Empirical Essays in Development Economics
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| Language: | English |
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The Ohio State University / OhioLINK
2013
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| Online Access: | http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1376961345 |
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English |
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Agricultural Economics Economics Food-for-work household crop choice food expenditure and shocks gender dis-aggregated off-farm income |
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Agricultural Economics Economics Food-for-work household crop choice food expenditure and shocks gender dis-aggregated off-farm income Dadzie, Nicholas Nyamekeh Empirical Essays in Development Economics |
| author |
Dadzie, Nicholas Nyamekeh |
| author_facet |
Dadzie, Nicholas Nyamekeh |
| author_sort |
Dadzie, Nicholas Nyamekeh |
| title |
Empirical Essays in Development Economics |
| title_short |
Empirical Essays in Development Economics |
| title_full |
Empirical Essays in Development Economics |
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Empirical Essays in Development Economics |
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Empirical Essays in Development Economics |
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empirical essays in development economics |
| publisher |
The Ohio State University / OhioLINK |
| publishDate |
2013 |
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http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1376961345 |
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AT dadzienicholasnyamekeh empiricalessaysindevelopmenteconomics |
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1719434693458264064 |
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ndltd-OhioLink-oai-etd.ohiolink.edu-osu13769613452021-08-03T06:19:24Z Empirical Essays in Development Economics Dadzie, Nicholas Nyamekeh Agricultural Economics Economics Food-for-work household crop choice food expenditure and shocks gender dis-aggregated off-farm income The alleged dependency and disincentive effects of aid programs persist, however, recent interest in aid and food-for-work programs focuses on whether and how these interventions affect rural farming activities. The first essay of this thesis investigates the effect of food-for-work (FFW) programs, a type of food aid program on market orientation for farm households in rural Ethiopia. FFW compensation reduces the household's consumption risk in the face of adverse production shocks. This essay explores how this reduction in consumption risk conditions households to opt for high-yielding and high-return crops. The theoretical model shows that FFW would lead to households cultivating high yielding and high-return crops. Panel data from rural Ethiopia is used to examine how FFW affects the decision to grow cereal crops. Discrete choice panel data models show that FFW increases the likelihood of cultivating maize, a less drought-resistant cereal crop, and wheat and barley. However, participation in FFW negatively affects sorghum cultivation which is more drought-resistant. These results hold after controlling for state dependence in cereal crop cultivation using Wooldridge's conditional maximum likelihood estimator. The value of the crop portfolio is also positively affected by participation in FFW. Results from this essay imply that participation in FFW acts as a form of insurance which induces risk taking behavior among rural farm households. The lack of vital nutrients in rural household food bundles remains a major concern in most developing countries. Consumption of nutritious diets is further threatened by the incidence of shocks among rural households. The second essay analyzes the effect of shocks on household food consumption decisions and the implications for household nutrition in rural Ethiopia. The evidence shows that households are able to smooth their cereal consumption from rainfall shocks, livestock shocks and illness of a household member. However, consumption of protein foods, fruits and vegetables remains susceptible to livestock shocks and household illness. The susceptibility of protein foods and fruits and vegetable consumption to livestock shocks does not change when female bargaining power and the ratio of children in the household are taken into account. Since calorie adequacy can coexist with micro-nutrient deficiency, a recommendation from this essay is that policy efforts should focus both on calorie and micro-nutrient consumption among rural households.The increasing share of off-farm earnings in the rural household's income portfolio has generated interest in how off-farm incomes affect farm activities. The third essay looks at the gender dimension of the effect of off-farm incomes on farm expenses. Previous analyses of the effect of off-farm earnings have used the unitary household approach and ignored the intra-household gender and bargaining features. Using empirical data from rural Ghana, the semi-cooperative intra-household model is utilized to explain the effect of off-farm earnings on farm expenditures. The theoretical model shows that non-pooling of off-farm incomes among spouses affects agricultural input expenses. The empirical analyses use instrumental variable Tobit models and a two-part model to analyze the effect of gender dis-aggregated off-farm incomes on farm input expenditures. This econometric approach controls for the endogeneity of off-farm incomes. The empirical results show that while males' off-farm earnings lead to increased farm expenditures for both commercial and non-commercial households, female non-farm earnings positively affect farm input expenses for commercial households only. Apart from confirming income non-pooling among the sample households, the analysis provides evidence that off-farm earnings by women tend to lower farm productivity in non-commercial households. 2013 English text The Ohio State University / OhioLINK http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1376961345 http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1376961345 unrestricted This thesis or dissertation is protected by copyright: all rights reserved. It may not be copied or redistributed beyond the terms of applicable copyright laws. |