In the year 2000 the government of Zimbabwe launched the Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) as part of its ongoing land reform and resettlement programme, which seeks to address the racially skewed land distribution pattern inherited at independence in 1980. This paper uses data on...

Organic farming practices, in as far as they rely on local or farm renewable resources, present desirable options for enhancing agricultural productivity for resource-constrained farmers in developing countries. In this paper we use plot-level data from semi-arid area of Ethiopia to investigate...

Sustainable agricultural practices, in as far as they rely on renewable local or farm resources, present desirable options for enhancing agricultural productivity for resource-constrained farmers in developing countries. In this paper, we used two sets of plot-level data—from a low-rainfall...

This study measures the impact of fanya juu bunds (an important soil and water conservation technology and the most popular type of contour bund in east Africa) on the value of crop production in a high-rainfall area in the Ethiopian highlands using cross-sectional multiple plot observations. We...

China has significantly expanded its dairy cow numbers and increased its dairy processing capacity over the last five year in an attempt to meet increased demand for dairy products. China’s net imports of dairy products, however, has expanded at a growth rate in excess of 30% during the same...

Hausman (1978) developed a widely-used model specification test that has passed the test of time. The test is based on two estimators, one being consistent under the null hypothesis but inconsistent under the alternative, and the other being consistent under both the null and alternative...

We examine whether state-level incumbents discriminate in the allocation of transfers in favour of local governments controlled by co-partisans, and whether the electoral prospects of local incumbents improve when they are aligned with the state incumbent. Using a new database covering around...

Measurement error in short-run expenditures from household surveys may attenuate estimated effects of permanent income on economic outcomes. Repeated observations on households during the year are used to calculate reliability ratios and estimate errors in variables regressions of the impact of...

In this paper, we develop a modified maximum likelihood (MML) estimator for the multiple linear regression model with underlying student t distribution. We obtain the closed form of the estimators, derive the asymptotic properties, and demonstrate that the MML estimator is more appropriate for...

Policy makers worldwide are interested in the identification of cost-effective policy instruments to reduce diffuse pollution. A large economic model representing heterogeneous farms is used to evaluate a broad set of policies for reducing nitrate regulation within a large catchment dominated by...