World Development[JOURNAL]
Sun
200 papers
Smallholder responses to climate anomalies in rural Uganda.
Call M, Gray C, Jagger P
World Dev · 2019 Mar · PMID 31530968 · Full text
Recent research suggests that sub-Saharan Africa will be among the regions most affected by the negative social and biophysical ramifications of climate change. Smallholders are anticipated to respond to rising temperatu...
Recent research suggests that sub-Saharan Africa will be among the regions most affected by the negative social and biophysical ramifications of climate change. Smallholders are anticipated to respond to rising temperatures and precipitation anomalies through on-farm management strategies and diversification into off-farm activities. Few studies have empirically examined the relationship between climate anomalies and rural livelihoods. Our research explores the impact of climate anomalies on farmers' on and off-farm livelihood strategies, considering both annual and decadal climate exposures, the relationship between on and off-farm livelihoods, and the implications of these livelihood strategies for agricultural productivity. To examine these issues, we link gridded climate data to survey data collected in 120 communities from 850 Ugandan households and 2,000 agricultural plots in 2003 and 2013. We find that smallholder livelihoods are responsive to climate exposure over both short and long time scales. Droughts decrease agricultural productivity in the short term and reduce individual livelihood diversification in the long term. Smallholders cope with higher temperatures in the short term, but in the long run, farmers struggle to adapt to above-average temperatures, which lower agricultural productivity and reduce opportunities for diversification. On and off-farm livelihood strategies also appear to operate in parallel, rather than by substituting for one another. These observations suggest that in order to sustain rural livelihoods, new strategies will be necessary if smallholders are to successfully adapt to climate change.
Transparency and sustainability in global commodity supply chains.
Gardner TA, Benzie M, Börner J … +18 more , Dawkins E, Fick S, Garrett R, Godar J, Grimard A, Lake S, Larsen RK, Mardas N, McDermott CL, Meyfroidt P, Osbeck M, Persson M, Sembres T, Suavet C, Strassburg B, Trevisan A, West C, Wolvekamp P
World Dev · 2019 Sep · PMID 31481824 · Full text
Over the last few decades rapid advances in processes to collect, monitor, disclose, and disseminate information have contributed towards the development of entirely new modes of sustainability governance for global comm...
Over the last few decades rapid advances in processes to collect, monitor, disclose, and disseminate information have contributed towards the development of entirely new modes of sustainability governance for global commodity supply chains. However, there has been very little critical appraisal of the contribution made by different transparency initiatives to sustainability and the ways in which they can (and cannot) influence new governance arrangements. Here we seek to strengthen the theoretical underpinning of research and action on supply chain transparency by addressing four questions: (1) What is meant by supply chain transparency? (2) What is the relevance of supply chain transparency to supply chain sustainability governance? (3) What is the current status of supply chain transparency, and what are the strengths and weaknesses of existing initiatives? and (4) What propositions can be advanced for how transparency can have a positive transformative effect on the governance interventions that seek to strengthen sustainability outcomes? We use examples from agricultural supply chains and the zero-deforestation agenda as a focus of our analysis but draw insights that are relevant to the transparency and sustainability of supply chains in general. We propose a typology to distinguish among types of supply chain information that are needed to support improvements in sustainability governance, and illustrate a number of major shortfalls and systematic biases in existing information systems. We also propose a set of ten propositions that, taken together, serve to expose some of the potential pitfalls and undesirable outcomes that may result from (inevitably) limited or poorly designed transparency systems, whilst offering guidance on some of the ways in which greater transparency can make a more effective, lasting and positive contribution to sustainability.
Taxing highly processed foods: What could be the impacts on obesity and underweight in sub-Saharan Africa?
Boysen O, Boysen-Urban K, Bradford H … +1 more , Balié J
World Dev · 2019 Jul · PMID 31274950 · Full text
The consumption of highly processed food has been singled out as one of the factors responsible for the rapidly increasing prevalence of obesity and its associated non-communicable diseases and costs. While obesity preva...
