1,721,317 research outputs found
Contract farming and smallholder incentives to produce high quality: experimental evidence from the Vietnamese dairy sector
Full text linkIn emerging markets for high-value food products in developing countries, processing companies search for efficient ways to source raw material of consistent quality. One widely embraced approach is contract farming. But relatively little is known about the appropriate design of contracts, especially in a small farm context. We use the example of the Vietnamese dairy sector to analyze the effectiveness of existing contracts between a processor and smallholder farmers in terms of incentivizing the production of high quality milk. A framed field experiment is conducted to evaluate the impact of two incentive instruments, a price penalty for low quality and a bonus for consistent high quality milk, on farmers’ investment in quality-improving inputs. Statistical analysis suggests that the penalty drives farmers into higher input use, resulting in better output quality. The bonus payment generates even higher quality milk. We also find that input choice levels depend on farmers’ socio- economic characteristics such as wealth, while individual risk preferences seem to be less important. Implications for the design of contracts with smallholders are discussed
Inclusive Value-Chain Development through the Lens of Direction, Distribution, and Diversity
Full text linkHealth-related incentives to reward effort or commitment are commonplace in many professional contracts throughout the world. Typically absent from small-scale agriculture in poor countries, such incentives may help overcome both health issues for remote rural families and supply issues for firms. Using a randomized control design, we investigate the impact of adding a micronutrient-fortified product in contracts between a Senegalese dairy processing factory and its seminomadic milk suppliers. Findings show significant increases in frequency of delivery but only limited impacts on total milk delivered. These impacts are time sensitive and limited mostly to households where women are more in control of milk contracts.Non-PRIFPRI1; CRP2; CRP4; C Improving markets and trade; B Promoting healthy food systems; G Cross-cutting gender theme; Capacity StrengtheningMTID; PHND; PIM; A4NHCGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM); CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH
Prepare food systems for a long-haul fight against COVID-19
No full textWith a devasting one-two punch, a supply shock followed by a demand shock, the COVID-19 pandemic has knocked out the world economy. The first blow was the Great Lockdown; the second, the worst recession since the Great Depression. No modern economy has experienced anything like this. As the spread of the novel coronavirus debilitates people’s ability to harvest and buy and sell food, food systems are under threat as never before
The access and welfare impacts of telecommunications technology in Peru
Full text linkThis paper attempts to assess three main issues on Peruvian telecommunications technology: what are the main variables that explain the demand for access to telephone services; how important is access to telephone services in explaining the transition out of poverty, and what are the consumption and welfare impacts of the significant increase in the supply of telephone lines since the divestiture in 1994 of the Peruvian telephone services. To accomplish our goal we will use two methodologies. Firstly, we will concentrate on residential telephony based on a countrywide representative consumer expenditure survey (The World Bank's Living Standards Measurement Survey). With this household survey the demand for access to telephone services was modeled and the effects of access to a telephone on poverty was analyzed. The main result showed that access to a telephone is important in explaining why low income households do not drop into poverty, but that it is not significant in explaining the transition between poor and non-poor status. Additionally, the presence of these surveys for 1985, 91, 94 and 1997, allowed us to estimate the welfare impacts at different socioeconomic levels of the various institutional changes in telephone services before and after privatization. The second methodology takes advantage of a panel of households for Metropolitan Lima allowing us to estimate partial demand equations of access to telephone services in order to evaluate consumers' welfare pre and post divestiture showing the presence of an important positive consumer surplus of access to a residential telephone. Both methodologies measured how welfare gains coming from more people having access to telephone lines might have compensated for higher usage rates as the result of privatization. The main objective of these methodologies is therefore to assess which types of households, classified according to their observable characteristics, bear a greater portion of the burden or enjoy most of the benefits of the changes brought about by privatization.Die vorliegende Studie beschäftigt sich mit drei Problemen, die im Zusammenhang mit Veränderungen auf dem Gebiet der peruanischen Telekommunikationsdienste stehen. Diese Probleme sind: erstens die Frage nach den wichtigsten Variablen, die die Nachfrage nach Telefondiensten bestimmen; zweitens, die Rolle des Zugangs zu Telekommunikationsdiensten in Abhängigkeit verschiedener Stadien materieller Armut; drittens stellt sich die Frage, inwieweit sich die – seit der Teilprivatisierung des Telekommunikationsmarktes im Jahre 1994 andauernde – stetige steigende Anzahl an Telefonanschlüssen auf Konsum- und Wohlfahrtskriterien auswirkt. Zur Untersuchung dieser Fragen werden zwei verschiedene Methoden angewendet.
