Households in developing countries use a variety of informal mechanisms to cope with risk, including mutual support and risk-sharing. These mechanisms cannot avoid that they remain vulnerable to shocks. Public programs in the form of food aid distribution and food-for-work programs are meant to...

The European Community is to spend ECU 680 million on food aid in 1982—an increase of 13.3% over 1981. Is this a sign of growing humanitarianism on the part of the EC or merely the side-product of a policy of agricultural protectionism which in the long run is harmful to the economies of both...