This article introduces the articles in "Agricultural Economics", vol. 40 no. 2 (March 2009). First, we introduce their objectives in a brief review of existing literature on developing country trends in rural income diversification, in particular rural nonfarm employment (RNFE) and its impact...

This article introduces the articles in Agricultural Economics, vol. 40 no. 2 (March 2009). First, we introduce their objectives in a brief review of existing literature on developing country trends in rural income diversification, in particular rural nonfarm employment (RNFE) and its impact on...

The traditional vision of rural economies as purely agricultural is clearly obsolete. Farm households across the developing world earn an increasing share of their income from nonfarm sources (see Table 4.1). And the specialized nonfarm households that emerge often diversify into multiple...

In this paper, we examine how the design of cash transfer schemes influences household welfare outcomes with particular reference to the influence of transfers on conditioned outcomes, such as schooling, health and investment. We do this by examining two innovative cash transfer schemes...

The success of Mexico's conditional cash transfer programme (Progresa) has sparked a wave of similar programmes across the developing world, and the highly successful social experiment in Progresa has created demand for experimental evaluations among development partners, multilateral agencies...

The sluggish supply response in most developing countries to the apparently favourable agricultural market situation of the past few years can be explained by the limited ability of price incentives to bring about an increase in production and marketed surplus in the presence of binding...

The impact of conditional cash transfers on consumption and investment in Nicaragua / John A. Maluccio -- Conditional cash transfers and agricultural production : lessons from the oportunidades experience in Mexico / Jessica Erin Todd, Paul C. Winters & Tom Hertz -- Does migration make rural...