Agricultural Commercialisation and Food Security in Rural Economies: Malawian Experience

This paper contributes to the debate on the nutrition-related outcomes of cash crop adoption by using a model with essential heterogeneity and a semi-parametric estimation technique. The model explicitly frames non-separability between production and consumption decisions of farming households providing an original test of separability. The empirical application is run using Malawian data. The results imply rational anticipations and decision process of agrarian households relative to the crop portfolio choice, disparate strength of market barriers faced by the farmers, non-separability between production and consumption decisions and a weak transmission from agricultural incomes to higher food expenditures and better diet.     

Informal Employment in Developing Economies: Multiple Heterogeneity

This paper contributes to the literature on the nature of informal employment in developing economies. Drawing on the model with essential heterogeneity, it offers a list of scenarios describing the behavioural patterns which informal workers follow. The list nests not only classical patterns of a rationed formal sector versus an integrated labour market, but also different patterns of rationing. Using non-parametric techniques and data from a few African economies with different levels of development, the paper proposes empirical case studies fitting various informality schemes. Developing economies show disparate patterns of allocation of workers and various patterns of rationing.