scispace - formally typeset
Search or ask a question

Showing papers by "International Food Policy Research Institute published in 1999"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper developed a unified empirical framework for describing the relative contribution of rural-urban and inland-coastal inequality to overall regional inequality in China during the 1980's and 1990's.

475 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is found that the absolute number of urban poor is increasing, as is the share of overall poverty and undernourishment coming from urban areas, and more research needs to be done on alleviation of poverty in urban areas.

410 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors found that the determinants of food insecurity and malnutrition, and the magnitudes of their effects, are very nearly the same in rural and urban areas of Mozambique, although some differentiation does begin to appear among children 24-60 months old.

358 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The role that personal relationships play in economic exchange was explored in this paper, where the authors found that traders in Madagascar perceive relationships as the most important factor for success in their business.
Abstract: This article documents the role that personal relationships play in economic exchange. Original survey data show that agricultural traders in Madagascar perceive relationships as the most important factor for success in their business. Evidence details the extent to which relationships are used to serve a variety of purposes such as: the circulation of information about prices and market conditions; the provision of trade credit; the prevention and handling of contractual difficulties; the regularity of trade flows; and the mitigation of risk. Of these, the regularity of supply and demand and the sharing of risk appear particularly important. Larger and more prosperous traders are those with quantitatively and qualitatively better relationships. Family plays little role in business beyond assistance at start‐up.

334 citations


Posted Content
TL;DR: Martin and Mitra as mentioned in this paper examined the growth and convergence of total factor productivity in agriculture and manufacturing in a large sample of countries spanning many levels of development over the period 1967-92, and found that the rate of productivity growth in agriculture has been higher than in manufacturing both on average and for groups of countries at different stages of development.
Abstract: The growth of agricultural productivity is widely believed to be low. But this study finds the productivity growth rate in agriculture to be higher than that in manufacturing, both on average and for groups of countries at different stages of development. This suggests that a large agricultural sector need not be a disadvantage for growth performance - and may be an advantage. Martin and Mitra examine the growth and convergence of total factor productivity in agriculture and manufacturing in a large sample of countries spanning many levels of development over the period 1967-92. There is a widely held but rarely tested view that the rate of growth in agricultural productivity is invariably low. But Martin and Mitra find that the rate of productivity growth in agriculture has been higher than in manufacturing both on average and for groups of countries at different stages of development. Martin and Mitra find evidence of high rates of technical progress in both agriculture and manufacturing. At all levels of development, however, technical progress appears to have been faster in agriculture than in manufacturing. Moreover, there appears to be a stronger tendency for levels and growth rates of total factor productivity to converge in agriculture than in manufacturing - suggesting that international dissemination of innovations has been relatively rapid in agriculture. These results may well reflect the important investments in agricultural research and development in recent decades. They also highlight the need to continue developing and disseminating innovations if countries are to maintain high rates of productivity growth. This paper - a product of Trade, Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the group to understand the links between trade and growth.

327 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Effective targeting of specific education messages to improve child feeding practices and use of preventive health care could have a major impact on reducing childhood malnutrition in Accra.

318 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors used data collected from a 1997 household survey carried out in Accra, Ghana to look at the crucial role that women play as income earners and securing access to food in urban areas.

314 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a series of alternative food-security indicators based on the frequency and severity of consumption-related coping strategies are proposed, which are then compared with more standard measures, including a consumption benchmark, a poverty benchmark and a nutritional benchmark using data from the 1997 Accra Urban Food and Nutrition Study.

287 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A review of recent literature explores the challenges to urban food and nutrition security in rapidly urbanizing developing world as mentioned in this paper, and the main focus is on identifying what is different about urban areas, so as to better frame the program and policy responses.

219 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the nonfarm work participation decisions of married men and women in rural Northern Ghana were jointly and separately estimated for married couples through a bivariate probit, using recent survey data.
Abstract: The nonfarm work participation decisions of married men and women in rural Northern Ghana were jointly and separately estimated for married couples through a bivariate probit, using recent survey data. Selectivity bias was corrected for in estimating wage offer and labor supply equations, using Heckman's procedure. Education, experience, infrastructure, distance to the capital, and population density, as well as interactions between education and infrastructure and between education and distance to the city, were found to be significantly related to the probability of nonfarm labor market participation, wages, and the amount of nonfarm labor performed, with significant differences by gender.

