This paper argues that climate change poses two distinct, if related, sets of challenges for poor rural households: challenges related to the increasing frequency and severity of weather shocks and challenges related to long-term shifts in temperature, rainfall patterns, water availability, and...

This paper develops and tests a proposed methodology that puts forward a new integrated method for evaluating the performance of development finance institutions. This methodology applies assessment criteria that take into account both the social objective that the development finance...

The aim of this paper is to understand the mechanism underlying access to credit. The author focuses on two important aspects of rural credit markets in Thailand. First, moneylenders and other informal lenders coexist with formal lending institutions such as government or commercial banks, and...

Using two surveys from Bangladesh, this paper provides evidence on the effects of microfinance competition on village moneylender interest rates and households' dependence on informal credit. The views among practitioners diverge sharply: proponents claim that competition of microfinance...

This paper proposes an estimator for the endogenous switching regression models with fixed effects. The estimator allows for endogenous selection and for conditional heteroscedasticity in the outcome equation. Applying the estimator to a dataset on the productivity in agriculture substantially...

This paper provides the results of an international survey of practitioners with experience in facilitating the participation of African smallholder farmers in supply chains for higher-value and/or differentiated agricultural products. It explores their perceptions about the constraints...

Climate variability poses a severe threat to subsistence farmers in southern Africa. Two different approaches have emerged in recent years to address these threats: the use of seasonal precipitation forecasts for risk reduction (for example, choosing seed varieties that can perform well for...

This paper investigates the impact of international migration on technical efficiency, resource allocation and income from agricultural production of family farming in Albania. The results suggest that migration is used by rural households as a pathway out of agriculture: migration is negatively...

The author looks at the feasibility and potential of instituting small-scale irrigation dams to reduce Ethiopia s dependence on rainfed agriculture and the associated food insecurity. He develops a theoretical framework to assess the welfare implications of irrigation development programs and...