Social services, water access, and agricultural productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa

In sub-Saharan Africa, public resource allocation in social service sectors can be particular important in that low levels of development can make private services inaccessible for much of the population. In addition, short-term social services needs often compete with longer-term growth enhancing investments for limited government funds. However, the analysis and understanding of the agricultural productivity effects from the provision of social services has been severely limited by data constraints and the need to control for a variety of related factors. Given the importance of agriculture for rural incomes, a better understanding of the effects on agricultural productivity from the provision of a variety of social services is important for allocating spending that will not only support short-term needs but also longer-term growth in rural areas. Despite the limited data availability, previous analyses have been conducted regarding the role of public expenditures on rural poverty. Often, this is limited to one sector or overall rural incomes rather than agricultural productivity. In addition, these analyses often assume homogeneous production technology and do not account for climatic variations driving production. Expanding on the work that has been done previously, we analyze multiple expenditure sectors, allowing heterogeneity in the underlying socio-economic and agro-climatic environment ...