In this chapter we analyze the considerations that lead policy makers to undertake extension investments as a key public responsibility, as well as the complex set of factors and intra-agency incentives that explain why different extension systems' performance varies. Accordingly, the chapter...

Assignment of land rights affects equity and efficiency, determining among other things households' ability to generate subsistence and income, their social and economic status, incentives to exert effort and make investments, and access to financial markets and consumption-smoothing mechanisms....

Purpose – The poor performance of public agricultural extension systems in developing countries engendered interest in pluralistic concepts of extension involving a variety of service providers. Within the reform agenda, modalities relying on private-sector providers were perceived as a path...

The paper reviews the theory of the impact of loan collateral, and in particular land collateral, in institutional and non-institutional rural credit markets. Evidence from three Asian developing countries is presented, showing extensive use of land collateral among institutional lenders in...