Are ostensibly demand-driven public works programs with high levels of safeguards nonetheless susceptible to politi al influence?We investigate this conjecture using expenditure data at the local level from India's National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. Focusing on one state where...

This chapter examines the extension of microfinance services to people in Kenya. Using data collected from seventeen Financial Service Associations (FSAs) founded by the Kenya Rural Enterprise Program (K-REP) Development Agency (KDA), we explore the intricacies of microfinance institutions...

We develop a simple theoretical model of market participation over multiple seasons in the presence of liquidity constraints and transactions costs to explain the 'sell low, buy high' puzzle wherein certain households forego opportunities for intertemporal price arbitrage through storage and are...

The current global agreement governing food aid - the Food Aid Convention (FAC) - has been subject to annual renewals since it expired in 2002. Critics have pointed to some serious limitations, but negotiations over a new FAC have become entangled in U.S.-European agricultural trade disputes....

A growing literature on poverty traps emphasizes the links between multiple equilibria and risk avoidance. However, multiple equilibria may also foster risk taking behavior by some poor people. We illustrate this idea with a simple analytical model in which people with different wealth and...

The literature on economic growth and development has focused considerable attention on questions of risk management and the possibility of multiple equilibria associated with poverty traps. We use herd history data collected among pastoralists in southern Ethiopia to study stochastic wealth...

'Theoretical pathology' is defined as the conceptual foundation of medicine. Research in this area is concerned with the analysis of explicit and implicit patterns of thought dominating research and practice. Using the example of the stress concept, it is suggested that it is a 'key word' with...

Public transfer programs that allow beneficiaries to choose the transferred good may be more efficient, but the poorest beneficiaries may not participate if the good chosen is too costly. A model shows that program targeting and consumption impacts are tied to selected quality of the provided...