This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the degree of co-movement among the nominal price returns of 11 major energy, agricultural, and food commodities using monthly data between 1970 and 2013. The authors study the extent and the time evolution of unconditional and conditional...

This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the dynamics of volatility between the corn, wheat, and soybean markets in the United States. Volatility interactions across markets, if they exist, may lower the effectiveness of diversification strategies to mitigate price risks and should be...

This paper examines the level of interdependence and volatility transmission across major exchanges of maize, wheat, and soybeans in the United States, Europe, and Asia. We follow a multivariate GARCH approach to explore in detail and under different specifications the dynamics and...

While government spending on pro-poor community asset creation and income-transfers could have compounding positive effects on poverty reduction, it is important to first study trends in the allocation of funds, particularly as they relate to the susceptibility of the program to political...

India’s Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) is the largest public works employment project in the world. Its most direct poverty reduction pathway is through boosting employment and income for the poor. How effectively this direct transfer mechanism reduces...

Low demand for micro-insurance has been a prominent problem in developing countries. We study the dynamics of insurance demand by risk-averse farmers who can borrow and lend subject to a credit constraint and who also perceive a risk of insurer default. Credit constraints and the possibility of...

Despite the rise of targeted input subsidy programs in Africa over the last decade, several questions remain as to whether low and variable soil fertility, frequent drought, and high fertilizer prices render fertilizer unprofitable for large subpopulations of African farmers. To examine these...

India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) is one of the largest public works programs globally. Understanding the impacts of NREGS and the pathway through which its impacts are realized thus has important policy implications. We use a three-round 4,000-household panel...

Farmers in developing countries face relatively large income risk and have limited access to formal financial products that can help them manage their risk. We present results from a randomized controlled trial in rural China designed to understand whether a small change in the timing of a...

This paper examines the impact of a large supply-side education intervention in the Philippines, the Third Elementary Education Project, on students' national achievement test scores. We find that the program significantly increased student test scores at grades 4 to 6. The estimate indicates...