210 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, it is demonstrated that transportation costs explain most of the differences in food prices between producer regions and that road quality is an important factor in the transportation costs, while food prices decrease relatively faster than transportation costs increase and traders' wages are higher on bad roads.

Journal ArticleDOI
01 May 1999-Agrekon
TL;DR: Agrekon et al. as discussed by the authors discussed the role of VERTICAL and MARKETERS of high value-added items in small-home agriculture. But their focus was on smallholder farmers.
Abstract: (1999). SOURCES OF GROWTH IN SMALLHOLDER AGRICULTURE INTEGRATION OF SMALLHOLDERS WITH PROCESSORS IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA: THE ROLE OF VERTICAL AND MARKETERS OF HIGH VALUE-ADDED ITEMS. Agrekon: Vol. 38, No. sup001, pp. 165-189.

Posted Content
TL;DR: In this article, a maximum entropy approach to parameter estimation for computable general equilibrium (CGE) models is proposed. But it is not suitable for the estimation of nonlinear simultaneous equations.
Abstract: We introduce a maximum entropy approach to parameter estimation for computable general equilibrium (CGE) models. The approach applies information theory to estimating a system of nonlinear simultaneous equations. It has a number of advantages. First, it imposes all general equilibrium constraints. Second, it permits incorporation of prior information on parameter values. Third, it can be applied in the absence of copious data. Finally, it supplies measures of the capacity of the model to reproduce the historical record and the statistical significance of parameter estimates. The method is applied to estimating a CGE model of Mozambique.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors show that if changes in the management of common property resources impose fixed costs on them, or cause a decline in the prices of goods produced from it, the intra-household allocation of resources may alter in a manner detrimental to those individuals.

Journal ArticleDOI
01 May 1999
TL;DR: The paper shows that while the long-term prospects for food supply, demand and trade indicate a strengthening of world cereal and livestock markets, the improvement in food security in the developing world will be slow, and changes in the dietary patterns in developed countries are not an effective route to improvement inFood security in developing countries.
Abstract: Fundamental changes in the global structure of food demand will lead to an extraordinary increase in the importance of developing countries in global food markets. Economic growth in developing countries is changing consumption patterns, with slower growth (and in many countries actual declines) in per capita food consumption of grains and rapidly growing per capita and total meat consumption, combined with induced growth in cereal feed consumption. The present paper examines the hypothesis, suggested by some researchers, that high-meat diets in developed countries limit improvement in food security in developing countries. These analysts argue that reduced meat consumption in developed countries would release cereals from livestock feed to food for poorer populations, thus improving food security in developing countries. Using the International Food Policy Research Institute (Washington, DC, USA) global food projections model, the international model for policy analysis of agricultural commodities and trade (see Rosegrant et al. 1995), we first analyse the implications for future global cereal and meat supply and demand resulting from changes in global income, population growth and other structural changes, then simulate alternative scenarios to examine the effect of large reductions in meat consumption in developed countries on food consumption and food security in developing countries. The paper shows that while the long-term prospects for food supply, demand and trade indicate a strengthening of world cereal and livestock markets, the improvement in food security in the developing world will be slow, and changes in the dietary patterns in developed countries are not an effective route to improvement in food security in developing countries.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The simulation data showed that errors of the magnitude found due to unreliability can lead to misclassification of anemia status in individuals and small biases in anemia prevalence estimates.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors describe how to build multisector computable general equilibrium models for policy analysis and present the social accounting matrix that provides the conceptual framework linking together different components of the model and furnishes much of the data as well.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors provide the first econometric tests of the recent theoretical advances in the literature on Roscas, and find considerable support for an economic theory of Roscas.

Posted Content
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors raise a number of policy issues relevant to the adoption and impact of improved fallow systems and then identify several options for policy makers to create a policy environment which addresses market failures and alleviates disincentives for adoption of improved fellow systems.
Abstract: Policies play a strong role in providing incentives and disincentives for farmers to invest in improved fallow systems along with other agroforestry systems. The aim of this paper is to raise a number of policy issues relevant to the adoption and impact of improved fallow systems and then to identify several options for policy makers to create a policy environment which addresses market failures and alleviates disincentives for adoption of improved fallow systems. Policy issues are organized around six key criteria for adoption of any natural resource management practice by decision makers: (i) awareness of a natural resource problem, (ii) importance of the resource, (iii) willingness to invest (e.g., long-term tenure rights), (iv) capacity to invest (e.g., labor or land), (v) economic incentives (e.g., technical performance and attractive prices), and (vi) support services (e.g., extension or germplasm availability). The analysis across these themes is multi-scale, addressing issues at the plot, farm, community, and regional/national levels. Key areas for getting policies right with respect to improved fallows are mineral fertilizer policy, planting material production and distribution, and property rights to ensure that farmers can invest in fallows and reap the benefits.

