Showing papers by "International Food Policy Research Institute published in 2000"

Economic mobility and poverty dynamics in developing countries

Abstract: This study provides an introduction to this special issue of The Journal of Development Studies on economic mobility and poverty dynamics in developing countries In addition to providing a conceptual framework, it outlines how the contributions fit into the extant literature A series of regularities emerge across these studies The poor consist of those who are always poor — poor at all dates — and those who move in and out of poverty, with the latter group tending to be strikingly large Such movements in and out of poverty are apparent when looking at poverty in either absolute or relative terms Changes in returns to endowments can be a potent source of increased incomes Finally, seemingly transitory shocks can have long‐term consequences The study concludes by drawing out the policy implications of these regularities

Validity of rapid estimates of household wealth and income for health surveys in rural Africa

Abstract: STUDY OBJECTIVE To test the validity of proxy measures of household wealth and income that can be readily implemented in health surveys in rural Africa. DESIGN Data are drawn from four different integrated household surveys. The assumptions underlying the choice of wealth proxy are described, and correlations with the true value are assessed in two different settings. The expenditure proxy is developed and then tested for replicability in two independent datasets representing the same population. SETTING Rural areas of Mali, Malawi, and Cote d9Ivoire (two national surveys). PARTICIPANTS Random sample of rural households in each setting (n=275, 707, 910, and 856, respectively). MAIN RESULTS In both Mali and Malawi, the wealth proxy correlated highly ( r ⩾0.74) with the more complex monetary value method. For rural areas of Cote d9Ivoire, it was possible to generate a list of just 10 expenditure items, the values of which when summed correlated highly with expenditures on all items combined ( r =0.74, development dataset, r =0.72, validation dataset). Total household expenditure is an accepted alternative to household income in developing country settings. CONCLUSIONS It is feasible to approximate both household wealth and expenditures in rural African settings without dramatically lengthening questionnaires that have a primary focus on health outcomes.

Attrition in Longitudinal Household Survey Data: Some Tests for Three Developing-Country Samples

Abstract: Results from this study of the extent and implications of attrition for three longitudinal household surveys from Bolivia, Kenya, and South Africa suggest that multivariate estimates of behavioral relations may not be biased because of high attrition. This suggests that demographers and other social scientists can proceed with collecting longitudinal data to control for unobserved fixed factors and to capture dynamic relationships. For capturing dynamic demographic relationships, longitudinal household data can have considerable advantages over more widely used cross-sectional data. But because the collection of longitudinal data may be difficult and expensive, analysts must assess the magnitudes of the problems specific to longitudinal but not to cross-sectional data. One problem that concerns many analysts is that sample attrition may make the interpretation of estimates problematic. Such attrition may be especially severe where there is considerable migration between rural and urban areas. And attrition is likely to be selective on such characteristics as schooling, so high attrition is likely to bias estimates. Alderman, Behrman, Kohler, Maluccio, and Watkins consider the extent and implications of attrition for three longitudinal household surveys from Bolivia, Kenya, and South Africa that report very high annual attrition rates between survey rounds. Their estimates indicate that: · The means for a number of critical outcome and family background variables differ significantly between those who are lost to follow-up and those who are re-interviewed. · A number of family background variables are significant predictors of attrition. · Nevertheless, the coefficient estimates for standard family background variables in regressions and probit equations for the majority of outcome variables in all three data sets are not significantly affected by attrition. So attrition is apparently not a general problem for obtaining consistent estimates of the coefficients of interest for most of these outcomes. These results, which are very similar to those for industrial countries, suggest that multivariate estimates of behavioral relations may not be biased because of attrition. This would support the collection of longitudinal data. This paper - a product of Rural Development, Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the group to evaluate the impact of Bank-funded investments. The study was funded by the Bank`s Research Support Budget under the research project Evaluation of the Impact of Investments in Early Child Development (RPO 682-34). The authors may be contacted at halderman@worldbank.org, jbehrman@econ.sas.upenn.edu, kohler@demogr.mpd.de, or swatkins@pop.upenn.edu.

Research returns redux: a meta‐analysis of the returns to agricultural R&D

Abstract: A total of 289 studies of returns to agricultural R&D were compiled and these provide 1821 estimates of rates of return. After removing statistical outliers and incomplete observations, across the remaining 1128 observations the estimated annual rates of return averaged 65 per cent overall — 80 per cent for research only, 80 per cent for extension only, and 47 per cent for research and extension combined. These averages reveal little meaningful information from a large body of literature, which provides rate-of-return estimates that are often not directly comparable. This study was aimed at trying to account for the differences. Several features of the methods used by research evaluators matter, in particular assumptions about lag lengths and the nature of the research-induced supply shift.

