A recursive algorithm for estimating linear models with both constant and time-varying parameters is derived by maximization of a likelihood function. Recursive formulas are also derived for derivatives of the likelihood function; the derivatives are needed for numerical evaluation of some...

The extent to which commodity price volatility affects the income of producing households and their vulnerability to poverty and food insecurity depends on household diversification patterns and the degree of their exposure to markets. This article focuses on estimating agricultural income...

"Food policy often depends on markets and markets depend on institutions. But how good do institutions have to be before reforms can be launched? Relying on well timed surveys of agricultural prices and a joint study by the Government of Bulgaria and the World Bank on agricultural market...

Studies of risk and its consequences tend to focus on one risk factor, such as a drought or an economic crisis. Yet 2003 household surveys in rural Kilimanjaro and Ruvuma, two cash-crop-growing regions in Tanzania that experienced a precipitous coffee price decline around the turn of the...