Green revolution and labour demand in rice farming: The case of central Luzon, 1966–90

While the adoption of modern rice varieties (MVs) increased labour requirements for crop care and other activities, it might have induced the adoption of labour‐saving technologies. Thus, whether the net impact of MV adoption on labour demand is significantly positive is still debated in the green revolution literature. Using farm‐level survey data collected in Central Luzon from 1966 to 1990, this study estimated simultaneously the labour‐saving technology adoption and the labour demand functions. We found, among other things, that MVs increased labour demand significantly without inducing the widespread adoption of labour‐saving technologies.     

Population growth and the adoption of new technology in colonial Taiwanese agriculture

This paper argues that one response to the mortality decline in Taiwan and the consequent rapid population and labour force growth which increased the labour—land ratio was the adoption of a new labour using output‐increasing variety of rice. The differential rates of adoption of the new rice in the seven prefectures of Taiwan and across time are analysed in terms of the lagged natural increase in population, i.e. increased in the labour‐land ratio. The results are then contrasted with the Malthusian model.     

Diversification and livelihood sustainability in a semi-arid environment: A case study from southern Ethiopia

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 portfolio adoption.     

The ‘green revolution’ in South Asian ricefields: Environment and production

Many of the arguments on the ‘green revolution’ in rice‐growing in South Asia are concerned with socio‐economic factors in the adoption of the new technology and with unequal distributive consequences. This essay, while not denying the importance of these arguments, shows that the varying natural environment in South Asia still exercises a critical and differential effect on the adoption of new varieties, with implications for equity and lessons for plant‐breeders and others.     

In the Same Boat,but not Equals: The Heterogeneous Effects of Parental Income on Child Labour

This paper examines the impact of parental income on child labour. The empirical literature has found conflicting results regarding whether poverty leads parents to send their children to work. Most of this literature, however, treats child labourers as a single homogeneous group, ignoring differences among working children in work intensity, hazard exposure, and type of employer. This paper argues that accounting for the heterogeneity in child’s working conditions may explain the conflicting results in the literature. Specifically, the existence of this heterogeneity may reflect heterogeneity in parents’ perceptions about the returns to child’s work, and hence in parental reasons to send their children to work. To test this hypothesis, I estimate the effects of parental income on child labour for various working conditions, using data from the 2010 Egypt National Child Labour Survey. This dataset provides rich information on the working conditions of child labourers. The findings show that the effect of parental income on child labour is minimal among children who work in non-hazardous jobs, jobs that are not highly physical, or in family businesses. In contrast, higher parental income does decrease the likelihood of child labour in market work, jobs that are physical and hazardous jobs.     

Cross-Country Disparity in Agricultural Productivity: Quantifying the Role of Modern Seed Adoption

Inequality of agricultural labour productivity across the developing world has increased substantially over the past 40 years. This article asks: to what extent did the diffusion of Green Revolution seed varieties contribute to increasing agricultural labour productivity disparity across the developing countries? We find that 22 per cent of cross-country variation in agricultural labour productivity can be attributed to the diffusion of high-yielding seed varieties across countries, and that the impact of such diffusion differed significantly across regions. We discuss the implications of these findings for policy directed at increasing agricultural labour productivity in the developing world.     

The economic impact of genetically modified cotton on South African smallholders: Yield,profit and health effects

Results of a large-scale survey of resource-poor smallholder cotton farmers in South Africa over three years conclusively show that adopters of Bt cotton have benefited in terms of higher yields, lower pesticide use, less labour for pesticide application and substantially higher gross margins per hectare. These benefits were clearly related to the technology, and not to preferential adoption by farmers who were already highly efficient. The smallest producers are shown to have benefited from adoption of the Bt variety as much as, if not more than, larger producers. Moreover, evidence from hospital records suggests a link between declining pesticide poisonings and adoption of the Bt variety.     

