Cash transfers and women's economic inclusion: Experimental evidence from Zambia
2021
This paper investigates whether an increase in exogenous income through the Child Grants model of the Social Cash Transfer programme in Zambia fosters economic inclusion among rural women. We conceptualize economic inclusion as a transformative process comprised of four pillars: productive capacity, financial inclusion, social power, and psychological assets.
Leveraging social protection to advance climate-smart agriculture: An empirical analysis of the impacts of Malawi’s Social Action Fund (MASAF) on farmers’ adoption decisions and welfare outcomes
2021
This article assesses the interactions between participation in Malawi’s largest public works programme, the Malawi Social Action Fund (MASAF), and three widely promoted climate smart agriculture (CSA) practices.
The challenge of making climate adaptation profitable for farmers: evidence from Sri Lanka's rice sector
2021
This paper presents evidence on the adoption drivers and the welfare impacts of agricultural strategies adopted by Sri Lankan rice farmers to adapt to low rainfall conditions.
Government Transfers and Time Allocation Decisions: The Case of Child Labour in Ethiopia
2021
We exploit the social cash transfer programme in Ethiopia to study how an increase in unearned income through a government transfer affects children's work time allocation and their school attendance rate. In rural areas, the transfer led to a half an hour reduction in the total number of hours worked, while in urban areas, transfers had the opposite impacts, worsening the child labour situation with no impacts on the share of children attending school.
Adapting to High Temperatures: Effect of Farm Practices and Their Adoption Duration on Total Value of Crop Production in Uganda
2021
In this article, we use spatially granular climate data merged with four waves of household survey data in Uganda to examine empirically the relationships among high temperatures, total value of crop production, and the adoption and adoption duration of two sustainable agricultural practices (organic fertilizer adoption and maize–legume intercropping).
Does receiving food aid influence the adoption of climate-adaptive agricultural practices? Evidence from Ethiopia and Malawi
2020
This article provides evidence on the relationships between food aid and the adoption of climate adaptive agricultural practices (CAPs) in the context of smallholder households in Ethiopia and Malawi.
.jpg?sfvrsn=f6852fc9_1 "environment-and-development-economics (1)")
Climate resilience in rural Zambia: evaluating farmers’ response to El Niño-induced drought
2020
This paper aims at identifying whether and how sustainable land management practices and livelihood diversification strategies have contributed to moderating the impacts of the El Niño-related drought in Zambia.
Leveraging social protection to advance climate-smart agriculture: An empirical analysis of the impacts of Malawi’s Social Action Fund (MASAF) on farmers’ adoption decisions and welfare outcomes
2020
This article assesses the interactions between participation in Malawi’s largest public works programme, the Malawi Social Action Fund (MASAF), and three widely promoted climate smart agriculture (CSA) practices.
Diversification is in the Detail: Accounting for Crop System Heterogeneity to Inform Diversification Policies in Malawi and Zambia
2020
Crop diversification is a common agricultural policy objective. However, the determinants and impacts of crop diversification are heterogeneous and depend on a range of crop-specific characteristics. Index-based measurements of crop diversification, common in the agriculture economics literature, are unable to account for this heterogeneity.
Unconditional cash transfers, risk attitudes and modern inputs demand
2019
We estimate the effects of cash transfers on modern inputs demand, while isolating the role of output risk and risk preferences in channeling these effects. We use data from an RCT collected for the evaluation of Zambia’s Social Cash Transfer. We employ a moments-based method to estimate farmers’ risk attitudes from revealed preferences through production decisions and the impact of cash transfers on modern input demand.
Rural in-migration and agricultural development: Evidence from Zambia
2019
While a considerable body of literature has developed in recent years around the drivers and consequences of rural out-migration in sub-Saharan Africa, relatively little work has been done to understand the impacts of migration into rural areas. We use nationally representative household survey data from Zambia to explore the relationship between rural in-migration and agricultural productivity outcomes in receiving communities.
Shaping Cash Transfer Impacts Through ‘Soft-Conditions’: Evidence from Lesotho
2019
Cash transfer programmes have been shown to have positive effects on a variety of outcomes. While much of the literature focuses on the role of conditionality in achieving desired impact, this paper focuses on the role of ‘soft conditionality’ implemented through both ‘labelling’ and ‘messaging’ in evaluating the impact of the Child Grants Program in Lesotho, an unconditional cash transfer programme targeting poor households with orphans and vulnerable children.
Stuck exchange: Can cash transfers push smallholders out of autarky?
2019
This paper focuses on the role of unconditional cash transfers in helping smallholders’ commercialization by overcoming barriers to trade from transaction costs. We use data from a controlled experiment for the evaluation of the Child Grant model in Zambia. We employ a Heckman model that allows us to capture the effects of the program on the propensity to engage in trade in both inputs and outputs markets as well as on the value of trade.
Heterogeneous impact of livelihood diversification on household welfare: Cross-country evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa
2019
This article investigates the empirical linkages between crop and livelihood diversification strategies, extreme weather events, and household welfare using a unique dataset that integrates harmonized, national representative household surveys and geo-referenced climatic information collected in Malawi, Niger and Zambia.
Sustainable agricultural intensification in an era of rural transformation in Africa
2019
Drawing on Boserupian and induced innovation principles, this review explores how the farm technologies and practices associated with integrated soil management and sustainable intensification may vary spatially according to the heterogenous ways in which economic transformation and population dynamics are influencing agricultural factor prices. Long-term trends in many areas are encouraging intensification of capital inputs, including fertilizer use.
Heterogeneous impacts of cash transfers on farm profitability. Evidence from a randomised study in Lesotho
2019
We estimate the average treatment effect (ATE) of cash transfers on farm profitability by exploiting a randomised control trial for the evaluation Lesotho’s biggest transfer program. We also explore impact heterogeneity by unpacking the ATE into group-specific parameters.
Do Medium-scale Farms Improve Market Access Conditions for Zambian Smallholders?
2019
This study is motivated by the need to understand how the rise of medium-scale farms in Africa is affecting small-scale farm households. Survey evidence over the past decade has shown a dramatic rise in the prevalence of ‘medium’ sized farms between 5 and 100 hectares, but smaller farms still constitute the vast majority of farms and rural households.
Causal pathways of the productive impacts of cash transfers: Experimental evidence from Lesotho
2018
This paper has the double aim to study whether unconditional cash transfers have an impact on farm production and to look into the causal mechanisms through which government transfers produce productive impacts. We use mediation analysis to identify the total effect of transfers on farm production and to isolate the influence of the labour channel from other transmission channels.
Knowing is half the battle: Seasonal forecasts, adaptive cropping systems, and the mediating role of private markets in Zambia
2018
This paper examines how smallholders living in regions where a drought is forecasted adapt their farm practices in response to receiving seasonal forecast information. The article draws on a unique longitudinal dataset in Zambia, which collected information from farm households before and after a significant drought caused by the 2015/2016 El-Niño Southern Oscillation.
How much is too much: Does the size of income support transfers affect labor supply?
2018
Cash transfer programs pursue mainly protective objectives, but can also impact rural livelihoods by inducing investments in productive activities and changing household labor allocation. We adopt a continuous treatment approach to quantify how households’ labor supply responds to transfer size.