Implications of the global growth slowdown for rural poverty

Over the past 25 years, higher growth in developing countries has contributed to a dramatic fall in global poverty, although poverty rates in rural areas remain higher than in urban areas. Unfortunately, projected growth rates have fallen in recent years; this article examines the impact of this slowdown on the poor, particularly the rural poor. It first uses a global model to assess the impacts of lower productivity on key price and income variables. It then uses microsimulation models for almost 300,000 households to assess the impacts on their real incomes. Although poverty rates overall are projected to fall substantially, the poorest countries see the greatest slowdown in poverty reduction, with over 5% of their population projected to remain below the poverty line. In addition, poverty rates will remain alarmingly high in many countries. Overall, 38 million fewer people will leave extreme poverty compared to earlier projections. Farm households are at particular risk in middle‐income countries, with over 1.5% more of the farming population remaining trapped in poverty than previously estimated. By 2030, average extreme poverty in rural areas is projected at about 7.5%, rather than 7.1% under the earlier growth projections. Clearly, a strong focus on policies for poverty reduction will be vital for eliminating poverty by 2030.     

Does a “Blue Revolution” help the poor? Evidence from Bangladesh

The rapid growth in aquaculture production, globally and in Bangladesh is well documented. Over 2000–2010, per capita production of aquaculture grew 76%, while the consumer price of fish declined 45%. Previous studies have suggested pro‐poor effects of aquaculture based on fish production and consumption patterns. This study attempts to quantify the contribution of aquaculture to income growth and poverty reduction in Bangladesh, using household survey data and a microsimulation approach based on an expanded version of Deaton's concept of net benefit ratio. We estimate that aquaculture's contribution to income growth between 2000 and 2010 was 2.1%, including both price and quantity effects. This income growth was translated into poverty reduction of 1.7 percentage points. Although these estimates seem small, they represent almost 10% of the overall poverty reduction in Bangladesh during the first decade of the 21st century. Put differently, of the 18 million Bengalis who escaped poverty during 2000–2010, about 1.8 million of them managed to do so because of the rapid growth in aquaculture, which contributed to rural income while making fish more accessible to consumers.     

Agriculture and small towns in Africa

Africa is urbanizing rapidly. Yet most dual economy models focus on the sectoral rather than spatial dimensions of development. This article adopts a “dual–dual” approach to measuring rural/urban and farm/nonfarm linkages. We develop an economy‐wide model of Ethiopia that distinguishes between cities, towns, and rural areas. The model captures detailed sectoral and regional linkages, internal migration flows, and externalities from urban agglomeration. We find larger linkages between agricultural production and small towns and show that redirecting urban growth toward towns rather than cities leads to broader‐based economic growth and poverty reduction. In contrast, industry and services, particularly within cities, are far less effective in reaching rural areas and the poor. Africa's current urbanization pattern—toward major cities rather than towns—will weaken national growth–poverty linkages. Urbanization that takes advantage of the synergistic relationship between agriculture and small towns has the potential to result in a more inclusive growth trajectory.     

Implications of high food prices for poverty in Pakistan

The study estimates the impacts of rising world food prices on poverty in rural and urban areas of Pakistan. Household income and expenditure data for 2004/2005 is used to estimate compensated and uncompensated price and expenditure elasticities using the linear approximation of the almost ideal demand system. Taking the unexpected component of higher domestic food prices in 2007/2008, own and cross price compensated elasticities are used to derive the changes in the quantity consumed, food expenditure and impacts on poverty assuming the food crisis happened in 2004/2005. The results indicate that poverty increased by 34.8%, severely affecting the urban areas where poverty increased by 44.6% as compared to 32.5% in rural areas. The estimates show that 2.3 million people are unable to reach even one‐half of poverty line expenditures while another 13.7 million are just below and 23.9 million are just above the poverty line. In the short run, it is important to ensure food availability to these people. In the long run, the policy environment of subsidizing urban food consumers by keeping wheat prices lower than the international price, needs to be reconsidered to provide the right incentives to increase food availability.     

On farmland prices and rents in Japan

Historically, the Japanese farmland market has been strongly regulated, although fundamental changes in policy were introduced in 1967 and 1980. This article examines the relationship between farmland prices and rents in Japan for 1955–2000 using the cointegration procedure of Johansen et al. (2000) , which admits structural breaks. Results show the presence of a cointegrating relationship with a significant break in 1980. There is Granger‐causality from prices to rents, which suggests that rents are determined within an institutional setting according to farmland prices. The rent–price elasticity is unity, which supports the notion of efficiency in the farmland market.     

