A Cross Country Comparison of Rural Income Generating Activities
> report (264 kb, pdf)
B. Davis, P. Winters, G. Carletto, K. Covarrubias, E. Quiñones, A. Zezza, K. Stamoulis, and S. Di Giuseppe

This paper is a shorter, more recent version of an earlier working paper, and uses RIGA data to describe participation in and income shares from the different income generating activities across rural households in different developing countries.

Assets, Activities and Rural Poverty Alleviation: Evidence from a Multicountry Analysis
> report (264 kb, pdf)
P. Winters, B. Davis, G. Carletto, K.Covarrubias, K.Stamoulis, E. Quiñones, and A. Zezza

This paper is a shorter, more recent version of an earlier working paper, and uses RIGA data to examine the links between household assets and the economic activities of rural households in order to identify the role of certain assets on creating a pathway out of poverty.

Rural Household Access to Assets and Agrarian Institutions: A Cross Country Comparison
> report (390 kb, pdf)
A. Zezza, P. Winters, B. Davis, G. Carletto, K. Covarrubias, E. Quiñones, K. Stamoulis, L. Tasciotti, and S. Di Giuseppe

This is an updated (March 2008), revised version of an earlier working paper with the same title. The paper characterizes household access to assets and agrarian institutions through the comparative analysis of datasets from 15 nationally representative household surveys from four regions of the developing world. Compared to the earlier version we expand the analysis by relating access to assets, institutions and input use to the households’ ability to engage successfully in commercial farming. We find consistent supporting evidence for the hypothesis that lack of access is significantly constraining households’ potential to engage successfully in agriculture.

Rural Wage Employment in Developing Countries
> report (783 kb, pdf)
P. Winters, A.P. de la O, E. Quiñones, T. Hertz, B. Davis, A Zezza, K. Covarrubias, and K. Stamoulis

Using nationally-representative data from 14 developing countries, this paper explores rural wage employment and its potential as a mechanism for improving the well being of the rural population. The analysis suggests that the sector of employment (agricultural or non-agricultural) and the overall household livelihood strategy appear to be of limited importance in determining whether a household uses wage employment as a pathway out of poverty. Rather, high-productivity wage employment appears to be linked to the underlying assets of the household and its individual members. In particular, the evidence points to educational and infrastructure investment as critical for providing opportunities in the labour market that lead to higher wages. The analysis also suggests that gender is very important in participation in labour markets as well as wages earned in those markets indicating that special attention be given to the gender consequences of any employment policy.

The Impact of Rising Food Prices on the Poor
> report (286 kb, pdf)
A. Zezza, B. Davis, C. Azzarri, K. Covarrubias, L. Tasciotti, and G. Anr¡quez

This paper analyzes the household level impact of a price increase in major tradable staple foods in a cross section of developing countries, using nationally representative household surveys from the RIGA database. We find that, in the short term, poorer households and households with limited asset endowments and access to agricultural inputs will be hit the hardest by the price shock.

Does Urban Agriculture Enhance Dietary Diversity? Empirical Evidence from a Sample of Developing Countries
> report (short version) (110 kb, pdf)
> report (longer version) (112 kb, pdf)
A. Zezza and L. Tasciotti

This paper attempts to fill some of the key research gaps in the literature on Urban Agriculture (UA) using survey data for 15 developing or transition countries. The paper analyzes in a comparative perspective the importance of UA for the poor and food insecure households located in urban areas.

Rural Income Generating Activities: Whatever Happened to the Institutional Vacuum? Evidence from Ghana, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Vietnam
> report (113 kb, pdf)
A. Zezza, G. Carletto, B. Davis, K. Stamoulis and P. Winters

This paper assesses the current rural development practice against the main trends in recent rural development thinking, based on evidence from four country case studies. While much progress has been made in understanding the need to look beyond only agriculture for the promotion of productive activities in rural areas, and while the ‘institutional vacuum’ consistently identified in the rural non-farm literature is gradually being filled, much remains to be done.

Patterns of Rural Development: A Cross-Country Comparison Using Microeconomic Data
> report (455 kb, pdf)
P. Winters, T. Essam, B. Davis, A. Zezza, G. Carletto, and K. Stamoulis

This paper proposes a general pattern of rural development in which rises in per capita income are associated with a decline in the importance of agricultural production and a rise in the importance of non-agricultural income sources. Following the approach to examining Engel’s Law, we use data from 15 developing countries and a merged data set to test whether such a pattern emerges. The analysis shows a strong, positive relationship between rising per capita income and the share of income earned from rural non-agricultural activities and a negative relationship between per capita income and agricultural production.

Rural Income Generating Activities: A Cross Country Comparison
> report
B. Davis, P. Winters, G. Carletto, K. Covarrubias, E. Quiñones, A. Zezza, K. Stamoulis, G. Bonomi and S. DiGiuseppe

This paper use RIGA data to describe participation in and income shares from the different income generating activities across rural households in different developing countries. The document also explores the determinants of participation in the different activities and their effect on income inequality.

Wage inequality in international perspective: Why do men, city dwellers, and non-farmers earn more than women, rural residents, and farmers?
> forthcoming
T. Hertz, P. Winters, A. P. de la O, E. Quiñones, B. Davis, A. Zezza

This paper aims to shed light on a range of issues related to wage inequalities in the developing world. While much of the focus is on the gender dimensions of wage differentials, other aspects will also be discussed. In particular, the research revolves around three main areas of investigation: (a) the extent to which wage differentials change as development progresses; (b) the characteristics and driving forces of the gap between urban and rural (and agricultural and non-agricultural) wage earnings; and (c) the complex relationships between the different dimensions of the observed wage gaps.