The consumption of highly processed food has been singled out as one of the factors responsible for the rapidly increasing prevalence of obesity and its associated non-communicable diseases and costs. While obesity prevalence is still comparatively low in lower-income sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), development prospects in this region render markets especially attractive for these foods, whose consumption is already growing at higher rates than in developed countries. This might be reflected in the massive rise in obesity prevalence growth rates in SSA over the past decade, while many of these countries are simultaneously struggling with high undernutrition prevalence. Using a newly constructed cross-country panel dataset, this study econometrically investigates the effect of higher import tariffs on highly processed less-processed foods with respect to their impacts on obesity and underweight prevalence in the adult population. While the analysis is global, the discussion focuses primarily on SSA. The effects of the tariff differences are found to be significant and substantial and to differ by income level of the country as well as by gender. More generally, the results show that policies affecting the consumer price differential between the two food groups are effective in influencing obesity and underweight prevalence and that these two issues cannot be treated separately.
Climate Shocks Constrain Human Fertility in Indonesia.
Sellers S, Gray C
World Dev · 2019 May · PMID 31213734 · Full text
Climate change is likely to induce a large range of household- and individual-level responses, including changes in human fertility behaviors and outcomes. These responses may have important implications for human and ec...
Climate change is likely to induce a large range of household- and individual-level responses, including changes in human fertility behaviors and outcomes. These responses may have important implications for human and economic development and women's empowerment. Drawing on the literature linking climate conditions to rice cultivation in Indonesia, we use longitudinal household survey and high-resolution climate data to explore changes in childbearing intentions, family planning use, and births following community-level climate shocks from 1993 to 2015. We find that fertility intentions increase and family planning use declines in response to delays in monsoon onset occurring within the previous year, particularly for wealthier populations. However, women on farms are significantly more likely to use family planning and less likely to give birth following abnormally high temperatures during the previous five years. We also measure parallel shifts in household well-being as measured by rice, food, and non-food consumption expenditures. Our findings advance the environmental fertility literature by showing that longer duration environmental shocks can have impacts on fertility behaviors and outcomes. Collectively, our results illustrate human fertility responses to climate change in a country vulnerable to its effects, and demonstrate that in some cases, climate shocks can constrain human fertility.
Corrigendum to 'Can differences in individual learning explain patterns of technology adoption? Evidence on heterogeneous learning patterns and hybrid rice adoption in Bihar, India' [World Dev. 115 (2018) 178-189].
Gars J, Ward PS
World Dev · 2019 Jun · PMID 31186598 · Full text
[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.11.014.].
[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.11.014.].
Social networks, mobility, and political participation: The potential for women's self-help groups to improve access and use of public entitlement schemes in India.
Kumar N, Raghunathan K, Arrieta A … +4 more , Jilani A, Chakrabarti S, Menon P, Quisumbing AR
World Dev · 2019 Feb · PMID 31007353 · Full text
Women's self-help groups (SHGs) have increasingly been used as a vehicle for social, political, and economic empowerment as well as a platform for service delivery. Although a growing body of literature shows evidence of...
Women's self-help groups (SHGs) have increasingly been used as a vehicle for social, political, and economic empowerment as well as a platform for service delivery. Although a growing body of literature shows evidence of positive impacts of SHGs on various measures of empowerment, our understanding of ways in which SHGs improve awareness and use of public services is limited. To fill this knowledge gap, this paper first examines how SHG membership is associated with political participation, awareness, and use of government entitlement schemes. It further examines the effect of SHG membership on various measures of social networks and mobility. Using data collected in 2015 across five Indian states and matching methods to correct for endogeneity of SHG membership, we find that SHG members are more politically engaged. We also find that SHG members are not only more likely to know of certain public entitlements than non-members, they are significantly more likely to avail of a greater number of public entitlement schemes. Additionally, SHG members have wider social networks and greater mobility as compared to non-members. Our results suggest that SHGs have the potential to increase their members' ability to hold public entities accountable and demand what is rightfully theirs. An important insight, however, is that the SHGs themselves cannot be expected to increase knowledge of public entitlement schemes in absence of a deliberate effort to do so by an external agency.
Conditional cash transfers for primary education: Which children are left out?
