Using panel data from villages in rural Ethiopia, the paper studies the determinants of consumption growth (1989-97), based on a microgrowth model, controlling for heterogeneity. Consumption grew substantially, but with diverse experiences across villages and individuals. A key focus is on...

Using detailed data on gifts, loans, and asset sales, this paper investigates how rural Filipino households deal with income and expenditure shocks. We find that shocks have a strong effect on gifts and informal loans, but little effect on sales of livestock and grain. Mutual insurance does not...

Education will have externality effects in agriculture if, in the course of conducting their own private economic activities, educated farmers raise the productivity of uneducated farmers with whom they come into contact. This paper seeks to determine the potential size and source of such...

This paper analyses whether agricultural information flows give rise to social learning effects in banana cultivation in Nyakatoke, a small Tanzanian village. Based on a village census, full information is available on socio-economic characteristics and banana production of farmer kinship...

Using micro-level panel data from villages in rural Ethiopia, the paper uses standard decompositions of income changes and develops a new decomposition of poverty changes to analyse the determinants of growth and poverty changes during a period of economic reform (1989-95). Consumption grew and...

We apply the set up of limited commitment model to empirically test the role of informal risk-sharing ntworks using panel data on informal credit transactions from rural Ethiopia. The empirical estimates provide convincing evidence for the belief that enforcement problem limits the direct role...

This paper tests the efficiency of insurance markets in the Pakistan Punjab by examining how crop choices are affected by the presence of price and yield risk. We estimate reduced-form and structural models of crop choices. Although we cannot reject the hypothesis that village members...

Much has been written on the determinants of input and technology adoption in agriculture, with issues such as input availability, knowledge and education, risk preferences, profitability, and credit constraints receiving much attention. This paper focuses on a factor that has been less well...

The income contribution of child work is undoubtedly a key factor influencing child work and schooling decisions. Yet, few studies have attempted to directly measure this contribution. This is particularly the case for work performed on the household farm, as is the case for the vast majority of...

In 1984, the world was shocked at the scale of a famine in Ethiopia that caused over half a million deaths, making it one of the worst in recent history.  The mortality impacts are clearly significant.  But what of the survivors?  This paper provides the first estimates the long-term impact...