Poverty analysis in the lowlands of Papua New Guinea underscores climate vulnerability and need for income flexibility*

A severe El Niño event in 2015/16 decimated an important share of Papua New Guinea's (PNG) local crop production, leaving 10 per cent of the population with significant food shortages. Lack of recent socio‐economic data and analysis of the country's rural population impeded efforts to plan and mitigate the ensuing food crisis. This paper presents the most recent poverty analysis in Papua New Guinea in nearly a decade, and a renewed effort to inform rural production, consumption and livelihood patterns in some of the country's most remote, lowland areas. We designed a rural household survey that collected detailed consumption and expenditure data to explore poverty prevalence and correlates of per capita household expenditure. Results suggest that approximately half of the sampled individuals live in households with total per capita expenditures below the poverty line. Climate shocks have significant and possibly long‐term consequences for household welfare. Households that experienced a drought in the last 5 years are associated with significantly lower per capita expenditures. Labour diversification, via migration, is associated with greater welfare. Households with at least one migrant member are associated with 13 per cent greater per capita expenditure.     

Household welfare implications of sustainable land management practices among smallholder farmers in Ghana

This study employs farm household data to examine the impact of adoption of sustainable land management practices on consumption and poverty outcomes using multivalued treatment effects approaches. The generalized propensity score approach was employed to account for selectivity bias due to observed characteristics among households. Using a doubly robust treatment effects estimator, we found that increasing intensity of adoption improved per capita consumption expenditure, reduced poverty headcount and poverty gap among farm households. The results of the multivalued treatment effects approach revealed significant differences between adopters of different adoption intensities, a finding that is not possible with binary treatment effect approaches. The findings also revealed that the average treatment effect of moving from low intensity to high intensity adoption levels differed across quantiles of per capita consumption. We also use a dose-response function to demonstrate that the treatment effect of intensity of adoption on per capita consumption and poverty outcomes is nonlinear, with optimal adoption level occurring between 60–70 % of adoption intensity dose. It is therefore recommended that initial government support in sustainable land management is necessary to sustain and upscale individual household efforts towards investment in sustainable land management.     

Economies of Scale and the Demand for Food in Switzerland: Parametric and Non‐Parametric Analysis

This paper examines the role of household public goods arising from co‐residence and economies of scale in the allocation of household expenditure. Using both parametric and non‐parametric methods, the paper tests the theoretical prediction that in the presence of shared public goods, larger households should have higher per capita consumption of private goods like food, provided that they do not substitute too much towards the effectively cheaper public good. The results indicate that, at constant per capita total expenditure, the per capita demand for food declines with household size. No evidence is found in favour of the hypothesis that the endogeneity of male and female hours of work in the labour force could be responsible for this anomaly. However, an examination of the role of direct economies of scale in explaining this negative relationship yielded a negative relationship between household size and quality adjusted unit values, suggesting that the effects of direct economies of scale dominate those generated by public goods.     

Household Food Consumption in a Developing Economy:

The primary objective of this paper is to describe household rice consumption patterns in Nigeria with evidence from Imo State, determine the nature, magnitude and direction of income, price and cross price elasticities of demand, and examine the factors influencing household rice consumption. A budget survey of 50 randomly selected rural and urban households in Imo State, Nigeria, interviewed. The survey was repeated for 14 months between November 1984 and January 1986, providing the data used for analysis. There were significant differences between urban and rural household per capita daily rice consumption. Income (expenditure) elasticity of demand was greater than unity, and decreased, as expected, from low to high income groups. Household income was the most important determinant of food consumption. The implications of these findings for food and international trade policy are discussed.     

Impact of off‐farm income on food expenditures in rural Bangladesh: an unconditional quantile regression approach

This study examines the effects of off‐farm income on food expenditures of rural Bangladeshi households. Our analysis yields unbiased estimates of the unconditional impact of off‐farm income on food expenditures and reveals the heterogeneous effects that occur across the distribution of total food consumption expenditures. The findings suggest that the impacts of off‐farm income are uniformly positive across the unconditional quantile regression and significantly increase food consumption expenditures for all quantiles, except for the 25th quantile. In addition, we found that schooling, experience, and location of the household increase the food expenditures of rural households. Most importantly, this article argues that female‐headed rural households in which the female works off the farm tend to have significantly lower food expenditures.     