Bauchet J, Undurraga EA, Reyes-García V … +2 more , Behrman JR, Godoy RA
World Dev · 2018 May · PMID 31007352 · Full text
Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs to increase primary-school enrollment and attendance among low-income households have been shown to benefit children and households, but to date little is known about who joins su...
Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs to increase primary-school enrollment and attendance among low-income households have been shown to benefit children and households, but to date little is known about who joins such programs. We test three hypotheses about predictors of CCT program participation in indigenous societies in Bolivia, focusing on attributes of the household (ethnicity), parents (modern human capital), and children (age, sex). We model whether children receive a transfer from Bolivia's CCT program (), using data from 811 school-age children and nine ethnic groups. Children from the group least exposed to Westerners (Tsimane') are 18-22 percentage points less likely to participate in the program than children from other lowland ethnic groups. Parental modern human capital and child sex do not predict participation. We discuss possible mechanisms underlying the findings and conclude that the Tsimane's current lower returns to schooling are the most likely explanation.
The impact of recipient choice on aid effectiveness.
Shapiro J
World Dev · 2019 Apr · PMID 30944504 · Full text
This study compares the impact of several common development programs (agricultural extension, subsidized agricultural inputs and poultry transfers) to cash transfers equal to the cost of each program. Prior to program d...
This study compares the impact of several common development programs (agricultural extension, subsidized agricultural inputs and poultry transfers) to cash transfers equal to the cost of each program. Prior to program delivery, recipients were asked their valuation for each program (i.e., their cash indifference point between cash and the program) as a proxy for their preference between cash and the program. Subsequently, recipients were randomly assigned to receive cash or a program. Six months after delivery of cash and programs, we do not find that individuals who receive the intervention they value most are different from others in terms of consumption, food security, assets, psychological well-being or feelings of autonomy, and can rule out effects of any meaningful size. When comparing cash transfers directly to common development programs, the point estimates indicate no difference in impacts and confidence intervals rule out large differences. We do find that cash transfers increase feelings of autonomy and respect compared to non-cash interventions.
Agricultural investments and hunger in Africa modeling potential contributions to SDG2 - Zero Hunger.
Mason-D'Croz D, Sulser TB, Wiebe K … +9 more , Rosegrant MW, Lowder SK, Nin-Pratt A, Willenbockel D, Robinson S, Zhu T, Cenacchi N, Dunston S, Robertson RD
World Dev · 2019 Apr · PMID 30944503 · Full text
We use IFPRI's IMPACT framework of linked biophysical and structural economic models to examine developments in global agricultural production systems, climate change, and food security. Building on related work on how i...
We use IFPRI's IMPACT framework of linked biophysical and structural economic models to examine developments in global agricultural production systems, climate change, and food security. Building on related work on how increased investment in agricultural research, resource management, and infrastructure can address the challenges of meeting future food demand, we explore the costs and implications of these investments for reducing hunger in Africa by 2030. This analysis is coupled with a new investment estimation model, based on the perpetual inventory methodology (PIM), which allows for a better assessment of the costs of achieving projected agricultural improvements. We find that climate change will continue to slow projected reductions in hunger in the coming decades-increasing the number of people at risk of hunger in 2030 by 16 million in Africa compared to a scenario without climate change. Investments to increase agricultural productivity can offset the adverse impacts of climate change and help reduce the share of people at risk of hunger in 2030 to five percent or less in Northern, Western, and Southern Africa, but the share is projected to remain at ten percent or more in Eastern and Central Africa. Investments in Africa to achieve these results are estimated to cost about 15 billion USD per year between 2015 and 2030, as part of a larger package of investments costing around 52 billion USD in developing countries.
Smallholders' uneven capacities to adapt to climate change amid Africa's 'green revolution': Case study of Rwanda's crop intensification program.
Clay N, King B
World Dev · 2019 Apr · PMID 30944502 · Full text
Development programs and policies can influence smallholder producers' abilities to adapt to climate change. However, gaps remain in understanding how households' adaptive capacities can become uneven. This paper investi...
