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 endogeneity choice and...

This paper explores the relationship between social capital and crop diversity. The study is conducted in an area of Ethiopia where inter-specific diversity is significant and that diversity includes crops that are of important in terms of their genetic value since it is a center of origin or...

The negative correlation between resource endowments and GDP growth remains one of the most robust findings in the empirical growth literature, and has been coined the “resource curse hypothesis”. The policy consequences of this result are potentially far reaching. If natural resources are...

Improving agricultural productivity and farm level resilience to agricultural production shocks is a critical component of reducing poverty and improving household food security throughout the developing world, and particularly in Ethiopia which is among the poorest countries in the world. This...

Paying for the provision of environmental services is a recent policy innovation that is attracting much attention in both developed and developing countries. The innovation involves a move away from command and control environmental policies, harnessing market forces to obtain more efficient...

The pattern of crop genetic diversity has changed over the past two centuries with the modernization of agriculture, accelerating with the advent of the green revolution. Since the green revolution, the locus of agricultural research has shifted from the public to the private sector. The growing...

This paper provides an assessment of the potential for small-holder agro-forestry projects to be competitive in markets for carbon emission reduction credits, and explores the ways in which small-holder participation in such markets may be facilitated. The paper begins with an overview of the...

Access to assets and agrarian institutions is of critical importance to the economic viability of rural households. Understanding the extent of this access and how it links to the ability of rural households to employ different pathways out of poverty is thus vital for designing rural...

The paper analyses the impacts of transaction costs on the degree of household market integration using survey data collected from smallholder potato farmers located in the Peruvian Andes. The analysis focuses on the impacts of transaction costs differentiated as information, negotiation and...

Three institutional pillars form the foundations of sustainable financial markets: The existence of a pool of profitable and diverse rural clients with the ability to service loans, well-run financial institutions which are financially self supporting and an enabling policy environment. Ukraine...