Impact of Crop Diversification on Rural Poverty in Nepal

Crop diversification into high‐value crops (HVCs) can be an important strategy to augment income, generate employment, and reduce poverty in developing countries. We study the impact of crop diversification (share of production value obtained from the HVCs) on household (HH) welfare measures in Nepal. We use three rounds of the nationally representative Nepal Living Standard Surveys: NLSS I (1994/95), NLSS II (2004/05), and NLSS III (2010/11). The dose–response function, propensity score matching, and instrumental variable techniques are used to estimate the impact of crop diversification. Results show the positive impact of HVCs on the monthly per capita consumption expenditure and poverty outcomes. Among HVCs growers, HHs growing vegetables have the better welfare outcomes. While establishing the relationship between degree of agricultural diversity and poverty measures, we find that the marginal farmers need to at least derive 35% of the share of revenue from HVCs to escape from poverty.     

The impact of integrated livestock disease management for food security in Togo

In sub-Saharan Africa, livestock is one of the key channels through which most households meet their food security needs. However, diseases such as the African Animal Trypanosomosis (AAT) constrain productivity. Using data from 445 randomly sampled small-scale cattle farmers, this paper investigates the role of integrated livestock disease control on household food security. Using a novel approach to link different food security measures to cattle productivity, the paper identifies the channels of impact at the household level. Methodologically, the paper estimated the propensity score matching algorithm to net out the effect of adoption. The results show that households who adopt RDU have record livestock productivity and higher consumption per capita expenditures. They tend to be more food secure, experience lower seasonal food supply fluctuations and experience a lower probability of falling below the food poverty line.     

Do Differences in the Scale of Irrigation Projects Generate Different Impacts on Poverty and Production?

This article investigates differences in household production and consumption among small‐ and large‐scale irrigators to assess whether the scale of an irrigation project increases household welfare in Mali. Much of the evidence of the impact of irrigation does not use counterfactual analysis to estimate such impact or distinguish between the scale of the irrigation projects to be evaluated. In the dataset collected by the author, both a large‐scale irrigation project and small‐scale projects are used to construct counterfactual groups. Propensity score matching is used to estimate the average treatment effect on the treated for small and large irrigators relative to non‐irrigators on agricultural production, agricultural income and consumption per capita. Small‐scale irrigation has a larger effect on agricultural production and agricultural income than large‐scale irrigation, but large‐scale irrigation has a larger effect on consumption per capita. This suggests that market integration and non‐farm externalities are important in realising gains in agricultural surplus from irrigation.     

Household Composition and Brazilian Food Purchases: An Expenditure System Approach

The use of household level data for food demand analysis requires the researcher to address issues such as purchase censoring and the impacts of household age/gender composition on such demand. This analysis adopts an estimation approach to modeling censored food expenditures. The major methodological contribution of this analysis is our incorporation of an endogenous equivalence scale measure within the expenditure system. Our empirical application is concerned with Brazilian household food expenditures. We use the estimated adult equivalence scales to evaluate a measure of household welfare represented by per-adult equivalent food expenditures. We find a significant shift of the distribution of per capita food distributions when comparing member count versus adult equivalent-based per capita distributions.     

北方牧区居民家庭食物消费结构与特征研究

[目的]文章以内蒙古自治区呼伦贝尔市内鄂温克族自治旗、陈巴尔虎旗、新巴尔虎右旗为典型区域,定量研究我国北方牧区居民家庭食物消费结构及特征,以期丰富我国牧区的食物消费数据库、促进牧区居民食物消费转型升级。[方法]采用分层抽样,通过实地入户3d跟踪称重调研,获取典型区域内204户居民家庭食物消费的一手数据,结合中国居民膳食宝塔推荐值和传统农村(山东省)居民食物消费数据,对牧区家庭食物消费结构进行分析。[结果](1)牧区居民家庭人均食物消费量为495.99g/(人·餐),其中植物性食物消费量是动物性食物的2.4倍;蔬菜消费占比最高(24.43%),其次是面粉(18.39%)、奶类(12.62%)和肉类(11.39%);粮食消费中50%以上为面粉消费,肉类消费中60%以上为牛羊肉消费。(2)不同区域和群体间消费差异明显。收入水平较高的家庭对非主食类食物(肉类、食用油、零食和酒水)的消费量更高,而对薯类的消费量更低;与少数民族相比,饮食主要决定人为汉族的家庭人均食物消费量更低,且对奶类、酒水的消费量明显更低。(3)与中国居民平衡膳食宝塔推荐值相比,呼伦贝尔牧区居民食物消费表现出高油多盐的特征,同时对牛羊肉为主的肉类和谷薯类的消费偏高,而对水产类、水果和奶类的消费明显不足;与传统农村居民家庭食物消费相比,牧区居民的蔬菜、大豆及坚果的消费量更低。[结论]牧区居民食物消费有了主、副食兼用的趋势,且仍能体现地域特色,但饮食结构仍呈现单一化,对牛羊肉等肉类消费过量情况尤为突出。     

