This paper studies the effect of local off-farm employment and migration on rural households’ technical efficiency of crop production using a five-year panel dataset from more than 2,000 households in five Chinese provinces. While there is not much debate about the positive contribution of...

China underwent tremendous agricultural market reforms in the 1990s prior to its accession to the WTO, drastically decreasing domestic market distortions. We ask whether these reforms have led to agricultural commercialization and have improved the welfare of rural Chinese households measured by...

International trade costs are known to be large but difficult to measure. Using a microfounded gravity equation based on the framework in Novy (2011), this study estimates an indirect measure of multilateral trade costs for tradable goods in agriculture. Using production and bilateral trade data...

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the debate over agricultural trade and environment by asking: Does agricultural trade liberalization under free trade agreement (FTA) reduce pollution from agriculture? In order to contribute to answering the above research question, we measure the...

Conservation technology adoption behavior is frequently analyzed at the smallest unit of production to capture important heterogeneity among adopters. Conclusions about firm-level decisions are drawn from these microunit outcomes. However, there may be significant intrafirm interactions that...

Abstract: This essay is an evaluation of year one of the Rural Business Development (RBD) program for small rice farmers in León, Nicaragua. The RBD program is administered by the Millennium Challenge Corporation, and is designed to deliver agricultural extension advice and affordable credit in...

We analyze the evolution of Sub-Saharan Africa’s agricultural total factor productivity (TFP) over the past 45 years, looking for evidence of recent changes in growth patterns using an improved nonparametric Malmquist index. Our TFP estimates show a remarkable recovery in the performance of...

This paper addresses the timing of historical transition from rural to urban activity. In our model, rural production has constant returns and meets subsistence needs, while urban production has scale economies and meets the demands of higher-income consumers. Urbanization occurs sooner when...

Raising the incomes of agricultural households is central to reducing poverty in Uganda. In many areas of the country agriculture has encroached into marginal or fragile lands, leaving little room for the expansion of agricultural lands (Kraybill, Bashaasha, and Betz 2009). Additionally, soil...