Development programs and policies can influence smallholder producers' abilities to adapt to climate change. However, gaps remain in understanding how households' adaptive capacities can become uneven. This paper investigates how development transitions-such as the recent adoption of 'green revolution' agricultural policies throughout sub-Saharan Africa-intersect with cross-scale social-environmental processes to unevenly shape smallholders' adaptive capacities and adaptation pathways. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative material from a multi-season study in Rwanda, we investigate smallholder adaptation processes amid a suite of rural development interventions. Our study finds that adaptive capacities arise differentially across livelihood groups in the context of evolving environmental, social, and political economic processes. We show how social institutions play key roles in shaping differential adaptation pathways by enabling and/or constraining opportunities for smallholders to adapt livelihood and land use strategies. Specifically, Rwanda's Crop Intensification Program enables some wealthier households to adapt livelihoods by generating income through commercial agriculture. At the same time, deactivation of local risk management institutions has diminished climate risk management options for most households. To build and employ alternate livelihood practices such as commercial agriculture and planting woodlots for charcoal production, smallholders must negotiate new institutions, a prerequisite for which is access to capitals (land, labor, and nonfarm income). Those without entitlements to these are pulled deeper into poverty with each successive climatic shock. This illustrates that adaptive capacity is not a static, quantifiable entity that exists in households. We argue that reconceptualizing adaptive capacity as a dynamic, social-environmental process that emerges in places can help clarify complex linkages among development policies, livelihoods, and adaptation pathways. To ensure more equitable and climate-resilient agricultural development, we stress the need to reformulate policies with careful attention to how power structures and entrenched social inequalities can lead to smallholders' uneven capacities to adapt to climate change.
Can differences in individual learning explain patterns of technology adoption? Evidence on heterogeneous learning patterns and hybrid rice adoption in Bihar, India.
Gars J, Ward PS
World Dev · 2019 Mar · PMID 30828125 · Full text
Much empirical research that has shown that an individual's decision to adopt a new technology is the result of learning - both in personal experimentation as well as observing the experimentation of others. Yet even cas...
Much empirical research that has shown that an individual's decision to adopt a new technology is the result of learning - both in personal experimentation as well as observing the experimentation of others. Yet even casual observation would suggest significant heterogeneity learning processes, manifesting itself in widely varying patterns of adoption over space and time. In this paper we explore this heterogeneity in the context of early adoption of hybrid rice in rural India. Using specially-designed experiments conducted as part of a primary survey in the field, we are able to identify which of four broad learning heuristics most accurately reflects individuals' information processing strategies. Linking these learning heuristics with observed use of rice hybrids, we demonstrate that pure Bayesian learning is well suited for the tinkering and marginal adjustments that would be required to learn about a technology like hybrid rice, but is also more cognitively taxing, requiring a longer memory and more complex updating processes. Consequently, only about 25 percent of the farmers in our sample can be characterized as pure Bayesian learners. Present-biased learning and relying on first impressions will likely hinder adoption of a technology like hybrid rice, even after controlling for access to credit and a rudimentary proxy for intelligence.
Electoral incentives to combat mosquito-borne illnesses: Experimental evidence from Brazil.
Boas TC, Hidalgo FD
World Dev · 2019 Jan · PMID 32287930 · Full text
Mosquito-borne illnesses present significant health challenges to the developing world. If citizens are informed about their government's efforts to combat these diseases, will they reward incumbents who have performed w...
Mosquito-borne illnesses present significant health challenges to the developing world. If citizens are informed about their government's efforts to combat these diseases, will they reward incumbents who have performed well and punish those who have done poorly at this task? Electoral sanctioning requires that combatting disease be a sufficiently salient concern, which, in turn, is likely to depend upon subjective perceptions of the risks posed by particular illnesses. Epidemics typically prompt stronger risk perceptions than endemic diseases, but where both types circulate jointly, the more familiar endemic disease may determine public reactions. The salience of health threats also varies among individuals; those with a self-interest in prevention or a personal connection to the effects of mosquito-borne illnesses may react more strongly. This study presents the results of a face-to-face survey experiment in Pernambuco, Brazil, informing subjects about their mayor's use of federal funds to combat mosquito-borne illnesses such as dengue (an endemic disease) and Zika and chikungunya (both epidemics). We examine the effect of this information on intended vote for the mayor's reelection. For the full sample, the treatment has no significant effect. However, we find a large and significant punishment effect among voters who know someone affected by microcephaly or the Zika virus. Drawing on survey and focus group evidence, we argue that most voters fail to act upon our treatment information because mosquito control is a low-salience concern primarily associated with endemic rather than epidemic diseases. Our study constitutes the first experimental evidence as to whether informing citizens about government public health efforts affects voting behavior. Our results suggests that, where similar epidemic and endemic diseases circulate together, informational campaigns aiming to induce electoral accountability should also seek to boost the salience of the information by educating the public about the difference between familiar and newer threats.
