Summary The new variant famine (NVF) hypothesis postulates that HIV/AIDS is eroding rural livelihoods and making agrarian communities more sensitive and less resilient to drought and other shocks. NVF has become a high profile but controversial part of the literature on HIV/AIDS and food crises,...

This study uses nationally representative household-level panel data from Malawi and Zambia to identify the determinants of subsidized maize seed and fertilizer receipt, and to estimate how input subsidies affect households’ commercial purchases of improved maize seed varieties. In both...

Using nationwide longitudinal household survey data from rural Kenya (1997–2004) and Zambia (2001–2004), we estimate probit models to identify the socio-economic correlates of disease-related mortality of individuals between the ages of 15 and 59. We compare these results with the rural...