Download or read book Three Essays on Agriculture and African Development written by Paul A. Corral and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 89 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a 3 essay dissertation focusing on two African nations: Malawi and Nigeria. The first chapter focuses on returns to cash crops. At the household level, cash crop production is a potential source of greater incomes and consequently improved nutrition, yet many farmers do not switch from subsistence agriculture despite the potential gains. Using an innovative approach, this paper reignites the debate on the effects of cash cropping and behavioral patterns of farmers in this regard. The approach consists of the use of a model with essential heterogeneity and a semi-parametric technique proposed in the literature. This allows for an in-depth exploration of returns from planting cash crops versus only food crops in terms of both observable and unobservable household characteristics. Finally, farming outcomes are related to household nutrition and dietary diversity. The results obtained put into question the validity of programs advocating the adoption of cash crops in order to improve rural livelihoods. The second chapter studies the neighborhood effect in the household's income diversification choice. Many households in developing countries allocate their productive assets between various income generating activities in order to develop a portfolio of income from occupations with different degrees of risk, expected returns and relax liquidity constraints. Push and pull factors influencing the diversification decisions of households are widely discussed in the literature; however, no study to date has taken into account spatial interdependence of household decisions in spite of various channels of neighborhood effects such as information flow, learning from others, social networks and agglomeration economies. This paper fills in the gap by incorporating spatial dependence in the choice model of diversification. The chapter finds that neighborhood effects are significant in the decision to diversify. The third chapter focuses on the relationship between credit and agriculture in Nigeria. The study attempts to identify households which are liquidity constrained. The study finds that households who are constrained will benefit from increased input usage significantly more than unconstrained households. Nevertheless the study also finds that constrained households would do just as well if they were unconstrained and vice versa.

Download or read book Three Essays on Intellectual Property Rights and Agricultural Change in Africa written by Walter Alexander Schroeder and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation consists of three essays that lie at the intersection of intellectual property rights (IPRs) and agricultural development in Africa. In the first, I use a random-effects GLS model on panel data to quantify the relationship between IPRs and agricultural R&D spending in 38 African countries. In the second, I shift the focus to a particular form of agricultural biotechnology, namely genetically-modified (GM) crops. This essay comprises interviews with two major U.S.-based agricultural biotechnology companies, the aim of which is to determine how important IPRs have been in impeding the commercialization of GM crops across Africa. The third essay takes a step back from agriculture specifically and centers on a major institutional barrier to effective IP protection on the continent. As will be shown, the intangibility and non-scarcity of intellectual property necessitates a capable state for its protection, which is largely absent in Africa. Taken together, the conclusions of the first two essays suggest that weak intellectual property rights are not currently a major barrier to agricultural development on the continent. The third demonstrates that even if they were, there are serious institutional impediments to implementing effective IP protection in the African context.

Download or read book Science Ideology and Development written by Archie Mafeje and published by Scandinavian Institute of African Studies. This book was released on 1978 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Africa Embattled written by Olusegun Obasanjo and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Three Essays in Economic Development written by Matthew James Warning and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Three Essays in Economic Development written by Paul Conal Winters and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Essays on the Political Economy of Rural Africa written by Robert H. Bates and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1987-04-20 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays in this volume represent a dialogue between theory and data. The theory is drawn from a branch of contemporary political economy which can also be labeled the collective-choice school. The data are drawn from Africa. The book extends the methods of reasoning developed in collective choice from their original base-the advanced industrial democracies-to new territory; the literature on rural Africa. Such as extension challenges the power of this form of political economy. It also enriches it, for the central questions which motivate the contemporary study of political economy are often addressed with unique clarity in the scholarship on rural Africa.