Floods,food security,and coping strategies: Evidence from Afghanistan

In this paper, we assess the long‐term effect of floods on food security (as measured by calorie and micronutrient consumption) by applying an instrumental variable approach to data from the Afghanistan National Risk and Vulnerability Assessment survey. To identify the determinants of this effect, we also estimate how floods affect per capita yearly household income and poverty status. We find that exposure to flooding during a 12‐month period decreased daily calorie consumption by approximately 60 kcal while increasing the probability of iron, vitamin A, and vitamin C deficiency by 11, 12, and 27 percentage points, respectively. Controlling for price shocks and income only marginally reduces this flood effect on food security, suggesting that impaired livelihoods (rather than price hikes) are its primary driver. We further determine that exposure to this natural disaster decreases income by about 3% and makes flood‐affected households about 3 percentage points more likely to be poor. Lastly, we show that experience of floods is strongly and significantly associated with lower diet quality and quantity, and with engaging in consumption smoothing coping strategies, such as buying food on credit and taking loans. These findings underscore the serious direct impact of floods on both diet and effective behavioral responses to such shocks while emphasizing the need for targeted micronutrient supplementation in disaster relief and food aid measures even after the period of natural disaster emergency.     

Does food market modernisation lead to improved dietary diversity and diet quality for urban Vietnamese households?

This study investigates the possible mechanisms through which modern food markets may affect Vietnamese households’ dietary diversity and diet quality using data from a survey of 1,700 urban households with seven‐day food recall. We calculate Household Dietary Diversity Scores to measure dietary diversity, and use consumption frequencies of micronutrients (vitamin A and heme iron) and a macronutrient (protein) to create a household measure of diet quality. We estimate a Poisson regression model using a two‐step control function approach to address the potential endogeneity of our key explanatory variable, modern market food expenditure shares. Higher modern market food expenditure share is positively and significantly associated with consumption frequency of heme iron, but there are no significant associations with consumption of vitamin A and protein. We further explore indirect linkages between food expenditure shares and dietary diversity, which in turn, may be linked to household diet quality. Results from a system of equations show that the food expenditure share variable has no significant relationship with dietary diversity, but dietary diversity is positively and significantly associated with diet quality. Our results indicate that alone, policies which encourage ‘food market modernisation’ are not enough to improve diet quality in urban Vietnam.     

Cash crop liberalization and poverty alleviation in Africa: evidence from Malawi

This article uses the case of burley tobacco liberalization in Malawi to investigate the efficacy of cash crop liberalization as an instrument for poverty alleviation in sub‐Saharan Africa. The principal justification for cash crop liberalization is that markets allow farm households to increase their incomes by producing that which provides the highest return to their productive resources and use the cash to buy consumption goods. Using a latent welfare model, we find that households that selected to grow cash crops had higher incomes than those that did not grow cash crops. However, we also find that due to the lumpiness and seasonality of cash crop incomes, higher household incomes, while increasing food purchases did not significantly affect per capita food intake. Irrespective of participation in cash crops, for much of the cropping season rural households seem to rely more on nonfarm income for expenditure and consumption smoothing.     

Changing food consumption patterns in rural and urban Vietnam: Implications for a future food supply system

Rapid income growth and urbanisation could significantly change the composition of the food basket in many emerging economies. This study estimates a demand system, including 15 major food items in Vietnam, with multiyear household survey data. We find a large variation in the estimated price elasticities (–0.05 to –0.88) and expenditure elasticities (–0.16 to 2.56). Food types, urban status and income groups can explain this variation. We also find that the staple food, rice, is already an inferior good for rich urban households in Vietnam. Moreover, food preferences are evolving away from rice but towards animal proteins (fish, pork, chicken, eggs and milk), fruits and vegetables, irrespective of urban status and income groups. As the Vietnam economy continues to grow with a doubling of gross domestic product (GDP) in the next decade, per capita rice consumption in both urban and rural areas and across different income groups will continue to decline, whereas demand for other high‐value products will rise. Thus, government policy should focus on encouraging demand‐oriented food production. In addition, crop diversification at the farm level needs to improve substantially to meet the rising demand for these food products due to income growth and urbanisation.     

Lithuania's food demand during economic transition

The linear approximate version of the almost ideal demand system (LA‐AIDS) model is estimated using data from the Lithuanian household budget survey (HBS) covering the period from July 1992 to December 1994. Price and real expenditure elasticities for 12 food groups were estimated based on the estimated coefficients of the model. Very little or nothing is known about the demand parameters of Lithuania and other former socialist countries, so the results are of intrinsic interest. Estimated expenditure elasticities were positive and statistically significant for all food groups, while all own‐price elasticities were negative and statistically significant, except for that of eggs which was insignificant. Results suggest that Lithuanian household consumption did respond to price and real income changes during their transition to a market‐oriented economy.     