Social capital and household welfare in South Africa, 1993–98

Abstract: The aim in this study is to determine the nature of the causal relationship, if any, between ‘social capital’, as measured by household membership in formal and informal groups and household welfare in South Africa. Using a recently collected panel data set in South Africa's largest province, we estimate per capita expenditure functions including measures of social capital. After controlling for fixed effects and simultaneity, we find social capital has no effect in 1993 but a positive and significant effect in 1998.

Socio-Economic Differentials in Child Stunting are Consistently Larger in Urban than in Rural Areas:

Abstract: Urban—rural comparisons of childhood undernutrition suggest that urban populations are better off than rural populations. However, these comparisons could mask the large differentials that exist between socio-economic groups in urban areas. Data from the Demographic and Health Surveys for 11 countries from three regions were used to test the hypothesis that intra-urban differentials in child stunting are greater than intra-rural differentials, and that the prevalence of stunting among the urban and the rural poor is equally high. A socio-economic status (SES) index based on household assets, housing quality, and availability of services was created separately for rural and urban areas of each country, using principal components analysis. Odds ratios (OR) were computed to estimate the magnitude of differentials in stunting (height-for-age Z scores < −2) between urban and rural areas and between the lowest and highest SES quintiles within areas. The prevalence of stunting was lower in urban than in rural ar...

Agriculture and Non-agricultural Liberalization in the Millennium Round

Abstract: Until the Uruguay Round, agricultural trade policies were subject to few multilateral disciplines. In this situation, the interplay of special-interest lobbying pressures resulted in this sector becoming heavily distorted. One of the great achievements of the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations was to bring agricultural policies under much greater discipline. The Agreement on Agriculture has altered the climate of farm policy making in both advanced and developing countries. Even though Uruguay Round commitments themselves will not result in large cuts in farm protection, attitudes have been irreversibly changed and the foundation has been laid for further reforms, including during the next WTO Round. Having said that, it needs to be recognised that little reduction in actual agricultural protection rates will have occurred by the end of this decade, when barriers to trade in agricultural products will still be several times higher than barriers to trade in manufactures. Hence much remains to be done before agricultural trade is as liberal as world trade in manufactures. But agriculture is distorted by more than agricultural policies. In developing countries especially, farming is discouraged not only by farm protection policies in high-income countries but also by those countries' own manufacturing policies and distortions to services markets. Farm lobby groups in developing countries therefore have an interest not only in the agricultural negotiations of the next WTO round, but also the non-agricultural ones. The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent to which multilateral liberalization of not only farm but also non-farm policies would affect the markets for farm products. This paper considers the patterns of production, consumption, trade and protection, as well as other structural features of the global economy that are likely to influence the welfare impacts of liberalizing agricultural and non-agricultural trade. It projects the global economy to 2005, when the Uruguay Round (UR) implementation will be complete, and assesses the potential impact of further cuts from that post-UR base. This is done using a modified version of the GTAP model of global trade, assuming 40% cuts in protection in agriculture, mining and manufacturing, and services. We find that agricultural liberalization in the wake of the Uruguay Round could still yield substantial benefits for the global economy in 2005. The total gains amount to about $70 billion from 40% cuts in both market price support and domestic producer subsidies. These gains shrink to $60 billion if domestic subsidies are left unaltered. Overall, these welfare improvements are comparable to the gains that could be obtained from similar cuts in manufacturing tariffs. This is so despite agriculture's much smaller size in the global economy, and reflects the much higher rates of protection for agriculture. However, the distributions of the gains from sectoral protection cuts are quite different. In the case of manufacturing tariffs, the developing countries make the biggest cuts in protection (because their initial tariffs are higher), but they also enjoy the lion?s share of the welfare gains. In the case of agricultural liberalization, the rates of protection are highest in the industrialized economies and they are the ones to capture the majority of the absolute gains from liberalization of food markets. However, when measured relative to initial income, developing countries are among the biggest winners from cuts in agricultural protection. We also examine the interaction between non-agricultural reforms and agricultural trade balances, by region. Overall, reductions in agricultural protection have the strongest impact on the regional food trade balances. However, for some regions, most notably Southeast Asia and parts of South Asia, non-agricultural reforms dominate and reverse the sign of the change in the food trade balance following liberalization. In particular, China's manufacturing tariff cuts are equally as important as agricultural liberalization in determining the change 0in China's food trade balance. Both sets of multilateral reforms lead to a substantial decline in China's aggregate food trade balance and, when combined, the total decline is approximately $6 billion in 2005. All of the estimates in this study are subject to revision as improved estimates of protection become available. Agricultural protection in non-OECD countries is very poorly documented at present. With regard to the OECD countries, more work is needed on the appropriate representation of "decoupled" policies in this type of quantitative framework, and explicit modeling of tariff rate quotas will be an important item for future analysis, since the distribution of the associated rents will become increasing important. Also, while we have reported on some innovative work aimed at coming to grips with services protection, much more research along these lines will be needed in order to understand the implications of services liberalization.

