Replaced with revised version of paper 08/06/10.

Recent empirical studies have estimated the trade flow effect of membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). One important, although largely untested, conclusion from this literature is that the GATT/WTO works well if...

Although identifying the existence and the nature of household-level poverty traps would have important implications for the design of poverty reduction policies empirical evidence is still scant. A small, but growing empirical literature has begun testing for poverty traps as thresholds in...

We test the hypotheses that subsidies on hybrid seed change maize production, total household income, the severity of poverty, and relative deprivation among smallholder maize growers in Zambia. The analysis contributes to the literature by measuring the quantitative effects of seed (as compared...

We introduce a fast and inexpensive method to rule out potential barriers to adopting a technology. We use this method to asses the role of exogeneous contract enforcement as a barrier to market for Kenya's French Bean export market. We survey 240 farmers in Kirinyaga County, Kenya who were...

This paper analyzes the determinants of foreign direct investments by the U.S. food processing industry in developed and developing countries. We find that market size, per capita income, openness of the economy, inflation rate, and exchange rate significantly affect U.S. food processing firms'...

This study focuses on identifying the sources of agricultural growth for eight East Asian economies - with special emphasis on international knowledge spillovers. The Malmquist productivity growth index and its two components are calculated and regressed on variables including domestic R&D and...

This paper investigates strategies to improve land management, crop production and household income in the northern Ethiopian highlands based upon econometric analysis of household and plot level survey data collected from 500 households. We find that several profitable opportunities exist to...

This paper examines the validity of anti-trade arguments that are based on the absence of technological spillovers. Results of a pooled cross-section time-series analysis for developing countries fail to support the existence of technological spillovers. Findings of learning-by-doing effects...

This study applies the Cobb-Douglas function model to analyze the effects of exports on economic growth in context of Ethiopian economy. To determine the relationship between export and economic growth, an attempt will be made to use econometrics techniques of analysis (co-integration system) by...