To satisfy continued growth in food demand without further degrading already low fertility soils or extensifying onto fragile margins, African farmers must pursue "sustainable agricultural intensification" (SAI). SAI requires adequate use of capital to maintain soil fertility and conserve the...

This paper introduces a systematic but simple approach to classifying and ordering sources of risk faced by subject populations. By distinguishing between the incidence and severity of subjective risk perceptions, this method enhances understanding of the nature and variation of risks faced...

This paper studies variation in risk assessment by pastoralists in the arid and semi-arid lands of southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya. Despite superficial homogeneity among east African pastoralists, we show that there exists considerable within-group heterogeneity in their assessment of...

There is a large literature on the estimation of frontier production functions, much of it applied to low-income agriculture. However, much of this literature largely ignores nature's role in agricultural production. Because exogenous, natural production conditions (e.g., rainfall, soil quality,...

This paper explores the empirical relationship between U.S. food aid flows per capita and nonconcessional food availability per capita in PL 480 recipient economies. The evidence suggests PL 480, while modestly progressive in its distribution, is if anything procyclical in recipient economies....

This paper develops a model coupling wildlife population dynamics to endogenous human consumption and poaching behavior in an environment of imperfect labor and product markets and static agricultural production technology subject to environmental shocks. Using a model of the Serengeti...

This paper develops a model coupling wildlife population dynamics to endogenous human consumption and poaching behavior in an environment of imperfect labor and product markets and static agricultural production technology subject to environmental shocks. Using a model of the Serengeti...

A longstanding puzzle in comparative economics is the "developmental paradox," the tendency for government support for agriculture to increase with national income and to decrease with the proportion of economic activity and of the population in agriculture. This paper offers a microeconomic...

A longstanding puzzle in comparative economics is the "developmental paradox," the tendency for government support for agriculture to increase with national income and to decrease with the proportion of economic activity and of the population in agriculture. This paper offers a microeconomic...

Although food aid may have important medium-to-long term effects, there is a glaring absence of empirical research on food aid dynamics. This paper applies vector autoregression methods to data from 18 countries over the period 1961-95. We find evidence that food aid has a pronounced J-curve...