Books reviewed include: Asian Rice Bowls: The Returning Crisis?by Prabhu L. Pingali, Mahabub Hossain, and Roberta V. Gerpacio; Quantitative Development Policy Analysis by Elisabeth Sadoulet and Alain de Janvry; Countrysides at Risk: The Political Geography of Sustainable Agriculture by Robert...

Books Reviewed include: Agricultural Landownership in Transitional Economies by Gene Wunderlich; Maize Technology Development And Transfer: A GIS Application For Research Planning In Kenya by Rashid Hassan; Famine In Africa: Causes, Responses, and Prevention by Joachim von Braun, Tesfaye Teklu...

We apply agent based computer techniques to develop a modeling framework that can be used to study all aspects of commodity markets. The goal is to use advances in computation to study the micro level behavior of the market and its players. This work is motivated by the understanding that the...

Longitudinal data on household living standards open the way to a deeper analysis of the nature and extent of poverty. While a number of studies have exploited this type of data to distinguish transitory from more chronic forms of income or expenditure poverty, this paper develops an asset-based...

This paper presents comparative qualitative and quantitative evidence from rural Kenya and Madagascar in an attempt to untangle the causality behind persistent poverty. We find striking differences in welfare dynamics depending on whether one uses total income, including stochastic terms and...