and resource proxies, therefore smoothing consumption though lacking the risk sharing property.     

Weather Shocks,Agricultural Production and Migration: Evidence from Tanzania

We analyse whether Tanzanian rural households engage in internal migration as a response to weather-related shocks. We hypothesise that, when exposed to such shocks and a consecutive crop yield reduction, rural households use migration as a risk management strategy. Our findings confirm that for an average household, a 1 per cent reduction in agricultural income induced by weather shock increases the probability of migration by 13 percentage points on average within the following year. However, this effect is significant only for households in the middle of wealth distribution, suggesting that the choice of migration as an adaptation strategy depends on initial endowment. What is more, the proposed mechanism applies to households whose income is highly dependent on agriculture, but is not important for diversified livelihoods.     

Cash Transfers Enable Households to Cope with Agricultural Production and Price Shocks: Evidence from Zambia

Climate change is projected to dramatically disrupt rainfall patterns and agricultural yields in sub-Saharan Africa. These shocks to food production can mire farming households in poverty traps. This study investigates whether unconditional cash transfers can help households cope with agricultural production and price shocks. We find that cash empowers poor, rural households facing these negative shocks to employ coping strategies typically used by the non-poor and enables them to substantially increase their food consumption and overall food security. Extending relatively small cash payments unconditionally to the rural poor is a powerful policy option for fostering climate-resilient development.     

Evaluating the Role of Subsidy Reform in Addressing Poverty Levels in Malaysia: A CGE Poverty Framework

Abstract

Malaysia as one of the top subsidised countries around the world has launched to reduce subsidies to capture its development goals. This study, therefore, analyses the effects of the subsidy reform on the macroeconomic, welfare and poverty levels of Malaysia by applying a CGE model. The findings suggest that subsidy removal leads to significant falls in both income and consumption of rural, urban and non-citizen households, and consequently decreases their welfare. However, poverty levels among rural households will most likely increase significantly when compared to urban households due to their relatively low level of income compared to other groups.     

Distributional Effects of Maize Price Increases in Malawi

Abstract

In the wake of highly volatile world prices of staple commodities, we examine the impacts of increases in maize prices on various categories of households in Malawi. Using household-level data, changes in household income are calculated taking into account the net maize production status of the household and food price elasticities estimated from a censored demand system. While maize price increases have unequivocal deleterious effects on the incomes of urban households, rural households experience differential impacts. Net producing households in rural areas benefit from price increases with households above the poverty line obtaining proportionally higher incomes.     

Non-farm Income and Employment in Rural Honduras: Assessing the Role of Locational Factors

This article emphasises the role of locational factors in the determination of rural non-farm (RNF) employment possibilities in rural Honduras. It finds that while RNF wage jobs are predominantly located close to urban areas, RNF self-employment jobs are geographically dispersed around the country, depending on local motors such as a profitable agricultural activity, an important road, or a tourist attraction. In all, the importance of RNF income for rural households (31.3 per cent of total income) suggests that the RNF sector should be considered when designing policies to improve the capabilities and livelihood of the rural Honduran.     

The impact of tariff removal on poverty in Zimbabwe: A computable general equilibrium microsimulation

The paper uses a microsimulation computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to study the impact on poverty of a complete removal of tariffs in Zimbabwe. The model incorporates 14,006 households derived from the 1995 Poverty Assessment Study Survey. This paper's novelty is that it is one among a small group of papers that incorporates individual households in the CGE model as opposed to having representative households. Using individual households allows for a comprehensive analysis of poverty. The complete removal of tariffs favours exporting sectors. Poverty falls in the economy while inequality hardly changes. The results differ between rural and urban areas.     

Exploring Seasonal Poverty Traps: The ‘Six-Week Window’ in Southern Malawi

Conventional wisdom in Malawi holds that seasonal food deficits force smallholders to hire out their labour to buy food during the critical first six weeks after planting, thereby reducing maize yields on their own fields and reinforcing poverty. This model was tested empirically for the Blantyre Shire Highlands using evidence from a panel survey and household case studies. Results showed no significant relationship between the supply of hired labour (ganyu) and the timeliness of weeding for maize, and that timely weeding was not a significant determinant of household maize deficits. This puzzle is explained by the diversification of the rural economy that has allowed households to develop alternative livelihood strategies to cope with maize deficits. Livelihood diversity helped poor households avoid the seasonal poverty trap and also helps explain the paradox of why the poorest region in Malawi escaped the 2001–2002 famine.     

Food Intake and the Role of Food Self-Provisioning

This article investigates the role of food self-provisioning for the intake of nutrients of households in Mongolia. We analyse nutritional outcomes within and across urban wage employees, rural households with small herds, and pastoralists with large herds. Food self-provisioning significantly affects dietary quality and quantity. Farming food crops improves the nutrient intake. In contrast, animal husbandry increases the intake of calories and nutrients from animal sources, while it decreases the intake of carbohydrates and nutrients from vegetal sources. This finding suggests household-specific market failures due to remoteness exist. Last, exposure to a weather shock does not affect households’ calorie intake.     

Urban Proximity and Spatial Pattern of Land Use and Development in Rural India

Using non-parametric methods and India Human Development Survey 2004–2005, this study analyses the effect of urban proximity in terms of distance and connectivity on spatial pattern of land-use and development in the context of rural India. We find that, in urban surroundings, rural areas have diversified economic activities, intensive agriculture with higher spending on various inputs, higher economic wellbeing in terms of wages, income and consumption expenditure. We also document that transport and tele-connectivity are important for improved rural-urban linkages and changing rural landscape. These findings suggest that urban settlements are keys to development and inclusive growth in rural areas.     

