For a long time, fostering the prosperity of family farming has been among desirable policy goals in Latin America. The notion of family farming underlying those goals and the related analyses is rather imprecise and is frequently used very loosely. This paper critically revises the concept of...

Since its beginnings, and more clearly since the mid 1800, Economics has been resting on the assumption that economic agents make rational decisions, maximizing their utility or well-being according to their own preferences and interests. The economic order resulting from that plurality of...

World food prices surged strongly in recent years, with two waves of rising prices in 2007-08 and 2010-11. For food-importing countries affected at the same time by significant levels of undernourishment and malnutrition, sudden rises in the international price of food may have a strong impact...

Ordinary consumer price indices customarily overstate increases in the cost of living because they do not allow for consumer substitution as relative prices change. This study looks for a more accurate measure of variations in the cost of living in Argentina over the years 1960 to 1995, taking...

This paper reviews the theory of the true cost of living index and its approximation through superlative index numbers, as well as the Vartia quantum theory of bias in index numbers as applied to substitution bias in consumer price indices. Estimated adjustments are proposed for the Argentine...

Two previous articles proposed and validated a continuous measure of the material standard of living as concerns basic household infrastructure (housing, water, energy and sanitation). The scale is based on Principal Component Analysis of a large number of variables derived from census...

In a previous paper a quantitative scale was developed, and applied to Bolivia, to measure some basic aspects of the material standard of living, namely those related to the physical infrastructure of households, involving shelter and basic services as measured in population censuses. Using data...

In the context of analysis of Millennium Goals and Human Development in Bolivia a synthetic measure of household infrastructure was developed. The measure was constructed applying factor analysis to a large number of census indicators concerning shelter, living space, water supply, energy and...

This paper presents some results of extensive fieldwork in Afghanistan during the 2001-02 and 2002-03 agricultural years, concerning techniques used for growing wheat, the main staple crop of the country, and provides estimates of technical coefficients, costs of production and margins for each...

Hunger affects 800 million people, 11% of humankind. However, it is diminishing in absolute numbers and as a percentage of population as a result of slower population growth, economic development, and increasing farm productivity. Current food output is more than enough to feed all humankind and...