After a half century of significant economic success, developing countries in East Asia are confronted by slowing productivity growth, increased fragility of the global trading system, and rapid changes in technology which are threatening their main engine of growth: export-oriented,...

Although agriculture is widely regarded as a major channel through which poverty and food insecurity in Africa can be curtailed, the continent’s agricultural productivity has been abysmal. Farm input subsidy is becoming a popular policy tool that African governments are using to improve...

An important hypothesized benefit of large-scale input subsidy programs in Africa is that by raising maize production, the subsidies should put downward pressure on retail maize prices to the benefit of urban consumers and the rural poor who tend to be net food buyers. To inform debates related...

Combining depth, length and breadth, the Great Recession is the worst economic downturn that the US economy has suffered since the Great Depression. Among other things, the recession reduced household income, caused significant changes in food prices and increased consumer uncertainties. These...

An important hypothesized benefit of large-scale input subsidy programs in Africa is that by raising maize production, the subsidies should put downward pressure on retail maize prices to the benefit of urban consumers and the rural poor who tend to be net food buyers. To inform debates related...

Replaced with revised version of paper on 01/14/2011.

This paper estimates the profitability of inorganic fertilizer use in maize production in Malawi. It employs a two-wave, nationally representative panel of data on smallholder households and plots to estimate household fixed effects, plot fixed effects, and multilevel regressions. The results...

This paper addresses the question of whether farm input subsidy programs should be targeted at non-poor farmers instead of poor farmers, using a two-wave, nationally representative panel data from Malawi. The question is addressed by estimating the net gain in maize yield for targeting non-poor...