Quantifying the structure of food demand in China: An econometric approach

This article examines food demand structure and its dynamics for 11 commodities in urban China. The analysis is based on household‐level expenditure survey data for two cross‐sectional surveys of Chinese households pertaining to food expenditure patterns during 1995 and 2003. Pre‐committed components of commodity demands, that are insensitive to economic variables, are explored. We use the generalized quadratic almost ideal demand system (GQAIDS) for its empirical superiority to the generalized almost ideal demand system (GAIDS), and estimate the associated parameters via full information maximum likelihood procedure (FIML) accounting for endogeneity of total expenditures on food for home consumption (FAH). We also use quality‐adjusted commodity unit values to control for quality differences resulting from commodity aggregation and food choice. Furthermore, we derive GQAIDS elasticity formulas, and estimate income elasticities without restrictions. The results partially support the hypothesis that an average Chinese household has incorporated elements of Western diet (fine grains) into traditional Chinese food diet over time. Moreover, the outcome of a simple test developed here points to possible preference changes for a majority of food staples under study.     

陕西农户生活能源消费结构影响因素实证研究

[目的]为探索农户生活能源消费结构及影响因素。[方法]文章以2018年"劳动力转移与农户生活能源"专项调查数据为依托,引入非农就业特征、抚养比和代际同住变量,运用Tobit模型分析非农就业特征、家庭人口经济特征、能源可获性、能源价格因素、区位因素及消费偏好对陕西农户生活能源消费结构的影响。[结果]非农就业特征对农户能源消费结果有显著影响;代际同住、抚养比、人均农业收入及其他收入均对生物质能源消费有显著正向影响;户主的高教育程度和外出务工经历对商品能源消费有显著正向影响;人均耕地面积、商品能源平均价格作用则相反;不同地区农户生活能源消费结构差别大且受消费偏好影响。[结论]研究表明,非农就业能够直接推动陕西农户生活能源由以生物质能源为主向以商品能源为主转型,但家庭人口经济等特征使非农就业对农户生活能源消费转型的显著影响力以经济因素为中心产生不同变化。     

河北省农民收入影响因素分析

2019年中央一号文件提出,2019—2020年是全面建成小康社会的决胜期,"三农"领域有不少必须完成的硬任务,必须坚持把解决好"三农"问题作为全党工作的重中之重不动摇。而解决"三农"问题的核心是增加农民收入,增加农民收入是河北省经济发展中的一个重要问题。本文首先通过观察2003—2018年河北省农民人均可支配收入状况,收集基本数据,确定城镇化水平、农产品人均占有量、农产品生产价格指数和农村人均消费支出四个影响因素;其次运用计量经济学模型和Eviews8.0软件进行分析和检验;最后根据拟合后的计量模型,得到农民人均可支配收入与农村人均消费支出和城镇化水平两个指标都成明显正相关关系:在其他指标不变时,农村人均消费支出每增加1元、城镇化水平每提升8%,农民人均可支配收入就分别增加0.88元和129.11元。本文根据所得结论提出了对策及建议,并结合实际为河北省农民增收探索新途径。     

How do obese people afford to be obese? Consumption strategies of Russian households

This article investigates the extent to which Russian households that differ in their members’ weight status adjust their food consumption differently when their economic resources change. Using household‐panel data from the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS) from 1995 to 2005, we estimate total expenditure elasticities of food expenditures, food quantities, and food quality for normal‐weight, overweight, and obese households, respectively. The expenditure elasticities of quality derived for obese households for meat, bread, fruits, and dairy were found to be 15–20% higher than those of normal households. Hence, a change in economic resources causes obese households to adjust the quality of purchased foods significantly more flexibly than normal‐weight households. Only few differences were found for quantity and expenditure reactions. Our results emphasize that policies aiming to reduce obesity should consider deviations in consumption behavior of normal and obese consumers in terms of quality.     

Economic development,food demand and the consequences for agricultural resource requirements: an application to Indonesia

We analyse food demand patterns of Indonesian households from a resource intensity perspective and quantify the impact of changed demand patterns on the use of three major resource inputs: fossil fuel; land; and water in agricultural production. Using Indonesian Family Life Survey data, 13 major food items (which constitute 70 per cent of food expenditure) are categorised into low, moderate and high resource intensity, and income elasticity and Engel curves are estimated for the period from 1997 to 2007. Our results show that income growth in Indonesia is associated with demand patterns that are more resource intensive. By 2007, per capita requirements of fossil fuel, land and water increased by 42.7 per cent (3.13 MJ), 44.9 per cent (1.24 m²) and 50.4 per cent (2.1 kL), respectively, relative to 1997. The results imply that, at least for Indonesia, changed food demand patterns resulting from economic development will increase the demand for natural resources substantially.