Over the past 25 years social scientists attempting to explain the dramatic changes in the relative distribution of urban and rural population growth have gravitated toward two competing explanations. The "regional restructuring hypothesis" holds that changes in the spatial distribution of...

This paper describes the findings of a study that used a multi-market model to assess the potential impact of improved maize technologies on the welfare of various types of rural and urban households in Kenya. The modelling results indicate that technologies developed for high potential regions...

This paper summarises research into factors contributing to low levels of adoption of improved maize varieties in Honduras. Empirical analysis was based on an agricultural household model which explicitly incorporates variety characteristics into the household's optimisation process. We...

In this paper we consider the role of variety attributes in an agricultural household model of variety planting decisions. In an application to banana production in Uganda we derive a system of derived demands for a set of available banana varieties. Our empirical model uses a hudle/count data...

This paper summarizes research into the factors contributing to these low levels of adoption of improved maize varieties in Honduras. Empirical results indicate that transactions costs and production characteristics are important explanators of variety choice, consumption characteristics are...

These papers move beyond the questions of who adopts technologies to ask how preferences for characteristics (of maize in Mexico or cattle in Burkina Faso) affect adoption and how technical change differentially affects semi-subsistence farmers and how it affects productivity and yield...

Rural areas compete with urban areas for jobs, residents, and land. This session evaluates the competition with several quantitative studies. Efficiency Analysis of Hospitals in the Great Plains: An Urban-Rural Comparison Bhaskar Toodi, State of Louisiana; Allen Featherstone, Kansas State...