Growth has been high and widespread in the last decade in Africa. Whether this shift in Africa's fortune has impacted poverty has been a subject of controversy. This paper brings into focus recent evidence on the pace of poverty reduction in Africa and addresses whether or not previously held...

We use panel data from the 2002-2007 period to analyze poverty dynamics in rural Mexico. The poverty measures show almost three fifths of the surveyed households experienced poverty at least once, while one fifth were cataloged as chronically poor. Additionally, asset accumulation dynamics show...

The paper explores the role social network capital might play in facilitating poor agents’ escape from poverty traps. We model endogenous network formation among households heterogeneously endowed with both traditional and social network capital who make investment and technology choices over...

In this paper, we focus on the role of assets in relation to chronic poverty. In particular, we consider the issue of whether it is not just low levels of assets which identify and explain chronic poverty, but also whether the asset accumulation process displays non-linearities and...

The paper extends the Samuelsonian overlapping generations framework to encompass a variety of altruistic preferences, recasting it into a Lindahl equilibrium framework. It has been shown that altruism towards parents provides an alternative answer to the basic question of capital theory as to...

The stationary structure of the simple overlapping generations economies is used to try to extend to the case with extrinsic uncertainty the characterizations of their stationary equilibria by means of symmetrical multiple equilibria of a related exchange economy in which the representative...

Homotheticity induces a dramatic statistical bias in the estimates of the intratemporal and intertemporal substitutions. I find potent support in favor of nonhomotheticity in aggregate consumption data, with nondurable goods being necessities and durable goods luxuries. I obtain the...

We ask whether prime-age adult mortality due to HIV/AIDS decreases the endowment of knowledge for agricultural production in Kagera, Tanzania, reducing total factor productivity. We also quantify how much this negative effect contributes to the decrease in long-term household agricultural income...

This paper explores the microeconomics and dynamics of food and nutrition. It examines the linkages between malnutrition and the incentive to invest and accumulate capital. The analysis focuses on a dynamic model where preferences about the future depend on nutrition and health. Situations of...

A dynamic model of agricultural household behaviour in less developed countries in the presence of credit constraints and income uncertainty is developed. The production side of the model takes into account the irreversible and indivisible nature of non-stationary agricultural investment...