Supermarkets are currently gaining ground in the agri-food systems of many developing countries. While recent research has analyzed income effects in the small farm sector, impacts on farming efficiency have hardly been studied. Productivity effects in previous studies are also estimated with...

In recent decades there has been a substantial increase in the scale of production and the use of production contracts in the hog sector. This paper explores empirically whether these two phenomena are related by examining whether the use of production contracts has allowed finish hog operations...

Replaced with revised version of paper 07/02/10.

This paper assesses the cost efficiency of indicator-based targeting. Using household survey data from Malawi, we examine whether an indicator-based targeting of the poor is more target- and cost-efficient than the currently used mechanisms for targeting agricultural subsidy programs in the...

Choices in production and contracting arrangements for a wide range of services were studied using data from approximately 1,000 small, mostly rural municipalities from Illinois, New Hampshire and Wisconsin. Results suggest the use of both for-profit contractors and cooperative agreements with...

The relationship between poverty and natural resources is complex and the empirical evidence to date, mostly from studies of forest activities and poverty, is inconclusive. The main purpose of this paper is to empirically identify the effects of household characteristics and of inequality at the...

Dichotomous choice willingness to pay questions are often used to determine the value visitors place on nature-based recreation. Ambiguity in wording can result in the use of information that does not necessarily reflect visitors’ true WTP. For example, depending on the specificity of the...

Replaced with revised version of poster 07/20/10.