Although agriculture is widely regarded as a major channel through which poverty and food insecurity in Africa can be curtailed, the continent’s agricultural productivity has been abysmal. Farm input subsidy is becoming a popular policy tool that African governments are using to improve...

An important hypothesized benefit of large-scale input subsidy programs in Africa is that by raising maize production, the subsidies should put downward pressure on retail maize prices to the benefit of urban consumers and the rural poor who tend to be net food buyers. To inform debates related...

Combining depth, length and breadth, the Great Recession is the worst economic downturn that the US economy has suffered since the Great Depression. Among other things, the recession reduced household income, caused significant changes in food prices and increased consumer uncertainties. These...

An important hypothesized benefit of large-scale input subsidy programs in Africa is that by raising maize production, the subsidies should put downward pressure on retail maize prices to the benefit of urban consumers and the rural poor who tend to be net food buyers. To inform debates related...

Replaced with revised version of paper on 01/14/2011.

This paper argues that climate change poses two distinct, if related, sets of challenges for poor rural households: challenges related to the increasing frequency and severity of weather shocks and challenges related to long-term shifts in temperature, rainfall patterns, water availability, and...

A majority of the poor in Indonesia come from agricultural and self-employed households. Moreover, the largest single contribution to poverty reduction between 1990 and 1993 came from within-sector welfare gains to self-employed farm households. Data show that the role of the labor market in...

Using household level panel data from Nicaragua, this paper explores the impact of the recent coffee crisis on rural households engaged in coffee production, and coffee labor work. Taking advantage of the panel structure of the data, a number of findings emerge: a) while overall growth between...

Informality: exit and exclusion analyzes informality in Latin America, exploring root causes and reasons for and implications of its growth. The authors use two distinct but complementary lenses: informality driven by exclusion from state benefits or the circuits of the modern economy, and...