This paper provides microeconomic evidence on food security impacts of privately organized biofuel outgrower schemes in Ethiopia. We conducted a household and community level survey and evaluated the impact of castor bean farming. We use endogenous switching regressions to analyze the impact on...

Weather shocks and natural disasters, it has been argued, represent a major threat to national and international security. Our paper contributes to the emerging micro-level strand of the literature on the link between local variations in weather shocks and conflict by focusing on a pixel-level...

We investigate the effect of electoral rules and forms of government on public policy outcomes using a new dataset on agriculture and food policies from 74 countries over the 1960-2005 period. Using both cross-sectional and panel data analyses we find robust evidence that the specific nature of...

This study uses a new, innovative measure of trade protection and finds that less trade protection is associated with higher income per capita, using data from 131 developed and developing countries.

There is a vigorous debate on the liberalization of heavily regulated agricultural markets in India. A crucial institutional characteristic is the role of state regulated brokers in wholesale markets. Relying on data from a unique survey in Uttarakhand, a state in North-India, we find that...

We provide new comprehensive evidence on similarities and differences in export Behavior of Slovenian manufacturing and services firms by using detailed firm-level panel data for Slovenia. Main findings show that export Behavior in these two types of firms is similar and in line with the big...

This article reviews beer production, consumption and the industrial organization of breweries throughout history. Monasteries were the centers of the beer economy in the early Middle Ages. Innovation and increased demand later induced the growth of commercial breweries. Globalization and...

Organic labels potentially play an important role in shaping consumer preferences for organic food products. Information implied by the presence of labels can be used by consumers to facilitate their consumption decisions. Therefore, we investigate the influence of the provision of objective...

Recent anecdotal reports suggest that dropout rates may be higher and actually increasing over time in poor rural areas. There are many reasons not to be surprised that there is a dropout problem, given the fact that China has a high level of poverty among the rural population, a highly...

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, China’s Ministry of Education embarked on an ambitious program of elementary school mergers by shutting down small village schools and opening up larger centralized schools in towns and county seats. The goal of the program was to improve the teacher and...