Risk evaluation is crucial for practitioners as it allows them to make better investment decisions. However, the recently witnessed financial turmoil has demonstrated the inadequacy of many models for preventive risk evaluation. In particular, it is now evident that new methods are needed to...

This policy brief summarizes the scientific discussion about land deals and presents some initial empirical results from a field trip to a large land investment in Zambia. It is intended to serve as a background paper for the symposium session 'Dealing with the Race for Agricultural Land' at the...

Whole-household migration potentially can alter the results of studies on income inequality based on panel data if it selects on household income. We model whole-household migration and its impacts on income inequality and poverty using a unique, nationally representative household panel data...

We analyze how migration prevalence and remittances shape income distribution using novel panel data that is nationally and regionally representative of rural Mexico. Employing a Gini decomposition and controlling for whole household migration (attrition), we find that migration prevalence has...

Economic models of land allocation may lead to expectations for farmer response that “surprisingly" do not materialize, if market prices fail to reflect the value of farmers' product. “Shadow prices" rather than market prices explain resource allocation better for farmers who attach...

The Ethiopian government initiated the Ethiopian Coffee Trademarking and Licensing Initiative in 2004 for three coffee origins: Sidama, Yirgacheffe and Harar. Following a court case between Starbucks and the Ethiopian government regarding this initiative, Oxfam organized a publicity campaign....

Shadow prices guide farmers' resource allocations, but for subsistence farmers growing traditional crops, shadow prices may bear little relationship with market prices. We econometrically estimate shadow prices of maize using data from a nationally representative survey of rural households in...