Bioenergy is a major source of energy in developing countries. However, increasing demand for agricultural commodities can lead to a stronger competition for natural resources with the bioenergy production. The nexus among energy, food production and natural resource use may result in trade-offs...

The article analyzes the effect of failing to control for differences in land types (defined by position on a low scale toposequence) on estimates of farm technical efficiency for rice farms in eastern India. In contrast to previous research, we find that farms appear to be considerably more...

This paper shows that using yields may not be informative of the relationship between farm size and productivity in the context of small-scale farming. This occurs because, in addition to productivity, yields pick up size-dependent market distortions and decreasing returns to scale. As a result,...

We use newly-available Indian panel data to estimate how the returns to planting-stage investments vary by rainfall realizations. We show that the forecasts significantly affect farmer investment decisions and that these responses account for a substantial fraction of the inter-annual...

Separating the effects of uncertainty from realised events, and identifying the welfare effects of uncertainty, present a number of empirical challenges. Combining individuallevel panel data from rural Ethiopia with high-resolution meteorological data, we introduce a new proxy for income...

The article analyzes how controlling for differences in land types (defined by position on a low scale toposequence) affects estimates of farm technical efficiency for rice farms in eastern India. Contrasting previous research, we find that farms are considerably more technically efficient when...

This paper investigates the impacts of cotton marketing reforms on farm productivity, a key element for poverty alleviation, in rural Zambia. The reforms comprised the elimination of the Zambian cotton marketing board that was in place since 1977. Following liberalization, the sector adopted an...

This paper investigates the impacts of cotton marketing reforms on farm productivity, a key element for poverty alleviation, in rural Zambia. The reforms comprised the elimination of the Zambian cotton marketing board that was in place since 1977. Following liberalization, the sector adopted an...

Infrastructure is often seen as a critical factor in economic development. However, impact assessment for infrastructure projects is a challenge due to a number of methodological issues. Both developing economies and countries in transition could benefit from such studies to better inform their...