In 2005, Ethiopia implemented a major new social transfer program, the Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) that involves some form of work requirement in exchange for either cash or in‐kind transfers (or a mix of the two), with the composition of the transfers administratively set to be...

Paper to be presented at the Comesa policy seminar“Food price variability: Causes, consequences, and policy options"on 25-26 January 2010 in Maputo, Mozambiqueunder the Comesa-MSU-IFPRI African Agricultural Markets Project (AAMP)

Like many other Asian countries, the causal relationship between agriculturalproductivity and the incidence of rural poverty has been a widely debated subjectin Bangladesh. A number of studies argued that the real agricultural wage ratewas declining during the period when the country had...

Using weekly price data for two sub-periods, this paper analyzes how Ugandanmaize market performed in the years following agricultural market liberalization in theearly 1990’s. For each time period, the extent of integration, causality among spatiallocations, and relative importance of spatial...

The thesis looks at the macroeconomic impact of foreign aid. It is specially concerned with aid's impact on the public sector of less developed countries . Since the overwhelming majority of aid is directed to the public sector of LDCs, one can only understand the broader macroeconomic impact of...

This paper reviews the recent literature on inequality and income distribution in rural China utilizing panel datasets. We begin by briefly summarizing and comparing available panel datasets for rural China that can be employed to explore issues on inequality and income distribution, and major...

The purpose of economic reform is to reduce distortions and enhance efficiency. However, when reforms are partial and incremental, individuals and local governments are often able to capture the rent inherent in the gradual transition process. Young (2000) warned that such rent-seeking behavior...

Wenzhou used to be one of the poorest regions in eastern China. With limited arable land, poor road access to major cities, and little support from the government, it seemed to lack all the necessary conditions for economic growth according to the standard textbook. However, over the past...

In the paper, we use a panel data approach to study the threshold effects and nonlinearity in economic growth instead of the cross-sectional approach commonly used in previous studies. The methodologies developed by Hansen (2000) and Caner and Hansen (2004) are applied to identify threshold...

Traditional economic theory posits that a well functioning capital market is a necessary condition for industrialization and economic growth. However, in reality it is observed that micro and small enterprises are ubiquitous because entrepreneurs can set up business in low-return activities with...