Zum einen werden Daten herangezogen, die im Rahmen einer repräsentativen und landesweiten Konsumentenbefragung erhoben wurden. Diese Daten erlauben auf der Haushaltsebene eine Modellierung der Nachfrage nach Telekommunikationsdiensten sowie des potentiellen Einflusses der Telefonnutzung auf materielle Armut. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass der Zugang zu Telefonen, insbesondere für Haushalte mit niedrigem Einkommen, wichtig ist, um ihren ökonomischen Status zu erhalten bzw. zu verbessern. Andererseits ergab sich aber kein signifikanter Zusammenhang zwischen der Nutzung der Dienste und der Überwindung von Armut.
Datensätze aus den Jahren 1985, 1991, 1994 sowie 1997 wurden genutzt, um die Wohlfahrtseffekte, die die institutionellen Veränderungen auf dem Telekommunikationssektor mit sich brachten, auf verschiedenen sozioökonomischen Niveaus für den Zeitraum vor bzw. nach der Privatisierung des Sektors zu untersuchen. Schließlich konnten mit Hilfe von Erhebungen in Lima partielle Nachfragefunktionen vom Zugang zu Telekommunikationsdiensten vor und nach der Privatisierung geschätzt werden. Die so gewonnenen Erkenntnisse bezüglich der Konsumentenrenten lassen den Schluss zu, dass insbesondere die Nutzer von privaten Hausanschlüssen von den Veränderungen profitieren
Prevent that excessive food price volatility continues to cause substantial nutrition risk
Full text linkAn array of actions - ranging from better information to more active use of financial instruments to influence agricultural commodity markets - is required to mitigate the risks associated with excessive food price volatility
Impacto de la privatización sobre el desempeño de las empresas en el Perú
Full text linkCasi diez años después de la privatización de importantes empresas estatales (EE) del Perú, el balance a priori aún no es claro. En el presente estudio se analiza el impacto de la privatización mediante un detallado análisis estadístico y econométrico. En primer lugar, mediante varios indicadores de rentabilidad, eficiencia de operación, empleo, solvencia y convergencia, se realiza un análisis de primeras diferencias entre el desempeño previo y posterior a la privatización de las empresas. Asimismo, se efectúa un análisis de segundas diferencias mediante la comparación del cambio en el desempeño de las empresas privatizadas antes y después de la privatización respecto al cambio en el desempeño de las EE. Los resultados muestran que las empresas privadas son más eficientes y rentables que cualquier empresa gubernamental comparable. En el caso del sector más competitivo, el sistema financiero, se descubrió con el paso del tiempo un efecto de convergencia de los bancos recién privatizados hacia el desempeño de los bancos privados líderes. A pesar de que el impacto de la privatización sobre el desempleo fue negativo en el corto plazo --pues normalmente las EE hubieran contratado personal sobre la base de criterios políticos y no a partir de criterios técnicos-- se demuestra que hubo un considerable aumento en el empleo indirecto media nte la prestación de servicios y en el empleo total, directo e indirecto
The Impact of Rural Electrification
Full text linkRigorous impact evaluation that includes appropriately selected control groups must be a part of rural electrification program designs. Budgeting evaluation activities and engaging with evaluators at an early stage improves to likelihood of having a high quality evaluation design; plus, if deviations occur after the design stage, the evaluators are better prepared to adjust the design so that the impact results remain informative to policy makers and future program designers. Another takeaway is to use unified framework to specify the expected outcomes and the plausible sizes of impacts. If done at the beginning of the program, this will provide context to the kind of discussion that policy makers should engage in (e.g. if they should focus on health benefits or the potential to diffuse information campaigns to rural households). These points focus mostly on internal validity, but we also need to focus on external validity as well. Large scale rural electrification programs will provide an opportunity to test if the results from small scale impact evaluations translate to other settings. Something we have not stressed so far but that is important to keep in mind are the complementarities in the provision of different type of infrastructure. Large projects can provide an opportunity to explore complementarities with other infrastructure programs, such as mobile telephony, road access, and improved water and sanitation access. They can shed light on what are the most welfare-enhancing policy options when deciding what types of infrastructure to provide in rural areas, and especially to poor rural households. Finally, we reiterate the need to use an objective function that casts a wider net when deciding where to place electrification programs. Focusing solely on cost minimization can result in missed opportunities. When deciding where to deploy the electric grid in rural areas it is imperative to take into account the potential profits, specifically the agricultural potential of these areas. By using the isoprofit and cost minimization framework described, rural electrification programs have the opportunity to reach more poor households and have larger impacts in the lives of the rural poor by providing new opportunities and enhancing the synergies between the agricultural and non-agricultural sector
Prepare food systems for a long-haul fight against COVID-19
No full textWith a devasting one-two punch, a supply shock followed by a demand shock, the COVID-19 pandemic has knocked out the world economy. The first blow was the Great Lockdown; the second, the worst recession since the Great Depression. No modern economy has experienced anything like this. As the spread of the novel coronavirus debilitates people’s ability to harvest and buy and sell food, food systems are under threat as never before.Non-PRIFPRI
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