This article argues that there is a gap in current Mexican rural development policy that could be filled by a smallholder-targeted programme. The gap exists because agricultural programmes tend to benefit better-off farmers, while social programmes tend to focus on long-term investment in human...

This paper uses a duration analysis based on adoption data spanning more than 25 years from six communities in the Central Highlands of Guatemala. The analysis explores how household characteristics and external trends play into both the adoption and diffusion processes of non-traditional...

This paper uses a duration analysis based on adoption data spanning over 25 years from six communities in the Central Highlands of Guatemala to explore how household characteristics and external trends play into both the adoption and diffusion processes of non-traditional exports among...

Cash transfer programmes have become an important tool of social protection and poverty reduction strategies in low- and middle-income countries. In the past decade, a growing number of African governments have launched cash transfer programmes as part of their strategies of social protection....

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...

This article proposes a general pattern of rural development in which increases in per capita income are associated with a decline in the importance of agricultural production and a rise in the importance of non-agricultural income sources. Following the approach to examining Engel's Law, we use...

In recent years, there has been increasing emphasis in the rural development literature on the multiple income-generating activities undertaken by rural households and the importance of assets in determining the capacity to undertake these activities. Controlling for the endogeneity of activity...

Prior research on Mexican migration has shown that social networks and economic incentives play an important role in determining migration outcomes. This study utilizes experimental data on PROGRESA, Mexico's primary poverty reduction program, to evaluate the effects of public cash transfers on...