Joint production and consumption in traditional households: Fuelwood and crop residues in two districts in Nepal

Forest conversion by agricultural households is the leading cause of deforestation. Yet we know little about agricultural household use of forest and tree products. This article measures household production of and demand for fuelwood and fuel substitutes in two districts in Nepal. Women play a larger role in collection in the district dependant on production from common forestlands. Men and agricultural capital are more important inputs in the district dependant on production from private lands. The article also measures demand elasticities for fuelwood, combustible agricultural residues, and improved stoves (a technological substitute), each by household income group. All price and income demand elasticities are less than one. The substitution elasticities between residues and fuelwood are less than one. Residues are more important substitutes for low income households and improved stoves are more important substitutes for high income households.     

Thinking Inside the Box: A Closer Look at Financial Inclusion and Household Income

Using national representative household finance survey data covering more than 6200 Chinese households, we first construct a new multidimensional indicator for financial inclusion. Then we examine the effect of financial inclusion on household income. Our results elicit several findings. First, financial inclusion has a strong positive effect on household income. This effect can be found across all households with different levels of income. Second, low-income households are found to benefit more from financial inclusion than high and mid-level income ones. We argue that, in this sense, financial inclusion helps reduce income inequality.     

Joint care and joint funding

One of the most important possible sources of conflict of interest between central and local governments is difference in political preferences with respect to, for example, income redistribution. If local governments are of a different political composition than the central government, they may be inclined to reinforce or weaken the redistribution policies as pursued by the central government. We empirically test whether local governments in the Netherlands do pursue income redistribution policies over and above the central government's redistribution policy and we find that the distribution of the local tax burden over the various household types differs according to the political composition of the local council.     

Price policy,poverty, and power within rural West African households

This paper explores the impact of agricultural price policy on poverty in West Africa, a region in which prices are an important tool for raising rural household incomes. A game-theoretic, collective model of household income generation and resource allocation is developed that incorporates three features typical of West African rural households: preference heterogeneity among women and men, individual resource control, and power-mediated bargaining over resource control in the face of changes in households' economic environments. To explore price effects, the model is used to simulate the income impacts of large increases in cotton prices accompanying fast-paced agricultural liberalisation in Burkina Faso in the 1980s. The paper shows that where resources are controlled individually by household members, rather than pooled, Pareto efficiency in income generation does not hold. The impact of agricultural price policy on poverty is mediated by bargaining over resource control within households. Both the relative bargaining power of women and men and the degree of preference heterogeneity between them play fundamental roles in the outcome of such bargaining. The results point to a lower ability of households to take advantage of price incentives and thereby raise their incomes than a unitary household model, in which preferences do not differ and resources are pooled, predicts. They suggest that the effectiveness of price policy in reducing poverty in the region would be enhanced by taking into account the incentive structure within households as well as individual household members' ability to bargain over the benefit and cost streams flowing from price changes.     

Bureaucratic Corruption and Income: Evidence from the Land Sector in Bangladesh

We examine, for the first time, the effects of corruption on income using household survey data from a developing country. Estimating the effects of corruption on income is challenging because of the simultaneous relationship between the two variables. We use a two-step instrumental variable approach to identify the effects of corruption on income. We find that after adjusting for simultaneity bias the act of bribery reduces income and that higher bribes have a negative effect on income. Taken together, our results provide a possible explanation why a vicious cycle between corruption and income inequality does not exist in the land sector in Bangladesh.     

Transfer payments,mothers' income and child health in ecuador

We evaluate the impact of the Bono Solidario, a transfer payment scheme in Ecuador, on children's nutritional status. In addition to testing for pure income effects, because the programme transferred money to mothers of young children, we test whether mother's income has a stronger effect on children's heights and weights than ordinary household income. We draw two main conclusions: that the Bono Solidario transfer payment scheme has had a statistically significant but quite modest impact on children's nutritional status, and that this impact is no different than any other income effect on height and weight. In particular, the fact that the Bono is transferred to mothers has not made it more efficacious at reducing malnutrition than other household income.     

Disease,Microdams and Natural Resources in Tigray,Ethiopia: Impacts on Productivity and Labour Supplies

We examine the effects of water microdams and ensuing waterborne diseases on household decisions in Tigray, Ethiopia, where the government implemented a water resource development programme two decades ago. We find microdams increase productivity of both fuelwood collection and crop production, but the costs of these dams to households can be significant. In villages close to dams, disease prevalence is higher and all household labour categories spend more time sick, and more time is spent by male and female adults caring for sick family members. These can cost the household anywhere in the region of 150–250 Birr per season, depending on the type of labour diversion and the productivity of labour. Males are most significant here. Removing their time from production results in 40–60 per cent higher productivity and income losses compared to diversion of female labour. Sick households also spend significantly more money on health care, especially when male and female adults are sick.     

Risk-adjusted poverty in Argentina: measurement and determinants

This paper presents a methodology for adjusting measures of income and poverty for the risk faced by a household. The approach draws on the standard economic concept of risk aversion, and it is based on the intuition that households will prefer a steady stream of income to a variable one with the same mean. Relying on a Constant Relative Risk Aversion utility function, we use panel data for Argentina to compute risk-adjusted income and poverty measures. At the aggregate level, we find that taking risk into account substantially increases the poverty headcount. Moreover, a regression analysis suggests that many household characteristics are correlated not only with the average income of the household over time, but also with its variability.     