Revisiting the patriarchal bargain: The intergenerational power dynamics of household money management in rural Nepal.
Gram L, Skordis-Worrall J, Mannell J … +3 more , Manandhar DS, Saville N, Morrison J
World Dev · 2018 Dec · PMID 30510348 · Full text
Although power struggles between daughters-in-law and mothers-in-law in the South Asian household remain an enduring theme of feminist scholarship, current policy discourse on 'women's economic empowerment' in the Global...
Although power struggles between daughters-in-law and mothers-in-law in the South Asian household remain an enduring theme of feminist scholarship, current policy discourse on 'women's economic empowerment' in the Global South tends to focus on married women's power over their husband; this neglects intergenerational power dynamics. The aim of this study was to describe and analyze the processes involved in young, married women's negotiations of control over cash inside the extended household in a contemporary rural Nepali setting. We conducted a grounded theory study of 42 households from the Plains of Nepal. Our study uncovered multiple ways in which junior wives and husbands in the extended household became secret allies in seeking financial autonomy from the rule of the mother-in-law to the wife. This included secretly saving up for a household separation from the in-laws. We argue these secret financial strategies constitute a means for junior couples to renegotiate the terms of Kandiyoti's (1988) 'patriarchal bargain' wherein junior wives traditionally had to accept subservience to their husband and mother-in-law in exchange for economic security and eventual authority over their own daughters-in-law. Researchers, activists and policy-makers concerned with women's economic empowerment in comparable contexts should consider the impact of intergenerational power relations on women's control over cash.
Composition of Household Income and Child Nutrition Outcomes Evidence from Uganda.
Kirk A, Kilic T, Carletto C
World Dev · 2018 Sep · PMID 30177866 · Full text
This study targets the empirical space between cross-country analyses exploring links between income and nutrition without insights on micro-level determinants, and relevant microeconomic studies hindered by small sample...
This study targets the empirical space between cross-country analyses exploring links between income and nutrition without insights on micro-level determinants, and relevant microeconomic studies hindered by small sample size and/or incomplete data. We use the rural samples of the three waves of the Uganda National Panel Survey, and estimate panel regressions of child height-for-age -scores (HAZ) controlling for time-invariant child-level heterogeneity. On the whole, we find no impact of short-term changes in total gross income on HAZ but document small positive correlations for younger children. Sector-differentiated analyses indicate that compared to wage earnings, only share of income from non-farm self-employment correlates positively with HAZ. Within agriculture, shares of income from consumption of own crop production and from low-protein crop production underlie the negative effect of share of income from crop production. While we cannot claim causal relationships, our findings suggest the possibility of "stickiness" of crop production to own consumption.
What is equitable resilience?
Matin N, Forrester J, Ensor J
World Dev · 2018 Sep · PMID 30177865 · Full text
Resilience has attracted criticism for its failure to address social vulnerability and to engage with issues of equity and power. Here, we ask: what is equitable resilience? Our focus is on what resilience does on the gr...
Resilience has attracted criticism for its failure to address social vulnerability and to engage with issues of equity and power. Here, we ask: what is equitable resilience? Our focus is on what resilience does on the ground in relation to development, adaptation and disaster management, and on identifying critical issues for engaging with equity in resilience practice. Using techniques from systematic reviews, with variants of equitable resilience as our key search terms, we carried out an analytical literature review which reveals four interconnected themes: subjectivities, inclusion, cross-scale interactions, and transformation. Drawing on this analysis, we find that 'equitable resilience' is increasingly likely when resilience practice takes into account issues of social vulnerability and differential access to power, knowledge, and resources; it requires starting from people's own perception of their position within their human-environmental system, and it accounts for their realities and for their need for a change of circumstance to avoid imbalances of power into the future. Our approach moves beyond debates that focus on the ontological disconnect between resilience and social theory, to provide a definition that can be used in practice alongside resilience indicators to drive ground level interventions towards equitable outcomes Defined in this way, equitable resilience is able to support the development of social-ecological systems that are contextually rooted, responsive to change and socially just, and thus relevant to global sustainability challenges.
