Xinshen Diao

Bio: Xinshen Diao is an academic researcher from International Food Policy Research Institute. The author has contributed to research in topics: Agriculture & Poverty. The author has an hindex of 46, co-authored 251 publications receiving 6568 citations. Previous affiliations of Xinshen Diao include United States Department of Agriculture & University of Minnesota.

The Role of Agriculture in Development: Implications for Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract: "This paper provides a nuanced perspective on debates about the potential for Africa's smallholder agriculture to stimulate growth and alleviate poverty in an increasingly integrated world. In particular, the paper synthesizes both the traditional theoretical literature on agriculture's role in the development process and discusses more recent literature that remains skeptical about agriculture's development potential for Africa. In order to examine in greater detail the relevance for Africa of both the “old” and “new” literatures on agriculture, the paper provides a typology of African countries based on their stage of development, agricultural conditions, natural resources, and geographic location... More broadly, the paper demonstrates that conventional theory on the role of agriculture in the early stage of development remains relevant to Africa. While the continent does face new and different challenges than those encountered by Asian and Latin American countries during their successful transformations, most African countries cannot significantly reduce poverty, increase per capita incomes, and transform into modern economies without focusing on agricultural development." from Authors' Abstract

Agricultural Growth and Investment Options for Poverty Reduction in Rwanda

Abstract: Agricultural development strategies that are put forward by individual African countries delineate priorities for actions to enhance agricultural and overall development. Understanding alternative agricultural growth options and their linkages with poverty reduction and prioritizing agricultural investments are the two key components of an agricultural development strategy. However, the relationships between growth and poverty reduction and between targeted growth and required public investment are not straightforward, and solid research is needed to support an evidence-based policymaking process. This monograph provides such a study using Rwanda as a case. An economywide model is developed for the study and is applied to the most recent economic data and public investment information to analyze agricultural growth and investment options for poverty reduction in Rwanda. The monograph shows that the country's targeted agricultural subsector growth, if achieved, would allow Rwanda to meet the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) target of 6 percent annual growth in agricultural gross domestic product (GDP) by 2020. With comparable growth in the nonagricultural sector, rapid economic growth would result in the national poverty rate falling to 35.5 percent by 2015, a reduction of 25 percentage points over the 1999 rate. Although the majority of rural households benefit from rapid agricultural growth, the most vulnerable households—those with very small landholdings and with few opportunities to participate in the production of export crops—appear to benefit less. The report shows that economywide growth led by the agricultural sector has a greater effect on poverty reduction than does the same level of growth driven by the nonagricultural sector. Among agricultural subsectors, growth driven mainly by increased productivity in staple crops has the greatest poverty reduction effect. The report points out that meeting the CAADP 6 percent agricultural growth target in Rwanda will require the allocation of public resources to the agricultural sector to rise significantly and reach 10 percent of the total government budget. Estimated economywide returns to public investment in agriculture are high and will come not only from growth in the agricultural sector. Through linkage and multiplier effects, one dollar of public investment in agricultural staples generates US$3.63 of increased agricultural GDP (AgGDP) and US$0.21 of increased nonagricultural GDP. In the agricultural sector, economywide returns from investing in staple foods, including staple crops and livestock, are much higher than those from investing in export crops. But even though the investment returns are high, the planned amount of investment in Rwanda will not be enough to significantly improve the current low yields of many foodcrops in the country. The average yield for maize will stay at a low level in 2015—a level already reached by many African countries today. The report also points out the trade-offs between rapid growth and low economywide returns from investing in the export sector. Targeting the export sector through public policy and investment will bring double-digit growth to the sector, measured by an increase in GDP; however, economywide returns to such investments are low. The weak linkages of the export sector with other economic activities on both the supply and demand sides reduce the role of the export sector as a key driver in both overall economic growth and poverty reduction. Nevertheless, the export sector has often attracted more government attention than has the agricultural sector in many African countries, with favorable policies and investment support. The findings of this report, which show relatively low economywide returns to public spending in the export sector and relatively less poverty reduction from growth led by exports, further emphasize the importance of broad-based agricultural growth. Agricultural development strategy, including effective public investment strategy, has to focus on growth that benefits a majority of farmers. Only such a strategy can be expected to be efficient and effective for growth, poverty reduction, and economic development in general.

The European commission

Abstract: 2 1 The innovative transport systems and the CityMobil project 10 1.1 The research questions 10 2 The state of art in the field of automatic transport systems 12 2.1 Case studies and demand studies for innovative transport systems 12 3 The design and implementation of surveys 14 3.1 Definition of experimental design 14 3.2 Questionnaire design and delivery 16 3.3 First analyses on the collected sample 18 4 Calibration of Logit Multionomial demand models 21 4.1 Methodology 21 4.2 Calibration of the “full” model. 22 4.3 Calibration of the “final” model 24 4.4 The demand analysis through the final Multinomial Logit model 25 5 The analysis of interaction between the demand and socioeconomic attributes 31 5.1 Methodology 31 5.2 Application of Mixed Logit models to the demand 31 5.3 Analysis of the interactions between demand and socioeconomic attributes through Mixed Logit models 32 5.4 Mixed Logit model and interaction between age and the demand for the CTS 38 5.5 Demand analysis with Mixed Logit model 39 6 Final analyses and conclusions 45 6.1 Comparison between the results of the analyses 45 6.2 Conclusions 48 6.3 Answers to the research questions and future developments 52

Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis.

Abstract: Cause, conseguenze e strategie di mitigazione Proponiamo il primo di una serie di articoli in cui affronteremo l’attuale problema dei mutamenti climatici. Presentiamo il documento redatto, votato e pubblicato dall’Ipcc - Comitato intergovernativo sui cambiamenti climatici - che illustra la sintesi delle ricerche svolte su questo tema rilevante.

Economic growth and income inequality

Abstract: We investigate whether income inequality affects subsequent growth in a cross-country sample for 1965-90, using the models of Barro (1997), Bleaney and Nishiyama (2002) and Sachs and Warner (1997), with negative results. We then investigate the evolution of income inequality over the same period and its correlation with growth. The dominating feature is inequality convergence across countries. This convergence has been significantly faster amongst developed countries. Growth does not appear to influence the evolution of inequality over time. Outline