Agricultural Diversity and Child Stunting in Nepal

Abstract

This article investigates empirical connections between agriculture and child nutrition in Nepal. We augment the standard approach to explaining child nutrition outcomes by including information about household level agricultural production characteristics, including indicators of agricultural diversity. Data from the 2010/2011 Nepal Living Standards Survey (NLSS) are used in a series of regression models to explain stunting outcomes and variation in height-for-age Z-scores among 1,769 children 0–59 months of age. Results highlight the relative importance of overall agricultural yields, specific crop groups, and the consumption of own-production as factors correlated with long-term nutrition among children of different age groups. We find a small positive association between the degree of commercial market-orientation of households and child HAZ, but only among children under 24 months of age.     

Social Network Effects on Mobile Money Adoption in Uganda

This study analyses social network effects on the adoption of mobile money among rural households in Uganda. We estimate conditional logistic regressions controlling for correlated effects and other information sources. Results show that mobile money adoption is positively influenced by the size of the social network with which information is exchanged. We further find that this effect is particularly pronounced for non-poor households. Thus, while social networks represent an important target for policy-makers aiming to promote mobile money technology, the poorest households are likely to be excluded and require more tailored policy programmes and assistance.     

Assets and Poverty Traps in Rural Bangladesh

Using longitudinal survey from rural Bangladesh, this article examines the determinants of land and asset accumulation over time and explores why some households may be trapped in asset poverty. Non-parametric and parametric methods are used to discern the shape of the asset accumulation path, and whether unique or multiple equilibria exist. We find evidence for concavity of the dynamic asset frontier but no evidence for multiple equilibria. It is suggested that the existence of well-functioning factor markets in rural Bangladesh and elsewhere in South Asia explain the contrasts between our results and those for several African countries.     

How Accurate is Food-for-Work Self-Targeting in the Presence of Imperfect Factor Markets? Evidence from Ethiopia

Effective targeting of transfers is a key issue in public policy to combat poverty. Much faith is presently placed in self-targeting mechanisms such as public employment schemes supported by food-for-work transfers. Where targeting errors have been observed, these are usually attributed to mismanagement of key operational details, such as the project's wage rate. Using a unique data set from rural Ethiopia, we demonstrate that targeting errors may also have structural causes in some low-income countries. We hypothesise that imperfect factor markets generate a predictable dispersion across households in reservation wage rates that breaks down the unconditionally positive relation between income and shadow wages on which the theory of self-targeting public employment programmes rests. Our results confirm that the inaccuracy of FFW targeting stems from the fact that, in rural Ethiopia, higher income households are endowed with more labour per unit of land or animal. Due to poor factor markets in land and livestock these labour-abundant households have lower marginal labour productivity on farm, thereby depressing the reservation wage rates they find acceptable for FFW participation.     

Farm productivity and rural poverty in India

Armed with new data, we return to an old question from the pages of this journal: to what extent do India's rural poor share in agricultural growth? Combining data from 24 household sample surveys spanning 35 years with other sources, we estimate a model of the joint determination of consumption‐poverty measures, agricultural wages, and food prices. We find that higher farm productivity brought both absolute and relative gains to poor rural households. A large share of the gains was via wages and prices, though these effects took time. The benefits to the poor were not confined to those near the poverty line.     

The Impact of Shocks on Gender-differentiated Asset Dynamics in Bangladesh

This study investigates changes in assets owned by the household head, his spouse, or jointly in response to shocks in rural agricultural households in Bangladesh with household survey panel data. Looking at changes within households over time, we find that weather shocks adversely affect the asset holdings of household heads relatively strongly, while predicted negative shocks more strongly lead to assets of both spouses being drawn down. The results, furthermore, suggest that jointly owned assets are not easily sold in response to shocks, and that women’s asset holdings and coping strategies are shaped by their lower involvement in agriculture.     

If They Grow It,Will They Eat and Grow? Evidence from Zambia on Agricultural Diversity and Child Undernutrition

Abstract

In this article we address a gap in our understanding of how household agricultural production diversity affects the diets and nutrition of young children living in rural farming communities in sub-Saharan Africa. The specific objectives of this article are to assess: (1) the association between household agricultural production diversity and child dietary diversity; and (2) the association between household agricultural production diversity and child nutritional status. We use household survey data collected from 3,040 households as part of the Realigning Agriculture for Improved Nutrition (RAIN) intervention in Zambia. The data indicate low agricultural diversity, low dietary diversity and high levels of chronic malnutrition overall in this area. We find a strong positive association between production diversity and dietary diversity among younger children aged 6–23 months, and significant positive associations between production diversity and height for age Z-scores and stunting among older children aged 24–59 months.     

Income portfolios in rural Ethiopia and Tanzania: Choices and constraints

The article analyses the different income portfolios of households using survey data from rural Ethiopia and rural Tanzania. It suggests that the different portfolios held by households cannot be explained by their behaviour towards risk as is usually suggested. It is better explained by differences in ability, location, and in access to credit. A logit analysis of households with different income portfolios, controlling for the effects of location, suggests that entry into high‐return activities is determined by investment in particular skills or by access to capital.