Rice‐burning and the green revolution in northern Ghana

The introduction of high yielding varieties into northern Ghana has given rise to a form of mechanised farming of rice in the river valleys. Much of this land was used only for occasional pasture; now it is cultivated by civil servants, military men, traders and farmers from the locality and from neighbouring areas, who have been encouraged by government policy and by the prospect of private gain. In the course of establishing these large farms, the system of land tenure has been radically changed, since written evidence of registration is necessary to raise a loan and to be produced in case of dispute. These changes, combined with the more direct effects of social differentiation, have resulted in the burning of rice and the destruction of machinery.     

The impact of household income on child labour in urban Turkey

Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate the determinants of child labour in urban Turkey with a special reference to low household income or poverty as one of its root causes. Studies done elsewhere have produced mixed results which necessitate the relationship to be studied at country-level. The data from urban Turkey indicate that children from poorer families stand at a higher risk of employment. This finding is confirmed using various measures of household material well-being. Simulation results have further pointed out that current interventions are not likely to produce a sizeable impact on the child labour problem.     

Transforming Staple Food Value Chains in Africa: The Case of Teff in Ethiopia

We study changes in the last decade in the teff value chain, Ethiopia’s most important staple food crop by area and value. Upstream, there is increasing adoption of modern inputs and new varieties – especially by those farmers living close to cities – leading to higher land productivity. Mid- and downstream, we find improved processing costs and increasing willingness-to-pay for convenience and quality, as illustrated by the emergence of one-stop retail shops and the rise of more expensive teff varieties. Because of the large numbers of teff producers and consumers, this transformation has important implications on the country’s food security.     

The personal and the factor distributions of income in a cross-section of countries

The shares of capital and labour in national income vary substantially both over time and across countries. This paper shows that the factor distribution of income is an essential determinant of the personal distribution of income. We use cross-country and panel data for a group of developed and developing countries to show that a larger labour share is associated with a lower Gini coefficient of personal incomes. This effect is not only statistically significant but also economically important. An increase in the labour share in Mexico to that observed in the US would reduce the Gini coefficient of the former by between two and five points.     

Is There a Social Kuznets Curve? The Influence of Labour Standards on Inequality

This study empirically investigates the impact of core labour standards on income inequality for a range of 90 countries from 1990–2000. A synthetic index of labour standards is computed by means of a Multiple Correspondence Analysis and no significant correlation is found with the Gini index. One of the reasons pointed out is that the effective implementation of core labour standards depends on the quality of the country's political and legal systems. Using instrumental variables in a TSLS model, we found an inverse ‘U’ shaped curve between the new endogenous index of core labour standards and income inequality.     

A Little Help May Be No Help at All: Size of Scholarships and Child Labour in Nepal

In the empirical literature on child labour and income transfer programmes, evidence has been lacking on whether (and how) the size of transfer influences the impact on child labour. This paper finds significant size effects in the impact of scholarship-based transfers on child labour in Nepal. High-value scholarships decrease 8–16 year-old girls’ total work hours by one-third, largely reducing their hours in paid and unpaid economic activities with little impact on domestic chores. Low-value scholarships have no impact at all. The findings elucidate the scope for calibrating transfer size to achieve greater child labour impacts in developing countries.     

The Welfare Effects of Balance of Payments Reform: A Micro-Macro Simulation of the Cost of Rent-Seeking

This article proposes a methodology for analysing the effect of balance of payments liberalisation on measures of poverty and distribution and applies it to the case of Jamaica in the 1990s. The methodology consists of a macro-micro simulation in which a CGE model provides labour market outcomes, which in turn are used to manipulate the sectoral allocation of employment to generate the income distribution consistent with the new labour market outcome. In the application to Jamaica, we find that the reallocation of resources away from rent-seeking activities in the presence of exchange controls is significant and has large macroeconomic effects. Opening up of the current account has little effect on poverty, but liberalisation of the capital account reduces poverty, especially amongst the very poor. Neither policy change taken separately, nor the combination of the two, has more than a negligible effect on the distribution of income.     

