Agricultural Production,Dietary Diversity and Climate Variability

Abstract

Nonseparable household modelsoutline the interlinkage between agricultural production and household consumption, yet empirical extensions to investigate the effect of production on dietary diversity and diet composition are limited. While a significant literature has investigated the calorie-income elasticity abstracting from production, this paper provides an empirical application of the nonseparable household model linking the effect of exogenous variation in planting season production decisions via climate variability on household dietary diversity. Using degree days, rainfall and agricultural capital stocks as instruments, the effect of production on household dietary diversity at harvest is estimated. The empirical specifications estimate production effects on dietary diversity using both agricultural revenue and crop production diversity. Significant effects of both agricultural revenue and crop production diversity on dietary diversity are estimated. The dietary diversity-production elasticities imply that a 10 per cent increase in agricultural revenue or crop diversity result in a 1.8 per cent or 2.4 per cent increase in dietary diversity respectively. These results illustrate that agricultural income growth or increased crop diversity may not be sufficient to ensure improved dietary diversity. Increases in agricultural revenue do change diet composition. Estimates of the effect of agricultural income on share of calories by food groups indicate relatively large changes in diet composition. On average, a 10 per cent increase in agricultural revenue makes households 7.2 per cent more likely to consume vegetables, 3.5 per cent more likely to consume fish, and increases the share of tubers consumed by 5.2 per cent.     

Networks of noncompliance: grassroots resistance and sovereignty in militarised Burma

This paper examines repression and state–society conflict in Burma through the lens of rural and urban resistance strategies. It explores networks of noncompliance through which civilians evade and undermine state control over their lives, showing that the military regime's brutal tactics represent not control, but a lack of control. Outside agencies ignore this state–society struggle over sovereignty at their peril: ignoring the interplay of interventions with local politics and militarisation, and claiming a ‘humanitarian neutrality’ which is impossible in practice, risks undermining the very civilians interventions are supposed to help, while facilitating further state repression. Greater honesty and awareness in interventions is required, combined with greater solidarity with villagers' resistance strategies.     

Ecological Context,Concentrated Disadvantage,and Youth Reoffending: Identifying the Social Mechanisms in a Sample of Serious Adolescent Offenders

Serious youthful offenders are presented with a number of significant challenges when trying to make a successful transition from adolescence to adulthood. One of the biggest obstacles for these youth to overcome concerns their ability to desist from further antisocial behavior, and although an emerging body of research has documented important risk and protective factors associated with desistance, the importance of the neighborhoods within which these youth reside has been understudied. Guided by the larger neighborhood effects on crime literature, the current study examines the direct and indirect effects of concentrated disadvantage on youth reoffending among a sample of highly mobile, serious youthful offenders. We use data from Pathways to Desistance, a longitudinal study of serious youthful offenders (N = 1,354; 13.6 % female; 41.4 % African American, 33.5 % Hispanic, 20.2 % White), matched up with 2000 Census data on neighborhood conditions for youth’s main residence location during waves 7 and 8 of the study. These waves represent the time period in which youth are navigating the transition to adulthood (aged 18–22; average age = 20). We estimate structural equation models to determine direct effects of concentrated disadvantage on youth reoffending and also to examine the possible indirect effects working through individual-level mechanisms as specified by theoretical perspectives including social control (e.g., unsupervised peer activities), strain (e.g., exposure to violence), and learning (e.g., exposure to antisocial peers). Additionally, we estimate models that take into account the impact that a change in neighborhood conditions may have on the behavior of youth who move to new residences during the study period. Our results show that concentrated disadvantage is indirectly associated with youth reoffending primarily through its association with exposure to deviant peers. Taking into account youth mobility during the study period produced an additional indirect pathway by which concentrated disadvantage is associated with goal blockage (i.e., the gap between belief in conventional goals and perceived potential to reach those goals), which was then associated with exposure to deviant peers and indirectly, reoffending behavior. We conclude that the neighborhood effects literature offers a promising framework for continued research on understanding the successful transition to adulthood by serious youthful offenders.     

Book review

Richard Nixon, 1999: victory without war

(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988; London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1988)

Anders Stephanson, Kennan and the Art of Foreign Policy. (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1989, pp. xiv + 380, £27.50)

Jacques S. Gansler, Affording Defense. (MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1989, £22.50)

John D. Steinbruner (ed.), Restructuring American Foreign Policy. (The Brookings Institute, Washington, 1989, pp. 260, £8.75 (paperback) & £23.95 (cloth))     

Bullying Perpetration,Moral Disengagement and Need for Popularity: Examining Reciprocal Associations in Adolescence

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Precursors and consequences of bullying have been widely explored, but much remains unclear about the association of moral and motivational factors. This study...     

Utility of the Revised Level of Service Inventory (LSI-R) in Predicting Recidivism After Long-Term Incarceration

Assessing an inmate’s risk for recidivism may become more challenging as the length of incarceration increases. Although the population of Long-Term Inmates (LTIs) is burgeoning, no risk assessment tools have been specifically validated for this group. Based on a sample of 1,144 inmates released in a state without parole, we examine the utility of the Level of Service Inventory-Revised (LSI-R) in assessing risk of general and violent felony recidivism for LTIs (n = 555). Results indicate that (a) the LSI-R moderately predicts general, but not necessarily violent, recidivism, and (b) this predictive utility is not moderated by LTI status, and is based in part on ostensibly dynamic risk factors. Implications for informing parole decision-making and risk management for LTIs are discussed.