Posted Content
TL;DR: Pinstrup-Andersen et al. as mentioned in this paper examined the effects of research and development on productivity in India and found that India is still benefiting from these investments, and that the public benefits from private research can be sub stantial, indicating that private firms capture only part of the real value of improved inputs through higher prices.
Abstract: India's investments in agricultural research, extension, and irrigation have made it one of the largest publicly funded systems in the world. But some policymakers who perceive that the benefits to research may be declining are advocating a cut back on public spending on research. This research report, which examines the effects of research and development on productivity in India, finds that India is still benefiting from these investments. The main sources of agricultural productivity growth in India during 1956–87 were public agricultural research and extension; expansion of irrigated area and rural infrastructure and improvement in human capital were also important contributors. The report also shows that the public benefits from private research can be sub stantial, indicating that private firms capture only part of the real value of improved inputs through higher prices. Private agricultural research accounted for more than 10 per cent of growth of total facto productivity (TFP) during 1956–87, and in 1966–75, when India was more open to foreign technology, private research contributed 22 per cent of productivity gowth. Industrial policy and technology policy, including intellectual property rights policy, will require careful evaluation and reform in order to encourage private investment in agriculture. Even so, Pray and Rosegrant argue that barriers to technology transfer should be removed in order to stimulate technology transfer and growth. Nevertheless, public investment in agricultural research will likely retain its primary role. Contrary to concerns that growth in TFP has decreased over time, the report finds that during 1977–87, the period when the results in regions that adopted high-yielding varieties early on could be expected to taper off, TFP growth was 50 per cent higher than before the Green Revolution and 17 per cent higher than in the early years of the Green Revolution, indicating that gains are far from over. The rates of return to public agricultural research are high, and it appears that the government is under investing in agricultural research. Expanding public investment in research and extension would lead to even greater gains." (Forward by Per Pinstrup-Andersen)

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors used representative household surveys of Abidjan and Accra to quantify small-area clustering in service provision, demographic characteristics, consumption, and nutrition.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the effects of state policies on farmers' incomes and natural resource conditions in central Honduras were examined using dynamic linear programming with a biophysical model and applied to a microwatershed where, in recent years, farmers have turned to intensive production of vegetables.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the welfare impacts of alternative sequencing scenarios of agricultural input and output market reforms in Malawi using a profit maximisation approach are analyzed. But the authors focus on the sequencing of agricultural market reforms, rather than the sequencing path adopted in the 1980s.
Abstract: The paper analyses the welfare impacts of alternative sequencing scenarios of agricultural input and output market reforms in Malawi using a profit maximisation approach. After a review of the literature on the sequencing of agricultural market reforms, the agricultural sector in Malawi is described and its history of market reforms is summarised. Subsequently, a normalised quadratic profit function, with maize and groundnuts as the main competing outputs and fertiliser and labour as the major variable inputs, is estimated. The simulation results using the coefficients of the estimated normalised quadratic profit function show that, contrary to the sequencing path adopted in the 1980s, Malawi's government should have liberalised the maize sector first, followed by the groundnut export sector, and once a supply response was generated, input subsidies could have been phased out. This sequence would have minimised the adjustment costs of smallholder farmers and would have reduced the negative impact on maize productivity and food security. Copyright 1999 by Oxford University Press.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyzed the geographic placement of three credit programs in Bangladesh and found that branches tend to be located in poor pockets of relatively well-developed areas than in remoter, less developed regions.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The combining of benefits for human nutrition and agricultural productivity, resulting from breeding staple food crops which are more efficient in the micronutrient metal uptake from the soil, and which accumulate more micRONutrients into their seeds, results in extremely high ex ante estimates of benefit/costs ratios for investments in agricultural research in this area.

BookDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors identify as the primary cause of the East Asian crisis a fundamental reassessment of the profitability of investments in the region and identify a number of secondary shocks as well, including interest risk premia, monetary expansion, and declines in output brought about by failures of the financial market.
Abstract: The authors identify as the primary cause of the East Asian crisis a fundamental reassessment of the profitability of investments in the region. They identify a number of secondary shocks as well, including interest risk premia, monetary expansion, and declines in output brought about by failures of the financial market. Unlike the Latin American crisis of the 1980s, the East Asian crisis did not reflect commodity price shocks, large changes in world interest rates, fiscal imbalances, or inflationary shocks. It involved large-scale borrowing abroad, but by the private sector rather than the government - and for the normally well-regarded purpose of funding capital investment. It seems unlikely that terms of trade shocks or changes in exchange rates due to pegging to the dollar could, alone, have caused an adjustment crisis of this magnitude - although they could have helped trigger the crisis. More important, expectations of future growth in returns to the corporate sector began to fall. Declines in asset valuations caused major shifts in investment portfolios, and the consequences of asset market shocks were compounded by secondary shocks associated with the abrupt shift to floating rates, concerns about the credibility of government policies, weaknesses in financial sectors, and inadequacies in the mechanisms for corporate restructuring and liquidation. The authors use of forward-looking modeling framework to capture some of the major interactions between asset markets, output, and trade in the countries worst hit by the crisis. They find that the model is able to capture the main features of the crisis.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors show that in many developing country settings, farm household production and consumption decisions are "nonseparable"; that is, the farm household cannot be viewed as a separate or independent profit-maximizing producer and utility-maxIMizing consumer.
Abstract: Emerging empirical evidence and microeconomic theory suggest strongly that, in many developing country settings, farm household production and consumption decisions are "nonseparable"; that is, the farm household cannot be viewed as a separate or independent profit-maximizing producer and utility-maximizing consumer. The existence of such nonseparability indicates the presence of market imperfections or failures that may have important policy implications. For example, depending on the nature of the market imperfections, there may be "threshold" effects whereby policy changes have no effect on household behavior until the change is "large" in some measure. In this environment, policy analysis assuming the existence of perfect markets may badly misstate the impact of policy changes on producer behavior and household welfare.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the effects of land sales restrictions on credit use, land investment and cultivation decisions are investigated using data from two villages in south India, and the results imply that sales restrictions are not a major source of inefficiency in the villages studied, and suggest that the nature of village credit and land markets and enforcement of sales restrictions were critical determinants of the impacts of such restrictions.

BookDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors show that private behaviors and policies that affect child health/nutrition have much greater effects on school enrollments and on eventual productivities than suggested by the methods used in the previous literature.
Abstract: The results of this study therefore reinforce strongly the importance of using estimation methods that are consistent with the economic theory of households to explore the impact of some choice variables on others using socioeconomic behavioral data. In this case the preferred estimates indicate a much more powerful effect of child health/nutrition on school enrollment than do some of the a priori less satisfactory alternatives in the previous literature on the impact of child health/nutrition on child school performance. Therefore private behaviors and policies that affect child health/nutrition have much greater effects on school enrollments and on eventual productivities than suggested by the methods used in the previous literature. The basic point moreover holds for many other empirical explorations using cross-sectional socioeconomic behavioral data in which there is interest in the impact of one choice variable on another. (excerpt)

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the multiple uses of water in the Kirindi Oya irrigation system in Sri Lanka, who the users are, and implications for water rights and management policies.
Abstract: Irrigation systems are recognized as common pool resources supplying water for agricultural production, but their role in supplying water for other uses is often overlooked. The importance of non-agricultural uses of irrigation water in livelihood strategies has implications for irrigation management and water rights, especially as increasing scarcity challenges existing water allocation mechanisms. This paper examines the multiple uses of water in the Kirindi Oya irrigation system in Sri Lanka, who the users are, and implications for water rights and management policies. There are important residential, gender, and class differences among the water users. People use irrigation system water not only for field crops, but also for fishing, homestead gardens, and livestock. Even within irrigated farming households, men have more control over paddy crops in the main fields, whereas homestead gardens are women's domain. Because the irrigation system provides water for birds and animals, even wildlife and non-resident environmental groups can be considered stakeholders. Current policies emphasize user involvement in both irrigation and domestic water supply. While government agencies have had primary responsibility, institutions such as Farmers' Organizations are being promoted. These have the potential to serve as user platforms for negotiating water allocation among irrigated farmers. However, the user organizations reflect the sectoral responsibility of the government agencies. Their membership and structure do not take into account the multiple uses or users of water. Developing platforms that accommodate different user groups remains a major challenge for improving the overall productivity, as well as equity, of water use.