Long-term impact of investments in early schooling — Empirical evidence from rural Ethiopia

We examine the cumulative impact of early schooling investments on later schooling outcomes using enrollment status and relative grade attainment as short-run and long-run measures of schooling. Using a child-level longitudinal data set from rural Ethiopia, we estimate a dynamic conditional schooling demand function where the coefficient estimate on the lagged dependent variable captures the impact of all previous period schooling inputs and resources. We find that a child who is enrolled in the prior period is 33 percentage points more likely to be enrolled currently. These lagged effects are stronger for girls and for children from higher income households.     

Is There Persistence in the Impact of Emergency Food Aid? Evidence on Consumption, Food Security, and Assets in Rural Ethiopia

We identify the impact of emergency food aid programs after the 2002 drought in rural Ethiopia on future welfare. Based on a difference-in-differences matching estimator, participation in food-for-work increases growth in total consumption and food consumption eighteen months after the drought. Separately, receiving free food raises growth in food consumption, but, surprisingly, negatively impacts food security. Food-for-work benefited households in the middle and upper tail of the consumption distribution, while the better-targeted free food program benefited the poorest. Evidence suggests these impacts demonstrate accumulated and persistent effects of food aid received in the first twelve months after the drought.     

Adoption of weather‐index insurance: learning from willingness to pay among a panel of households in rural Ethiopia

In this article we examine which farmers would be early entrants into weather‐index insurance markets in Ethiopia, were such markets to develop on a large scale. We do this by examining the determinants of willingness to pay for weather insurance among 1,400 Ethiopian households that have been tracked for 15 years as part of the Ethiopian Rural household Survey. This provides both historical and current information with which to assess the determinants of demand. We find that educated, wealthier individuals are more likely to purchase insurance. Risk aversion is associated with low insurance take‐up suggesting that models of technology adoption can inform the purchase and spread of weather index insurance. We also assess how willingness to pay varied as two key characteristics of the contract were varied and found that basis risk reduces demand for insurance particularly when the price of the contract is high, and that provision of insurance through groups is preferred by female headed households and individuals with lower levels of education.     

PRIMARY EDUCATION AS AN INPUT INTO POST-PRIMARY EDUCATION: A NEGLECTED BENEFIT†

In some developing countries private rates of return to primary education have fallen to low levels. An explanation is provided as to why this fall need not reduce the demand for primary education. Primary schooling is a necessary input into post-primary. In an educational system that is demand-constrained at the primary and supply-constrained at the post-primary level, the ‘prospect’ of post-primary schooling raises the primary return above the rate as conventionally measured. An application of the model to two countries — Côte d'Ivoire and Uganda — doubles the primary rate of return in each case.     

Agricultural production and children's diets: evidence from rural Ethiopia

We study the relationship between pre‐school children's food consumption and household agricultural production. Using a large household survey from rural Ethiopia, we find that increasing household production diversity leads to considerable improvements in children's dietary diversity. However, we also document how this nonseparability of consumption and production does not hold for households that have access to food markets. These findings imply that nutrition‐sensitive agricultural interventions that push for market integration are likely to be more effective in reducing under‐nutrition than those promoting production diversity.     

Participation and Poverty Reduction: An Analytical Framework and Overview of the Issues

This paper examines the relationship between community participationand the efficacy of interventions designed to reduce poverty.It outlines a simple model that identifies three actors involvedin the provision of antipoverty interventions: financiers, providersand beneficiaries. This model is used to illustrate what happenswhen the poor move from being passive beneficiaries to beingthe providers of these interventions. Beneficiary participationhas the potential to lower the cost of providing these interventions.It can ensure that they more closely reflect the preferencesof the population that they are designed to serve. However,this benefit is contingent on the ability of communities toengage in collective actions. In fractionalised communities,or where trust and/or social capital are weak, there is a riskthat community participation may result in the capture of benefitsby local elites, to the detriment of the poor. Further, we arguethat the failure to delegate true decision-making authority(allowing for de jure but not de facto participation), may resultin beneficiaries being reluctant to act because of concernsthat they will be subsequently overruled.     

UNITARY VERSUS COLLECTIVE MODELS OF THE HOUSEHOLD: IS IT TIME TO SHIFT THE BURDEN OF PROOF?

Most development objectives focus on the well-being of individuals.Policies are targeted to increase the percentage of individualswho avoid poverty, who can read, who are free from hunger andillness, or who can find gainful employment. Individual welfare,however, is based in large part on a complex set of interactionsamong family members. Until recently most policy analyses implicitly viewed the householdas having only one set of preferences. This assumption has beena powerful tool for understanding household behaviour, suchas the distribution of tasks and goods. But a growing body ofevidence suggests that this view is an expedience that comesat considerable, and possibly avoidable, cost. The article arguesthat more effective policy instruments will emerge from analyzingthe processes by which households balance the diverse interestsof their members.