Archive
The Economic Consequences of Excess Men: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Taiwan
As sex ratio imbalances have become a problem in an increasing number of countries, it is important to understand their consequences. With the defeat of the Kuomintang Party in China, more than one million soldiers and civilians, mainly young males, retreated to Taiwan in the late 1940s. Initially, the soldiers from mainland China were not allowed to marry. The ban was relaxed in 1959, however, suddenly flooding the marriage market with a large number of eligible bachelors. The operational ratio of males to females at marriageable age peaked at nearly 1.2 in the 1960s. Using data from multiple sources, we find that during times of high marriage competition, young men are more likely to become entrepreneurs, work longer hours, save more, and amass more assets. The findings highlight the important role of biological forces in shaping human economic behavior.
Does food security matter for transition in Arab countries?
Does food security matter for transition in Arab countries?
Source: International Food Policy Research Institute
Expectations are high that transition in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen will bring about more freedom, justice, and economic opportunities. However, experiences from other world regions show that countries in transition are at high risk of entering conflicts, which often come at large economic, social and political costs. In order to identify options on how conflict may be prevented in Arab transition countries, this paper assesses the key global drivers of conflicts based on a dataset from 1960 to 2010 and improved cross-country regression techniques. Results show that unlike in other studies where per capita incomes, inequality, and poor governance, among other factors, emerge as the major determinants of conflict, food security at macro- and micro-levels emerges as the main cause of conflicts in the Arab world. This “Arab exceptionalism in conflict” suggests that improving food security is not only important for improving the lives of rural and urban people; it is also likely to be the key for a peaceful transition.
Agricultural R&D: Investing in Africa’s Future—Analyzing Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities
Agricultural R&D: Investing in Africa’s Future—Analyzing Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities
Source: International Food Policy Research Institute
The promise and challenges inherent in agricultural development in Sub-Saharan Africa prompted the conference, “Agricultural R&D: Investing in Africa’s Future—Analyzing Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities,” which was convened by the Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI) initiative—facilitated by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)—and the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA). The goal of the conference was to define a road map for revitalizing agricultural research in the region focusing on four principal themes:
- sustainable financing of agricultural research;
- training the next generation of agricultural scientists;
- effectively evaluating the performance of research institutes and systems; and
- efficient organization of national agricultural research activities supported by regional and international capacities.
Mineral resources and conflicts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Mineral resources and conflicts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Source: International Food Policy Research Institute
Civil wars inflict considerable costs on countries which may be trapped in vicious cycles of violence. To avoid these adverse events, scholars have attempted to identify the roots of civil wars. Valuable minerals have been listed among the main drivers of civil conflicts. Yet, despite the large body of literature, the evidence remains mixed. This paper provides a spatially nuanced view of the role of mineral resources in civil wars in the particular case of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We estimate the impact of geolocated new mining concessions on the number of conflict events between January 1997 and December 2007. Instrumenting the variable of interest with historical concessions interacted with changes in mineral international prices, we unveil an ecological fallacy: Whereas concessions have no effect on the number of conflicts at the territory level (lowest administrative unit), they do foster violence at the district level (higher administrative unit). We develop a theoretical model wherein the incentives of armed groups to exploit and protect mineral resources explain our empirical findings. A spatial analysis of the effect of mining concessions on conflict backs our proposed theoretical explanation.
Scaling up in agriculture, rural development, and nutrition
Scaling up in agriculture, rural development, and nutrition
Source: International Food Policy Research Institute
Taking successful development interventions to scale is critical if the world is to achieve the Millennium Development Goals and make essential gains in the fight for improved agricultural productivity, rural incomes, and nutrition. How to support scaling up in these three areas, however, is a major challenge. This collection of policy briefs is designed to contribute to a better understanding of the experience to date and the lessons for the future.
Scaling up means expanding, replicating, adapting, and sustaining successful policies, programs, or projects to reach a greater number of people; it is part of a broader process of innovation and learning. A new idea, model, or approach is typically embodied in a pilot project of limited impact; with monitoring and evaluation, the knowledge acquired from the pilot experience can be used to scale up the model to create larger impacts. The process generally occurs in an iterative and interactive cycle, as the experience from scaling up feeds back into new ideas and learning.
The authors of the 20 policy briefs included here explore the experience of scaling up successful interventions in agriculture, rural development, and nutrition under five broad headings: (1) the role of rural community engagement, (2) the importance of value chains, (3) the intricacies of scaling up nutrition interventions, (4) the lessons learned from institutional approaches, and (5) the experience of international aid donors.
Economics of the Arab awakening
Few observers would have predicted the dramatic changes over the past few months in the Arab world. Arab governments appeared to be in tight control, and many Arab economies were growing around or above the world average over the past few years. Annual growth rates in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Oman, and Sudan averaged more than 6 percent between 2005 and 2010; and Syria, Tunisia, and Libya grew at about 5 percent on average during the same period of time. Official poverty rates in most Arab countries are lower than in many Asian and Latin American countries.However, experts have long identified slow progress in economic diversification and job creation, social inequalities, and persistent food insecurity as major development challenges for Arab countries. Did these factors and, more broadly, people’s dissatisfaction with their living standards contribute to the recent uprisings? At first glance, the sudden turn of events and the generally low coverage, quality, and accessibility of data in the Arab world make it difficult to find answers to this question. By looking beyond more conventional data, however, this policy brief provides some insights into the potential role of economics in the ongoing uprisings. It also reviews major policy responses of Arab governments and provides a new narrative of Arab development that is based on inclusive economic transformation, food security, and decisionmaking.