KwaZulu-Natal Income Dynamics Study (KIDS) 1993–98: A longitudinal household database for South African policy analysis

Abstract: An important adjunct of apartheid has been the absence of credible and comprehensive data on which policies, such as poverty reduction strategies, can be grounded. The 1993 Project for Statistics on Living Standards and Development (PSLSD) provided the first comprehensive household database for South Africa. Despite its usefulness, however, the one round PSLSD cannot provide answers to many questions important to policy researchers and practitioners, particularly questions about dynamic processes. The primary objective in this article is to introduce a new longitudinal household database, based on the PSLSD, which begins to fill this gap. Households surveyed by the PSLSD in KwaZulu-Natal province were re-surveyed in 1998 by the KwaZulu-Natal Income Dynamics Survey (KIDS). As a research endeavour, the KIDS project addresses one of the most vexing and important problems confronting contemporary South Africa: understanding the forces and mechanisms which contribute to the perpetuation of apartheid's legacy o...

Poor Maternal Schooling Is the Main Constraint to Good Child Care Practices in Accra

Abstract: Life in urban areas presents special challenges for maternal child care practices. Data from a representative quantitative survey of households with children < 3 y of age in Accra, Ghana were used to test a number of hypothesized constraints to child care including various maternal (anthropometry, education, employment, marital status, age and ethnic group) and household-level factors (income, availability of food, quality of housing and asset ownership, availability of services, household size and crowding). Three care indices were created as follows: 1) a child feeding index; 2) a preventive health seeking index; and 3) a hygiene index. The first two indices were based on data from maternal recall; the hygiene index was based on spot-check observations of proxies of hygiene behaviors. Multivariate analyses (ordinary least-squares regression for the child feeding index and ordered probit for the two other indices) showed that maternal schooling was the most consistent constraint to all three categories of child care practices. None of the household-level characteristics were associated with child feeding practices, but household socioeconomic factors were associated with better preventive health seeking and hygiene behaviors. Thus, poor maternal schooling was a main constraint for child feeding, health seeking and hygiene practices in Accra, but the lack of household resources was a constraint only for health seeking and hygiene. The programmatic implications of these findings for interventions in nutrition education and behaviors in Accra are discussed.

Revisiting Forever Gained: Income Dynamics in the Resettlement Areas of Zimbabwe, 1983-96.

Abstract: This study examines income dynamics for a panel of households resettled on former white‐owned farms in the aftermath of Zimbabwe's independence. There are four core findings: (i) over a 13‐year period (1983–96) there has been an impressive accumulation of assets and a dramatic increase of crop incomes; (ii) the rise of crop incomes is partly due to asset accumulation but largely to increased asset returns; (Hi) differences between households in initial conditions, such as previous farming experience, have few persistent effects; and (iv) income growth has been widely shared, income inequality has fallen sharply and the largest percentage increases in incomes are recorded by households that initially had the lowest incomes.

Public investment and regional inequality in rural China.

Abstract: This paper develops a method for decomposing the contributions of various types of public investment to regional inequality and applies the method to rural China. Public investments are found to have contributed to production growth in both the agricultural and rural non-agricultural sectors, but their contributions to regional inequality have differed by type of investment and the region in which they are made. All types of investment in the least-developed western region reduce regional inequality, whereas additional investments in the coastal and central regions worsen regional inequality. Investments in rural education and agricultural R&D in the western region have the largest and most favorable impacts on reducing regional inequality.

Technological change, technical and allocative efficiency in Chinese agriculture: the case of rice production in Jiangsu

Abstract: This paper develops a frontier shadow cost function approach to estimate empirically the effects of technological change, technical and allocative efficiency improvement in Chinese agriculture during the reform period (1980–93). The results reveal that the first phase rural reforms (1979–84) which focused on the decentralization of the production system have had significant impact on technical efficiency but not allocative efficiency. However, during the second phase reforms which was supposed to focus on the liberalization of rural markets, technical efficiency improved very little and allocative efficiency has increased only slightly. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Water rights and multiple water uses: framework and application to Kirindi Oya irrigation system, Sri Lanka

