There has been a growing interest in what have come to be termed"multidimensional indices of poverty."Advocates for these new indices correctly point out that command over market goods is not all that matters to peoples'well-being, and that other factors need to be considered when quantifying...

The authors report on an exercise in economic statistics. They develop a regional price index for Cote d'Ivoire building on the strengths of two independent data sources: the Cote d'Ivoire Living Standards Survey (CILSS) and the International Comparisons Project (ICP). The CILSS collected...

The author estimates the effects on growth of commodity price shocks, and uncertainty within an established empirical growth model. Ex-post shocks, and ex-ante uncertainty have been treated in the empirical literature as if they were synonymous. But they are distinct concepts, and it is both...

The authors use survey data from Bangladesh to present empirical evidence on externalities at household level sales decisions resulting from increasing returns to marketing. The increasing returns that arise from thick market effects and fixed costs imply that a trader is able to offer higher...

The author examines the efficiency and equity of a market allocation of exhaustible resources and assesses the behavior of scarcity measures, such as relative price and rental rates. She finds little evidence of scarcity or impending shortage. Indeed, the evidence points to falling prices and...

The author first describes those features of the electricity supply industry that make a prospective market monitoring process essential to a well-functioning wholesale market. Some of these features are shared with the securities industry, although the technology of electricity production and...

This report considers how product market integration in a country's primary agricultural export alters the economic activities of men and women in a poor economy. Between 1993 and 1997, Vietnam relaxed its rice export quota and freed internal restrictions on the trade of rice across regions....

Market integration raises the relative price of a community's export product. The author examines how the response of child labor supply to an increase in the relative price of a primary export product varies with a child's household composition. The specific context for his study is the...

In 1995, 57 countries depended on three commodities for more than half their exports, reports UNCTAD. And commodities, fuels, grains, and oilseeds are important imports for several countries. The notorious volatility of commodity prices is a major source of instability and uncertainty in...

Much of the literature that studies the relationship between trade and poverty in developing countries focuses on the effects of national trade reforms, such as own tariff reductions. In contrast, the World Trade Organization negotiations at the Doha Round were more concerned with the poverty...