Gender, assets, and agricultural development programs
Gender, assets, and agricultural development programs
Source: International Food Policy Research Institute
Being able to access, control, and own productive assets such as land, labor, finance, and social capital enables people to create stable and productive lives. Yet relatively little is known about how agricultural development programs can most effectively deliver these outcomes of well-being, empowerment, and higher income in a way that acknowledges differential access to and control over assets by men and women. After reviewing the literature on gender and assets, this paper offers a conceptual framework for understanding the gendered pathways through which asset accumulation occurs, including attention to not only men’s and women’s assets but also those they share in joint control and ownership. Unlike previous frameworks, this model depicts the gendered dimensions of each component of the pathway in recognition of the evidence that men and women not only control, own, or dispose of assets in different ways, but also access, control, and own different kinds of assets. The framework generates gender-specific hypotheses that can be tested empirically: i) Different types of assets enable different livelihoods, with a greater stock and diversity of assets being associated with more diverse livelihoods and better well-being outcomes; ii) Men and women use different types of assets to cope with different types of shocks; iii) Interventions that increase men’s and women’s stock of a particular asset improve the bargaining power of the individual(s) who control that asset; and iv) Interventions and policies that reduce the gender gap in assets are better able to achieve development outcomes related to food security, health, and nutrition and other aspects of well-being related to agency and empowerment. The implications of these gender differences for designing agricultural development interventions to increase asset growth and returns to assets as well as for value chain development are discussed. Based on this analysis, additional gaps in knowledge and possible investigations to address them are identified.
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Poverty rate and government income transfers
Poverty rate and government income transfers
Source: International Food Policy Research Institute
The poverty rate and income transfer are clearly correlated. However, not much research has attempted to determine the causal linkage between the two. Previous research has primarily focused on the poverty-reducing impact of income transfer. In this paper, we apply a simultaneous equation system of spatial regressions to uncover the spatial pattern of the relationship between the poverty rate and income transfer, using a sample of 3,001 U.S. counties. The results are in line with theoretical expectations; they provide evidence of a significant simultaneity effect between the poverty rate and income transfer. Our findings also confirm the presence of significant spatial autocorrelation. Contrary to previous studies, we find that more generous counties tend to do a better job of reducing poverty and that counties with more poor tend to be less generous, creating incentive for the poor to participate in the labor force. Furthermore, counties located in devolution states perform better in both poverty reduction and income transfer. These findings are missing from extant literature that focuses only on the poverty-reducing impact of welfare payments.
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Urgent Actions Needed to Prevent Recurring Food Crises
Urgent Actions Needed to Prevent Recurring Food Crises
Source: International Food Policy Research Institute
Recent trends in food prices—higher levels and higher volatility—mirror trends predicted by a number of experts. Given the complex web of factors influencing global food security, governments of developed and developing countries, as well as international organizations, must use a comprehensive approach to prevent a food crisis reoccurrence. This comprehensive approach should comprise a number of initiatives and reforms; while some of these have been proposed before, their merits are even more relevant today and justify reprioritization and reallocation of national and international budgets. There are 7 main initiatives that governments and institutions should promptly implement.
- Effective policies and technology investments to minimize food–fuel competition.
- Social protection, especially social safety nets, for the most vulnerable groups.
- Transparent, fair, and open global trade.
- A global emergency physical grain reserve.
- Policies and investments to promote agricultural growth, in particular smallholder productivity, in the face of climate change.
- Investments by national governments in climate change adaptation and mitigation using the full potential that agriculture offers.
- An international working group to regularly monitor the world food situation and trigger action to prevent excessive price volatility.
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The gender implications of large-scale land deals
The gender implications of large-scale land deals
Source: International Food Policy Research Institute
Whether viewed as “land grabs” or as agricultural investment for development, large-scale land deals by investors in developing countries are generating considerable attention. However, investors, policymakers, officials, and other key stakeholders have paid little attention to a dimension of these deals essential to truly understanding their impact: gender. It is easy to laud outside investment in agriculture, or to deride land deals and the accompanying processes as bad or unfair, without looking at the benefits and costs to local men and women. The results of land deals depend in part on the prior rights and responsibilities of women and men and in part on how the land deal’s implementation perpetuates, improves, or distorts these rights and responsibilities.
A wide-ranging body of evidence forms a clear rationale for prioritizing gender issues in agriculture. Households often do not act as a single unit when allocating food and nonfood resources, which means all household members may not benefit from providing the male household head with more income. Evidence shows that improvements in household agricultural productivity, food security, and nutrition must address women’s needs because, in many parts of the world, women are more likely than men to spend the income they control on food, healthcare, and their children’s education. Conversely, land deals can reduce the welfare of women and their families, even if men’s income increases. Land-related investments promoted in the name of “rural development” will miss their mark unless the many actors involved—including national and local governments, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), the research community, and investors—recognize and address the needs of women as well as men.
Responding to health risks along the value chain
Responding to health risks along the value chain
Source: International Food Policy Research Institute
This brief describes food safety risks along the value chain, identifies drivers of change, presents the risks posed to the poor by both food safety challenges and responses to them, and underscores the use of risk-based analysis to craft effective food safety policies that benefit both poor consumers and poor producers.
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