Natural Disasters, Social Protection, and Risk Perceptions.
Brown P, Daigneault A, Tjernström E … +1 more , Zou W
World Dev · 2018 Apr · PMID 30100664 · Full text
Natural disasters give rise to loss and damage and may affect subjective expectations about the prevalence and severity of future disasters. These expectations might then in turn shape individuals' investment behaviors,...
Natural disasters give rise to loss and damage and may affect subjective expectations about the prevalence and severity of future disasters. These expectations might then in turn shape individuals' investment behaviors, potentially affecting their incomes in subsequent years. As part of an emerging literature on endogenous preferences, economists have begun studying the consequences that exposure to natural disasters have on risk attitudes, perceptions, and behavior. We add to this field by studying the impact of being struck by the December 2012 Cyclone Evan on Fijian households' risk attitudes and subjective expectations about the likelihood and severity of natural disasters over the next 20 years. The randomness of the cyclone's path allows us to estimate the causal effects of exposure on both risk attitudes and risk perceptions. Our results show that being struck by an extreme event substantially changes individuals' risk perceptions as well as their beliefs about the frequency and magnitude of future shocks. However, we find sharply distinct results for the two ethnicities in our sample, indigenous Fijians and Indo-Fijians; the impact of the natural disaster aligns with previous results in the literature on risk attitudes and risk perceptions for Indo-Fijians, whereas they have little to no impact on those same measures for indigenous Fijians. To provide welfare implications for our results, we compare households' risk perceptions to climate and hydrological models of future disaster risk, and find that both ethnic groups over-infer the risk of future disasters relative to the model predictions. If such distorted beliefs encourage over-investment in preventative measures at the cost of other productive investments, these biases could have negative welfare impacts. Understanding belief biases and how they vary across social contexts may thus help decision makers design policy instruments to reduce such inefficiencies, particularly in the face of climate change.
Achieving food security and industrial development in Malawi: Are export restrictions the solution?
Aragie E, Pauw K, Pernechele V
World Dev · 2018 Aug · PMID 30078931 · Full text
Restrictions on staple or cash crop exports are frequently imposed in developing countries to promote food security or industrial development. By diverting production to local markets, these policies tend to reduce price...
Restrictions on staple or cash crop exports are frequently imposed in developing countries to promote food security or industrial development. By diverting production to local markets, these policies tend to reduce prices and increase domestic supply of food or intermediate inputs in the short term, to the benefit of consumers or manufacturers, which make them attractive to policymakers. However, in the long term, export restrictions discourage agricultural production, which may ultimately negate the short-term gains. This study assesses the economy-wide effects of Malawi's long-term maize export ban, which was only recently lifted, and a proposed oilseed export levy intended to improve food security and support local processing industries, respectively. We find that maize export bans only benefit the urban non-poor, while poor farmers' incomes and maize consumption levels decline in the longer run. The oilseed export levy also fails to achieve its long run objectives: even when tax revenues are used to further subsidize food processors, their gains in value-addition are outweighed by declining agricultural value-addition. More generally, these results show that while export restrictions may have the desired outcomes in the short run, production responses may render the policies ineffective in the medium to long run. Ultimately, such restrictive policies reinforce a subsistence approach to agriculture, which is inconsistent with the stated economic transformation goals of many Sub-Saharan African countries.
New modalities for managing drought risk in rainfed agriculture: Evidence from a discrete choice experiment in Odisha, India.
Ward PS, Makhija S
World Dev · 2018 Jul · PMID 29970954 · Full text
Droughts have historically had large impacts on agricultural production in rainfed agricultural systems. Scientists and policymakers have proposed various strategies for managing risks, with limited success. In this stud...