Download or read book Essays on Agriculture and Demography in Developing Countries written by Siyao Jessica Zhu and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation is composed of three essays that explore agriculture and demography issues in developing countries. The first two chapters investigate smallholders' agricultural technology adoption decisions in Mozambique and Tanzania, respectively. The third chapter examines the impacts of skewed sex ratios in Paraguay. All essays are motivated by the analysis of how individuals' behaviors and decisions are affected by various factors, such as personal characteristics, exogenous treatments and conflicts, and culture norms. To address these topics, both data collected through a field experiment and nationally representative surveys are used, while different methods are applied -- experiment, structural model, and reduced-form analysis. Despite the importance of agriculture sector and the availability of technologies that enhance yields, smallholders in Sub-Saharan Africa persistently use traditional farming methods and face low agricultural productivity. In the first chapter, which is coauthored with Florence Kondylis and Valerie Mueller, we investigate which channels can diffuse and boost adoption of productive farming practices. Specifically, we conduct a large-scale randomized field experiment in Mozambique to measure the impact of augmenting the contact farmer (CF) model with a direct CF training on the diffusion of a new technology. Moving forward with the information transmission and promotion channel research, I examine the rationale behind small-scale farmers' adoption decisions in my second chapter. There is a well-known technology adoption puzzle: Why do African farmers not adopt modern technologies that economists believe should provide higher returns on average, for example fertilizer, and at the same time why do African farmers adopt traditional technologies that economists consider unprofitable, for example intercropping? I build a structural model, estimate it with data from Tanzania, and offer an explanation to this puzzle. The third chapter, which is coauthored with Jennifer Alix-Garcia, Laura Schechter, and Felipe Valencia Caicedo, explores another central theme in the field of development economics, gender. Using the event of the War of the Triple Alliance, we examine both the short-term and the long-term impacts of a temporary variation in sex ratios on the economies, such as the marriage market and labor market performances.

Download or read book Accounting for Disparity written by Melanie Seama O'Gorman and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thesis consists of three essays which focus on accounting for the sources of economic inequality in various contexts. The first two essays focus on disparity of agricultural labour productivity across the developing countries, while the third analyzes racial earnings inequality. The main goal of these essays is to shed light on some of the mechanisms which have generated these types of inequality, in order to better design policies for ameliorating them. The first essay is empirical, while the second and third essays construct general equilibrium models so as to quantitatively assess the importance of proposed sources of inequality. The first essay finds that a large proportion of the variation of the level and growth of agricultural labour productivity across a sample of developing countries can be explained by variation in input use across countries. I demonstrate that our understanding of disparity of labour productivity in developing country agriculture can be significantly improved by accounting for variation in the adoption of high-yielding seed varieties and for correlation between input use and technological change across countries. The second essay analyzes the factors which have contributed to agricultural stagnation in Sub-Saharan Africa, despite productivity improvements in agriculture in other developing regions. I construct a quantitative model which can match average Sub-Saharan African trends of agricultural labour productivity, crop yields and input use from 1965 to 2000. The model points to key factors which have constrained agricultural productivity growth over this period, and to the need for diverse yet concerted policies to arrest this stagnation. The third essay presents a quantitative model which sheds light on racial earnings inequality in the U.S., South Africa and Brazil. This model indicates that a large proportion of the racial wage gap in these three countries can be attributed to differential human capital accumulation by race. Most notably, distortions created by the explicit, racially-biased education system which existed in South Africa during Apartheid can explain roughly three quarters of the racial wage gap in South Africa in the early 1990's.

Download or read book Three Essays on Sustainability written by Mark V. Paul and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chapter 1 investigates the inverse relationship between farm size and agricultural yield. While there are a large number of studies internationally, there have been few conducted in African countries. Using household-level data from a national survey we explore the relationship between farm size and yield in Ethiopia's post land reform scenario. We find a robust inverse relationship between farm size and yield, and a positive association between yield and land fragmentation. These findings raise important questions for current agricultural development strategies that favor larger farms and less fragmentation in Africa Chapter 2 investigates the uptake of top-down flood mitigation policies in Vermont. Despite consensus on the need to adapt to climate change, who should adapt and how remain open questions. While local-level actions are essential, state and federal governments can play a substantial role in adaptation. In this chapter we investigate local response to state-level flood mitigation policies in Vermont as a means of analyzing what leads top-down adaptations to be effective in mobilizing local action. Drawing on interviews with town officials, we delineate local-level perspectives on Vermont's top-down policies and use those perspectives to develop a conceptual framework that presents the 'fit' between top-down policies and the local-level context as comprised of three components: Receptivity, Ease of Participation, and Design. We explain how these components and their interactions influence local-level action. This analysis points to how careful consideration of the components of 'fit' may lead to greater local-level uptake of top-down adaptation policies. Chapter 3 investigates farmer's livelihoods within Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). In the United States there is a tremendous amount of interest in CSA among farmers, consumers, activists, and policymakers. Despite the attention garnered by CSA farms and the resurgence of local agriculture, relatively few studies have examined the livelihood opportunities for farmers within local agriculture. This chapter takes a step in this direction, evaluating livelihoods for CSA farmers through in-depth interviews conducted in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts. Based on the principles early advocates set forth as goals of the CSA movement; the chapter evaluates how CSA farmers are doing from the farmers' perspective. The chapter finds that while CSA farmers are faring better than other farms across the United States and in the study region in terms of earned farm income, they still earn far less than the median national income of all households. Community Supported Agriculture also provides broader social, ecological, and economic benefits to farming communities as a whole, with its focus on providing food for the community rather than producing mass commodities for the market. These non-market benefits are a significant source of well-being from the CSA farmers' perspective.

