Volatility in commodity markets poses an acute risk to farmers in developing countries who rely on cash crop agriculture. We combine a time series of international coffee prices with a long-running panel on coffee-growing households in Viet Nam to investigate coping mechanisms employed by...

This study investigates the ethnic disadvantage in rural Vietnam, focusing on the magnitude of the majority-minority gap and the constraints on ethnic minority households that contribute to the gap. Using a biannual panel dataset spanning the period 2006 - 14, this paper documents large...

To continue its economic growth and create new and better livelihoods, Africa must transform the productive side of its economy. Ongoing globalization - in trade, finance, and technology - opens up new possibilities for structural transformation, but also new risks as Africa's integration with...

We examine the effects of randomly introduced economic inequality on voluntary co- operation and whether this relationship is influenced by the quality of local institutions, as proxied by corruption. We use representative data from a large-scale lab-in-the-field public goods experiment with...

We examine the effects of randomly introduced economic inequality on voluntary cooperation, and whether this relationship is influenced by the quality of local institutions, as proxied by corruption. We use representative data from a large-scale lab-in-the-field public goods experiment with over...

While many studies of welfare dynamics have been conducted using panel data sets with two or three waves, much richer insights can be obtained where more waves are available. This paper analyses this issue for the case of the Viet Nam Access to Resources Household Survey, a carefully collected...

While there is substantial corruption in developing countries, the costs imposed by corruption on individuals and households are little understood. This study examines the relationship between exposure to local corruption and mental health, as measured by depressive symptoms. We use two large...

This study documents the local transformation of rural Vietnamese communes in 12 different provinces from 2006 to 2014. Three key areas are considered, namely occupational and agricultural choice; provision of public goods and infrastructure as well as land markets. While many areas showed great...

This paper investigates how two effects drive wedges between nominal and real inequality estimates. The effects are caused by (i) differences in the composition of consumption over the income distribution coupled with differential inflation of consumption items; and (ii) quantity discounting...

This paper decomposes differences between the official poverty estimates of Malawi and a set of revised estimates by Pauw et al. (2016, forthcoming) with respect to five methodological differences: (i) the use of a revised set of unit conversion factors; (ii) the specification and use of...