This article reviews the recent literature on diversification as a livelihood strategy of rural households in developing countries, with particular reference to sub-Saharan Africa. Livelihood diversification is defined as the process by which rural families construct a diverse portfolio of...

Using an integrated household model with endogenous transaction costs, this article illustrates how, even in the absence of risk, the tension between gains from specialisation and corresponding increases in transaction costs may lead to enterprise diversification on small farms. A numerical...

This article concerns the use of village intermediaries to mitigate asymmetric information problems in rural credit delivery. We consider an example from Senegal and examine the intermediaries' screening of loan applicants. The results show that, when the intermediaries expected to incur a...

This article considers the implications for gender relations of different rural livelihoods. While many rural areas in Kenya have been drawn into intensive commercial production, others, formerly dependent on remittances from migrant labour, have seen these diminish. Recent empirical studies of...

Turkey's spontaneous settlements (gecekondus) house half the urban population and face infrastructure deficiencies that reduce quality of life and economic productivity while increasing the vulnerability of the urban poor. This article reports on research that used the new institutional...

Labour market discrimination against women and parental discrimination against daughters are two of the most commonly cited explanations of the gender gap in education in developing countries. This study empirically tests the labour market explanation for India using recent household survey...

Community Development around the World: Practice, Theory, Research and Training. Edited by Hubert Campferns. Toronto and London: University of Toronto Press, 1997. Pp.xvi + 481. NP. ISBN 0 8020 0903 4 and 7884 2 Cultural Perspectives on Development. Edited by Vincent Tucker. London and Portland,...

This study employs 1993 Continuous Sample Survey of the Population (CSSP) data for Trinidad and Tobago to investigate the determinants of earnings by ethnicity. The data, organised into three ethnic groupings, reveal lower levels of remuneration in the labour market for Africans and Indians than...

This is a comparative analysis of institutions linking state and countryside in three West African regions: Senegal's groundnut basin, southern Cote d'Ivoire, and southern Ghana. It argues that conflicts within rural society, and between rural elites and governments, have been more important in...