This paper explores the empirical relationship between U.S. food aid flows per capita and nonconcessional food availability per capita in PL 480 recipient economies. The evidence suggests PL 480, while modestly progressive in its distribution, is if anything procyclical in recipient economies....

This paper explores the dynamics of smallholder technology adoption, with particular reference to a high-yielding, low-external input rice production method in Madagascar. We present a simple model of technology adoption by farm households in an environment of incomplete financial and land...

This paper uses an exceptionally rich data set to test the extent to which markets in Madagascar are integrated across space, time, and form (in converting from paddy to rice) and to explain some of the factors that limit arbitrage and price equalization within a single country. In particular,...

This paper reviews the evidence on smallholder market participation, with a focus on staple foodgrains (i.e., cereals) in eastern and southern Africa, in an effort to help better identify what interventions are most likely to break smallholders out of the semi-subsistence poverty trap that...

In assessing the productivity gains of a new technology, it is often difficult to determine the extent to which observed output gains are due to the technology itself, rather than to the skill of the farmer or the quality of the plot on which the new technology is tried. This problem of...