Short‐run changes in rural income inequality: A decomposition analysis

This paper quantitatively assesses the principal determinants of the rather dramatic decline in income inequality observed in rural India between 1968–69 and 1970–71. A simple form of decomposition analysis is used to demonstrate that the most important effects of changes in weather, in technology, and in other factors on income distribution are those which occur rather indirectly as a result of overall tightening of the labour market. Whereas in periods of generally bad weather, workers from high‐income households apparently ‘crowd‐out’ those from low‐income households, in periods of good weather income effects induce the former to consume leisure, thereby opening up more jobs for workers from low‐income households.     

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.     

Redistribution,consumer demand and employment in Kenyan furniture‐making

Earlier macro‐level studies of the secondary employment and income effects of an income redistribution ignored a key element in the income distribution‐technology‐employment hypothesis. No account was taken of the diversity of factor proportions within each industry, which is reflected in the size distribution of firms. This case study has been addressed at the level of a particular product group. From an expenditure survey the poor of Kenya are revealed to buy furniture predominantly from the smaller, more labour‐intensive firms in the industry. Consequently, a policy of income redistribution through growth will further the expansion of employment and earnings opportunities in the low income sector of the industry.     

Risk management in gathering economies

This article extends the literature on the interplay of environmental risk and welfare into the setting of coastal fisheries gathering. It reviews the sources of covariate and idiosyncratic production risk creating income shocks to gatherers and discusses the institutions that best mediate shocks across different settings. We rely upon a principal-agent framework between larva-gathering agents employed by boat-owning principals who supply seed to shrimp farms. Two datasets from a Central American fishery are used to test the hypotheses concerning contractual performance across environments. Which contract provides the highest mean income (and variation) depends upon the underlying production catch data. In the farm production records dataset with strong catch trends, a simplified relative payments contract would perform better in reducing income risk in locations of stronger covariate shocks, but at the price of significantly lower mean earnings for gatherers. In areas of idiosyncratic shocks, such as localised water pollution, piece-rate contracts would perform better. Objective risk exposure to gatherers was lower under relative payments, supporting the hypotheses. Actual results in the Honduran case were conditioned by imperfect labour markets and the substitutability of hatchery larva.     

The labour market and income distribution in post-socialist economies – Non-obvious regularities

The goal of this paper is to analyse the major processes which took place on the labour market of post-socialist economies and to check what the outcomes of thee mechanisms used for income distribution. Few findings are especially interesting because of its counterintuitive character. First, there is a “strange” relation between the depth of recession and scale of rise in unemployment. Countries which suffered from quite moderate fall in GDP experienced high level of unemployment, while the economies which noticed substantial recession were able to sustain very limited unemployment rate. One can also expect that economy which suffered from sharp rise in unemployment should be the one in which income inequalities deteriorate in the biggest extend. Again, this is not what has happened in post-socialist countries. Economies like Russia or Ukraine which noticed quite limited rise in unemployment rates, experienced the highest deterioration in the income inequalities indicators. Finally, closer look at labour markets of EU New Member states shows that social cohesion in these countries is a much bigger problem than it appears from simple Gini coefficients.     

The Effect of Food Price Changes on Child Labour: Evidence from Uganda

Most people in developing countries spend up to 60 per cent of their income on food, even though the majority of them are farmers. Hence, a change in food prices affects both their revenue as well as expenditure, and it may thereby affect their labour market decisions. Using the Uganda National Panel Survey and monthly regional food prices, this paper examines the effect of changes in food prices on child labour. The empirical evidence shows that an increase in food prices is linked to an increase in the probability and the intensity of child labour. We find the effect of food price increases to be smaller among landowning households, which is consistent with the view that landowning households can better compensate for price shocks. The empirical results suggest that periodic shocks in food prices may have longer lasting effects on economic development in developing countries through the channel of child labour.