Abstract: The growing attention to water rights in recent years reflects the increasing scarcity and competition for this vital resource. Because rights are at the heart of any water allocation system, they are also critical for any reallocation. Not only efficiency, but also fundamental issues of equity are at stake. To understand water rights requires going beyond formal statutory law (which may or may not be followed), to look at the many bases for claiming water. Because of the vital nature of this resource, state law, religious law, customary law and local norms all have something to say in defining water rights. The delineation of water rights is further complicated when we take into consideration multiple uses (irrigation, domestic, fishing, livestock, industries, etc.) as well as multiple users (different villages, groups of farmers in the head and tail, fishermen, cattle owners, etc.) of the resource. These overlapping uses bring in different government agencies, as well as different sets of norms and rules related to water. This paper provides a framework for examining the statutory and customary water rights of multiple users of water and applies it in the Kirindi Oya irrigation system in Sri Lanka, based on a multidisciplinary study conducted in 1997-1998. It demonstrates that the range of stakeholders with an interest in water resources of an irrigation system go far beyond the owners and cultivators of irrigated fields. As such, these groups are not only claimants on the ongoing management of water resource systems, but also need to be included in any considerations of transferring water from irrigation to other uses.

The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) Micronutrients Project: Justification and Objectives:

Abstract: The general objective of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) Micronutrients Project is to assemble the package of tools that plant breeders will need to produce mi...

A conceptual framework for assessing agriculture- nutrition linkages

Abstract: The pathways through which agriculture affects nutrition are outlined. New evidence from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the Consultative Group on International Agricul...

Poverty, Inequality and Growth in Zambia During the 1990s

Abstract: Zambia has undergone a dramatic transformation of economic policy during the 1990s. The election in 1991 of the Movement for Multi-party Democracy government saw the introduction of a series of major economic reforms designed to transform the Zambian economy from a relatively inward looking and state dominated economy to a outward oriented economy based upon private enterprise. A sharp stabilization early in the decade was followed by reforms to open the economy to the rest of the world including exchange rate liberalization, trade liberalization and capital account liberalization. In addition a set of structural and institutional reforms were initiated including reform of agricultural marketing, a large privatization programme and reforms to the public sector. This paper describes the economic reforms of the 1990s and reanalyses household survey data from three of the latest nationally representative household surveys in Zambia in order to chart the impact of these reforms upon poverty and inequality. We find that macroeconomic stabilization combined with early failed attempts at agricultural marketing liberalization caused a dramatic increase in poverty between 1991-6 in urban areas. …/…

Research Investment and the Economic Returns To Chinese Agricultural Research

Abstract: This article measureseconomic returns to research investment in Chinese agricultureusing the production function approach. A stock-of-knowledgevariable constructed from the past research investment is directlyincluded in the production function as an explanatory variablein the production function. Improved rural infrastructure, irrigation,and education are also included as explanatory variables to avoidthe upward bias in the estimates of returns to agricultural research.A two-way variable coefficients technique is used in the estimationto reduce estimation biases due to the remaining measurementand omitted variables problems. Sensitivity analyses are conductedto test the effects of various lag structures on the return estimates.The results show that rates of return to research investmentin Chinese agriculture are high, ranging from 36% to 90% in1997, and the rates are increasing over time.

Growth patterns of breastfed infants in seven countries

Abstract: An international effort is underway to develop a new international growth reference for assessing the growth of young children, especially breastfed infants who appear to falter relative to the currently recommended National Center for Health Statistics/World Health Organization reference. While limited data from high socioeconomic status children from different parts of the world suggest that their growth patterns are similar, there is no comprehensive study of breastfed infants. The WHO Multinational Study of Breastfeeding and Lactational Amenorrhea provides bi‐weekly weights and 2‐4 weekly length measurements on breastfed babies from selected sites in Australia, Chile, China, Guatemala, India, Nigeria and Sweden. Multi‐level modelling was used to analyse between‐site differences in the growth of approximately 120 infants per site, after adjustment for maternal stature and infant feeding pattern. All mothers were literate and mean educational levels were well above national averages, but the study was not restricted to infants of high socioeconomic status. Maternal education was significantly associated with infant weight only in India. The growth curves of infants from most sites were strikingly similar, but relative to the Australians (the reference category), the Chinese babies were about 3% shorter at 12 mo of age and the Indians up to 15% lighter. The present results suggest that breastfed babies from reasonably well‐off families in different continents show very similar growth patterns. However, it is important that the growth of children from South and East Asian populations be rigorously assessed in the process of developing the new international growth reference. This paper discusses the relative importance of environmental versus genetic influences in the growth of young children and illustrates the complexities involved in the analysis of growth data.