This paper investigates the effects of network based individual social capital on the access of rural households to services. In the context of development economics, an innovative data collection approach is used to determine network based social capital. The approach originates from the field...

Everybody knows: rural regions offer fewer possibilities for non-farm employment than urban areas. For this reason, it was the semi-subsistence farm structures that had to absorb the released workers from the big rural state enterprises and the urban-rural migrants fleeing unemployment in the...

Employment diversification is a major livelihood strategy in rural areas and is thus a focal point of the ongoing rural development debate. The issue of non-farm diversification is undoubtedly complex and its determinants are difficult to identify. Increasingly, there is a need to address,...

Replaced with revised version of paper 10/06/09.

The aim of this paper is to test empirically the role of both cognitive and structural social capital in explaining the repayment performance of individual members under joint liability borrowing in rural Armenia. Based on unique primary data collected in 2006 in Ararat, Armavir and Vayots Dzor...

The European Union (EU) is the main source of remittances world wide and Albania, struck by abject poverty, is Europe’s number one country sending out migrants. Albania’s economy as well as its households’ welfare strongly depend on remittances. Consequently, the topic of migration is...

Following the two rounds of land reform in Ukraine since independence, household plot farmers emerged as the major suppliers to agricultural production. But they form a very heterogeneous group. Not all of them are equally successful, economically, and integrated to markets. In general, a...

The importance of nonprofit organizations such as rural development organizations, farmers associations and common initiative groups as drivers of change in rural areas has been generally recognized in the economics of nonprofit organizations. While the economic theories attempt to explain the...

A fuzzy logic model for quantifying farm households’ potential for non-farm income diversification is developed and applied to 1,077 farm households in Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovenia. About three quarters of households have a diversification potential, but not all households...

We investigate how the perception for wide-spread bribing culture affects rural non-farm startup plans in transition. The study contributes to the literature on rural entrepreneurship and the role of institutional factors as drivers of entrepreneurial decisions. Using primary farm household data...