The dissertation examines an informal financial institution in Cameroon: the Rotating Saving and Credit Association. Its describes the operational procedures. RoSCAs are associations formed by a core of individuals who willingly and regularly contribute periodically a fixed or variable amount to...

In this study, we evaluate the preference of consumers in Niger for different tuwo or couscous characteristics using conjoint analysis. Data were collected through a structured survey administered at 4 sites. Preferences are estimated for three products (couscous, fermented tuwo and nonfermented...

Mean-variance analysis in the form of risk programming has a long, productive history in agricultural economics research. And risk programming continues to be used despite well known theoretical results that choices based on mean-variance analysis are not consistent with choices based on...

Empirical evidence has shown that farmers can adapt to climate change by using sustainable land and water management (SLWM) practices that provide local mitigation benefits, reducing or offsetting the negative effects of climate change at the level of the plot, farm, or even landscape. However,...

"This study investigated the impacts of access to inventory credit, input supply shops, fertilizer microdosing demonstrations, and other factors on farmers' use of inorganic fertilizer and other inputs in Niger and on crop yields. We found that access to inventory credit and input supply shops...

This study investigates the impacts of access to inventory credit (warrantage), input supply shops, fertilizer micro-dosing demonstrations, and other factors on farmers' use of inorganic and organic fertilizer in Niger, and the impacts on crop yields. We find that access to warrantage and input...

During the last 3 decades, donors and governments have invested in the development and dissemination of new technologies in the semi-arid tropics of West Africa. Though a wide range of improved technologies has been developed, adoption remains low without a significant impact on crop...

Significant ambiguity surrounds the magnitude and sign of the effect of foreign aid on economic growth. Foreign aid can potentially augment scarce domestic capital to spur growth but foreign aid can also remove positive incentive to build wealth, stalling growth. This paper characterizes the...

This paper investigates the impact of USDA crop production reports in corn andsoybean futures markets. The analysis is based on all corn and soybean production reportsreleased over 1970-2006. The empirical analysis compares the typical OLS eventstudy approach to the new Identification by...