This paper introduces a new market analysis methodology based on maximum likelihood estimation of a mixture distribution model incorporating price, transfer cost, and trade flow data. Not only does this method obviate statistical problems associated with conventional price analysis methods, it...

his paper introduces a special issue exploring persistent poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. As a set, these papers break new ground in exploring the dynamics of structural poverty, integrating qualitative and quantitative methods of analysis and adopting an asset-based approach to the study of...

The concept of a livelihood strategy has become central to development practice in recent years. Nonetheless, precise identification of livelihoods in quantitative data has remained methodologically elusive. This paper uses cluster analysis to operationalise the concept of livelihood strategies...

In this paper we test for risk pooling within and among social networks to see if the extent of informal insurance available to individuals in rural Ghana varies with their social visibility. We identify a distinct sub-population of socially invisible individuals who tend to be younger, poorer,...

This study explores the constraints on agricultural productivity and priorities in boosting productivity in rice, the main staple in Madagascar, using a range of different data sets and analytical methods, integrating qualitative assessments by farmers and quantitative evidence from panel data...

This paper studies the causal mechanisms behind poverty traps, building on evidence of nonlinear wealth dynamics among a poor pastoralist population, the Boran from southern Ethiopia. In particular, it explores the roles of adverse weather shocks and individual ability to cope with such shocks...

This paper explores the consequences of nonlinear wealth dynamics on the formation of informal insurance networks. Building on recent empirical work among a poor population that finds evidence consistent with the hypothesis of poverty traps, and using original primary data on social networks and...

Poverty traps and resource degradation in the rural tropics appear to have multiple and complex, but similar, causes. Market imperfections, imperfect learning, bounded rationality, spillovers, coordination failures and economically dysfunctional institutions all play a role, to varying degrees...

This chapter explores these issues in the Hurri Hills area of Marsabit District, where externally imposed changes in governance have combined with a World Bank Global Environmental Facility (GEF) project to alter local patterns of natural resource management. In particular, in the process of...