Economic growth,income inequality and poverty in china under economic reforms

China's gross domestic product (GDP) more than quadrupled between 1978 and 1996 under economic reforms. Per capita disposable incomes more than tripled in the cities and almost quadrupled in the rural areas. However, rapid economic growth brought about large income inequality which slowed down poverty reduction. In 1995, there were still 70–170 million people living in poverty. This article aims to assess the relationship between economic growth, income inequality and poverty using both secondary and household survey data. The main findings are (1) urban/rural divide and spatial inequality are two major factors accounting for overall income inequality; (2) non‐wage and non‐farm incomes are more unequally distributed than wage and farm incomes; and (3) the incidence of poverty is very sensitive to the changes in per capita income and inequality.     

Off the Hook: Measuring the Impact of Mobile Telephone Use on Economic Development of Households in Uganda using Copulas

It is now widely understood that mobile phone use has beneficial effects on development in developing countries, but little is known about the effects at the household level. We examine the impact of mobile telephone use on household income using a unique cross-sectional data set from Uganda. We use a novel econometric technique to handle endogeneity, which models the correlation between the endogenous regressor and the error term with copulas. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that the copula method has been applied in the economic development literature. We find a positive impact of mobile phone use on income.     

Rising Inequality in Mexico: Household Characteristics and Regional Effects

We use an empirical framework to identify the contributions of microeconomic factors to the sharp rise in household (per capita) income inequality in Mexico between 1984 and 1994. Results indicate that changes in returns to household characteristics, in particular changes in returns to education, are responsible for about half of the increase in the Gini coefficient. The deteriorating conditions in rural areas relative to the urban areas and of the southern region relative to other regions account for another fourth of the increase in the Gini.     

Labour-Intensive Jobs for Women and Development: Intra-household Welfare Effects and Its Transmission Channels

We examine the welfare impacts of poor women getting low-skilled jobs and find large positive income, consumption and poverty effects at household and individual levels. However, the women workers, their husbands and oldest daughters reduced their leisure, but the women to a much larger extent. Investigating the transmission mechanisms suggests that the impacts did not only go through income effects, but also through a bargaining effect. Getting the job improved the bargaining power of the wife through several mechanisms, which in turn added substantially to the positive impact on household consumption.     

Are pre‐schoolers from female‐headed households less malnourished? A comparative analysis of results from Ghana and Kenya

This article compares household income level and pre‐schooler weight‐for‐age across household groupings that are differentiated by female headship variables which are reflective of the heterogeneity of female‐headed households. Data from Kenya indicate that it is the interaction of income and female headship at low‐income levels which promotes pre‐schooler nutritional status. For Ghana, incomes have to be quite large (in the upper tercile of the distribution) before a reduction in the child's likelihood of having a low weight‐for‐age is achieved through further income increases. We argue that an absence of complementary child health inputs is more likely for households in the Ghana sample, and that in this type of environment, differences in nurturing patterns, as proxied by headship status, will have a muted impact on child nutrition.     

Rural household livelihood strategies in a Sri Lankan village

This paper examines the household income‐generating strategies in a Kandyan village. Pushed by population growth, heads of households are forced to enter into increasingly complex relations with the outside world. Those with the initial advantage of larger landholdings are able to educate their children, find more secure sources of outside income and invest in agriculture productivity. The tenants and landless are forced to sell their labour, often outside of the village. The critical contacts for both owner‐operator and other households are increasingly channelled through local political leaders, which adds political differences to economic tensions.     

Why Give it Away When You Need it Yourself? Understanding Public Support for Foreign Aid in China

In this study we examine the determinants of public support for foreign aid in China. We find that while political ideology and sense of national identity are the most important determinants of support for foreign aid, several demographic characteristics, such as age, gender and income, are also important. We also find that those living in the lower income western provinces and in provinces with higher poverty rates express less support for giving foreign aid. We draw policy implications from the findings for better targeting engagement strategies designed to garner support for foreign aid.     

Cows,Missing Milk Markets,and Nutrition in Rural Ethiopia

Abstract

In rural economies encumbered by significant market imperfections, farming decisions may partly be motivated by nutritional considerations, in addition to income and risk factors. These imperfections create the potential for farm assets to have direct dietary impacts on nutrition in addition to any indirect effects via income. We test this hypothesis for the dairy sector in rural Ethiopia, finding that cow ownership raises children’s milk consumption, increases linear growth, and reduces stunting. We also find that household cow ownership is less important where there is good access to local markets, suggesting that market development can substitute for household cow ownership.     

Are There Gender Differences in Demand for Index-Based Livestock Insurance?

Risk management plays a role in avoiding and escaping chronic poverty throughout the world, particularly for women, who are disproportionately negatively affected by shocks. Using three years of household survey data, administrative records and qualitative interviews, this paper examines the relationship between gender and demand for index-based livestock insurance (IBLI) among pastoralists in southern Ethiopia. IBLI appears to be equitably accessed by men and women alike and we find limited evidence of gender-differentiated demand for IBLI. We also find only modest differences associated with age and share of income from livestock.     

Synergies between Different Types of Agricultural Technologies in the Kenyan Small Farm Sector

Sustainable intensification of agriculture will have to build on various innovations, but synergies between different types of technologies are not yet sufficiently understood. We use representative data from small farms in Kenya and propensity score matching to compare effects of input-intensive technologies and natural resource management practices on household income. When adopted in combination, positive income effects tend to be larger than when individual technologies are adopted alone. The largest gains occur when improved seeds are adopted together with organic manure and zero tillage. These results point at important synergies between plant breeding technologies and natural resource management practices.     

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.     

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.