Books in the Development Economics & Policy series

In India, the diets of rural populations are often monotonous and unhealthy. The author analyzes how agricultural diversity and market access can combat undernutrition and offers a novel examination of how economic preferences such as risk and altruism are shaping consumption choices and nutrition security, even in environments of food scarcity.

This book presents a study focusing on household biomass energy use and its impacts on livelihoods in rural China. It advances the literature by triangulating the existing econometric approaches to robustly analyze energy using behaviors at the micro level.

The book presents the nexus between industrial clustering, firm performance and employee welfare. The author presents the quantitative impacts of industrial clustering and an examination of the short-term impacts of cluster policy in Ethiopia. He evaluates the welfare and gender impacts of female employment in the flower industry cluster of Ethiopia.

The book examines the role that the private sector can play in reducing poverty and marginality in Ethiopia. It analyzes number, location and purchasing behavior of the marginalized poor in Ethiopia as well as institutions governing agricultural input markets to identify obstacles for private sector investments that benefit the marginalized poor.

The author examines the dynamics of participation in and welfare impact of integrated aquaculture-agriculture (IAA) value chain by using three-year panel data. Education and household size, access to extensions and market information, community-based organisations (CBO) membership are positively associated with IAA participation.

This study assesses income and poverty effects of vegetable commercialization in Kenya with a special focus on gender issues and evaluates the performance of institutional arrangements that link small producers to the high-value vegetable supply chains. It shows that the participation of smallholders in the vegetable markets is declining.

The New Cooperative Medical Scheme (NCMS) was implemented in 2003 in response to the poor state of health care in rural China. This study offers a contribution to improve the NCMS design, particularly as to regional policy development, reimbursement arrangements, the efficiency of public investment, and improvements of rural infrastructure.

This study addresses the issue of household food consumption, its relation to gender and to food policy in Indonesia. Using econometric analyses of the Indonesian Family Life Survey, the study reveals that food expenditure patterns, particularly those of the poor households, warrant food policy attention.

This thesis analyses the impact of institutional change in Vietnam's Northern Uplands. Using an original dataset collected in a mountain district in 2007/2008, it investigates empirically the functioning and impact of land and credit institutions and analyses determinants of the formation of social capital in an ethnically heterogeneous society.

Education is essential for human resource development and sustainable socio-economic development of a society. The results of this study indicate that parental perceptions of secular and non-secular education have significant impact on the probability engagement of their children in secular schooling, religious schooling, and child labor.

The issue of maintaining a diverse gene pool in the form of crop varieties is very topical world wide. This is caused by the potential benefit of crop genetic resources for addressing future demand emanating from unforeseen agricultural problems. This volume is mainly concerned with on-farm conservation as a supplement to the other in situ and ex situ conservation options. The study aims at generating relevant information for maintaining local varieties on farmers¿ fields in Ethiopia. In order to effectively devise policies for on-farm conservation, the volume argues that an improved understanding of farmers¿ incentives, attribute preferences and opportunity costs is indispensable. These issues are extensively addressed (both theoretically and empirically) with a focus on policy that is expressed by the guiding question Given the socioeconomic set-up, what policy options are available to undertake on-farm conservation of crop diversity in Ethiopia? The study results are intended to help identify optimal policies for on-farm conservation taking sorghum, coffee, and wheat as empirical examples.

This book presents an analysis of the transition process with particular emphasis on the agricultural sector in Vietnam. Focusing on the ethnic minority of the Black Thai in the mountainous regions of Northern Vietnam, the impact of the rural reform process on their livelihood is examined. The analytical tool used in this work is a stochastic frontier analysis model, whose parameters are estimated by a regression analysis. Although the transition process in general has had a positive impact on the livelihood of the population, the gap between the rich and the poor has widened during the last ten years. Imperative measures are the introduction of technical innovations in the agricultural sector and their promotion through governmental as well as national and international non-governmental organisations.

Land degradation is increasingly considered as a global problem. In which way is it worth taking action against land degradation? Where and when should action take place, and what are costs related to certain actions? This book deals with these questions.

This volume develops alternative methods that might improve the targeting efficiency of development programs in terms of the coverage of the poor and leakage to the non-poor. The research on which this volume is based received the 2012 Josef G. Knoll European Science Award of the Foundation Fiat Panis (Germany).

This study explores issues of biomass energy use in relation to household welfare and it assesses Ethiopia's future energy security with a focus on the energy sector model and institutional arrangements required for decentralized energy initiatives.

The book assesses the impacts of pesticide use reduction strategies in the context of Thai highland agriculture. It shows that it is possible to bring down levels of pesticide use without income trade-offs. Combining Integrated Pest Management (IPM) with pesticide taxes and bio-pesticide subsidies is the most cost-effective and practicable policy.