Droughts have historically had large impacts on agricultural production in rainfed agricultural systems. Scientists and policymakers have proposed various strategies for managing risks, with limited success. In this study we consider two such strategies, specifically drought tolerant rice and weather index insurance. While neither drought tolerant cultivars nor weather index insurance products are perfect solutions for adequately managing drought risk in and of themselves, there is scope to exploit the benefits of each and bundle them into a complementary risk management product, specifically through proper index calibration and an optimized insurance design. In this study, we explore preferences for such a complementary risk management product using discrete choice experiments in Odisha, India. We are able to estimate the added value that farmers perceive in the bundled product above and beyond the value associated with each of the independent products. We also show that valuations are very sensitive to the basis risk implied by the insurance product, with farmers less enthusiastic about risk management products that leave significant risks uninsured.
Unintended effects of a targeted maternal and child nutrition intervention on household expenditures, labor income, and the nutritional status of non-targeted siblings in Ghana.
Adams KP, Lybbert TJ, Vosti SA … +4 more , Ayifah E, Arimond M, Adu-Afarwuah S, Dewey KG
World Dev · 2018 Jul · PMID 29970953 · Full text
It is common for health and nutrition interventions to target specific household members and for evaluations of their effects to focus exclusively on those members. However, if a targeted intervention changes a household...
It is common for health and nutrition interventions to target specific household members and for evaluations of their effects to focus exclusively on those members. However, if a targeted intervention changes a household's utility maximization problem or influences decision-making, households might respond to the intervention in unintended ways with the potential to affect the wellbeing of non-targeted members. Using panel data from a randomized controlled nutrition trial in Ghana, we evaluate household behavioral responses to the provision of small-quantity lipid-based nutrient supplements (SQ-LNS) to mothers and their infants to prevent undernutrition. We find that targeted supplementation with SQ-LNS had a positive effect on household expenditures on food, including some nutrient-rich food groups, as well as on non-food goods and services. We also find a positive impact on labor income, particularly among fathers. We then explore intrahousehold spillover effects on the nutritional status of non-targeted young children in the household. We find evidence that the targeted provision of SQ-LNS led to higher height-for-age z-scores among non-targeted children in the LNS group compared to the non-LNS group, though only among those with relatively taller mothers, which is an indicator of a child's growth potential. These findings support existing evidence and suggest that unintended behavioral responses and spillover are a real possibility in the context of nutrition interventions targeting nutritionally-vulnerable household members. Thoughtfully considering this possibility in the design, analyses, and evaluation of targeted nutrition interventions may provide a more complete picture of overall effects.
Intensification and intrahousehold decisions: Fertilizer adoption in Burkina Faso.
Haider H, Smale M, Theriault V
World Dev · 2018 May · PMID 29725156 · Full text
In most West African countries, agricultural production is a complex process that involves multiple household members managing land and sharing agricultural inputs. We develop an intrahousehold decision-making model to i...
In most West African countries, agricultural production is a complex process that involves multiple household members managing land and sharing agricultural inputs. We develop an intrahousehold decision-making model to illustrate how technology adoption can influence bargaining processes on farms in harsh agricultural environments of West Africa, where staple food production by extended families is organized collectively under the leadership of a senior head. The head, who assumes primary responsibility for household food security, also allocates fields to members who manage production individually. Drawing on this and the intrinsic complementarity of labor and fertilizer as divisible inputs, we test the nature of the linkage between fertilizer use on collective and individual plots by applying bivariate probit and tobit models to nationally-representative, panel data from Burkina Faso. We find evidence of input sharing, though bargaining is inadequate to sustain efficient allocation of fertilizer. Plot manager characteristics that influence bargaining power, such as literacy, gender, age, contact with extension, and membership in farmer organizations differ between collectively- and individually-managed plots-confirming the differential status of household members in technology adoption. Agroforestry practices are strongly and positively associated with fertilizer use, regardless of plot manage type. Programs aimed at increasing use of modern agricultural inputs should consider impacts on bargaining positions within the household. Providing inputs to women and young men will increase their influence on other decisions, which may lead to greater equity within the household. It may also enhance efficiency in production, since currently, inputs are not allocated efficiently within the household.
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