Download or read book Three Essays on Agricultural Marketing in Developing Countries written by Aya Suzuki and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Africa s Development in Historical Perspective written by Emmanuel Akyeampong and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-08-11 with total page 541 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why has Africa remained persistently poor over its recorded history? Has Africa always been poor? What has been the nature of Africa's poverty and how do we explain its origins? This volume takes a necessary interdisciplinary approach to these questions by bringing together perspectives from archaeology, linguistics, history, anthropology, political science, and economics. Several contributors note that Africa's development was at par with many areas of Europe in the first millennium of the Common Era. Why Africa fell behind is a key theme in this volume, with insights that should inform Africa's developmental strategies.

Download or read book Institutions and Sustainability written by Volker Beckmann and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2009-02-07 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the first vague idea to use Konrad Hagedorn’s 60th birthday as an inspi- tion for taking stock of his vibrant academic contributions, this joint book project has been a great pleasure for us in many ways. Pursuing Hagedorn’s intellectual development, we have tried to reflect on the core questions of humanity according to Ernst Bloch “Who are we?”, “Where do we come from?” and “Where are we heading?” In this way, and without knowing it, Konrad Hagedorn initiated a c- lective action process he would have very much enjoyed ... if he had been allowed to take part in it. But it was our aim and constant motivation to surprise him with this collection of essays in his honour. Konrad Hagedorn was reared as the youngest child of a peasant family on a small farm in the remote moorland of East Frisia, Germany. During his childhood in the poverty-ridden years after the Second World War, he faced a life where humans were heavily dependent on using nature around them for their livelihoods; meanwhile, he learned about the fragility of the environment. As a boy, he - tended a one-room schoolhouse, where his great intellectual talents were first r- ognised and used for co-teaching his schoolmates. These early teaching expe- ences might have laid the foundations for his later becoming a dedicated lecturer and mentor.

Download or read book Three Essays on Trade and Development written by Tereso S. Tullao and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Africa agriculture trade monitor 2022 written by Bouët, Antoine, ed. and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2022-09-27 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 2022 Africa Agriculture Trade Monitor, a flagship publication of AKADEMIYA2063 and the International Food Policy Research Institute, provides an overview of trade in agriculture in Africa, including analysis of short- and long-term trends and drivers behind Africa’s global trade, intra-African trade, and trade within Africa’s regional economic communities. The 2022 report looks at the impact of the Russia-Ukraine war; Africa’s participation in global value chains; intraregional trade in processed agricultural products; the potential benefits of ambitious implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement, and includes focused chapters on value chains for cocoa, coffee, and tea and on trade integration in Economic Community of Central African States.

Download or read book Delivering Sustainable Growth in Africa written by Takahiro Fukunishi and published by Springer. This book was released on 2013-12-17 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The purpose of this book is to fill the lack of micro evidences on a structural change of African producers. By collecting studies on single industries, we attempt to demonstrate firms' and farmers' responses to the recent economic trend such as growth of demand, emergence of FDI and improvement in infrastructure.

Download or read book The Idea of Development in Africa written by Corrie Decker and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-29 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An engaging history of how the idea of development has shaped Africa's past and present encounters with the West.