Agricultural water management and poverty in Ethiopia

The main focus of this article is to explore whether access to selected agricultural water management (AWM) technologies has led to significant reduction in poverty and, if they did so, to identify which technologies had higher impacts. In measuring impact we estimated the average treatment effect for the treated on crop income and measured the differences in consumption expenditures per adult equivalent of those with access and without access using matched data. The estimated average treatment effect was significant and amounted to USD 82 per season. Moreover, there was 24 less poverty incidence among users of AWM technologies compared to nonusers. All technologies were found to have significant poverty reducing impacts with micro dams, deep wells, river diversions, and ponds leading to 37%, 26%, 11%, and 9% reduction in poverty incidence compared to rainfed system. Finally, our study identified the most important correlates of poverty on the basis this we made the policy recommendations to build assets (AWM technologies, livestock, etc); to enhance human resource development and improve the functioning of labor markets for enhanced impact of AWM technologies on poverty.     

DOES TECHNICAL PROGRESS IN AGRICULTURE ALLEVIATE POVERTY? A PHILIPPINE CASE STUDY*

We examine the impact of technical progress in agriculture on changes in measured poverty and aggregate welfare in a developing country. Using a small general equilibrium model, we show how the economic components of an observed change in poverty can be isolated to expose the significance of intersectoral linkages and the economic roles of changes in relative commodity and factor prices. Variation in the measured rate and distribution of poverty alleviation depends somewhat on the choice of poverty measure, but more substantively on structural assumptions and the effects of policy interventions in agricultural markets.     

我国基础设施建设投资的减贫效果研究:1987—2006

本文在回顾我国扶贫发展战略与贫困变化逻辑的基础上,利用1987—2006年统计数据实证分析了基础设施建设投资对于贫困以及与贫困密切相关的农村人均收入和收入分配状况的影响效果。研究发现:(1)我国扶贫战略的发展是随着贫困概念内涵的变化而变化的;(2)基础设施的数量(存量)方面和质量方面对于贫困和农民收入的相关影响都非常重要,二者应同时受到关注;(3)基础设施数量与质量独立指标的实证效果与其综合指标的实证效果间存在着差异,综合指标的拟合效果优于独立指标的拟合效果;(4)分析表明,基础设施数量的增加及质量的改进同时起到降低贫困、提高农村收入并改变收入构成的作用,但对于农村收入分配不平等程度的影响却存在差异。     

Agriculture’s Inter‐industry Linkages,Aggregation Bias and Rural Policy Reforms

As agricultural policy reform and its effects have become increasingly territorialised, analyses that attempt to explain or predict impacts need to be both more localised and to identify spill‐over effects. Local and regional general equilibrium approaches have become increasingly popular because they can extend predictions of policy shocks obtainable from partial equilibrium sectoral models to identify the wider effects. However, agriculture is usually described as a single sector in input–output accounts, whereas policy shocks that affect constituent commodities with differential impacts will have inter‐industry effects that are different to those implied by average input–output coefficients. Regionalisation of aggregated input–output tables adds further to these difficulties. The objective of this study is to develop a practical method for dealing with these problems. It describes the theoretical basis of aggregation bias and shows how it can be measured, in two contrasting case study regions in the UK and Sweden. Having established that this is a significant issue, a simple but effective procedure is demonstrated, based on additional information on variable costs, which transforms policy shocks from a direct change in agricultural output to that transmitted to the suppliers of inputs. This method provides an impact close to that which could be calculated if the general equilibrium system had indeed been disaggregated, and supports use of this approach in impact studies where insufficient time or funding are available for complete disaggregation of an agricultural sector’s regional accounts.     

精准扶贫政策对城乡居民收入差距的影响研究——以山西省为例

[目的]实施精准扶贫政策以来,我国共减少贫困人口6 853万人。在脱贫攻坚取得重大进展的背景下,对比政策实施前后城乡居民收入的变化,对于揭示精准扶贫政策的作用具有重要意义。[方法]以贫困范围广、贫困程度深的山西省为对象,基于2010—2017年精准扶贫政策实施前后的统计数据,采用双重差分模型研究不同贫困程度县(区)城乡居民收入差距变化。[结果]精准扶贫政策的效果主要为:贫困县的城乡居民收入差距缩小幅度约为非贫困县的3倍,而其中国家级贫困县的收入差距缩小幅度约为省级贫困县的2倍;共同趋势检验和安慰剂检验的结果验证了模型的稳健性。对比采用最小二乘法(OLS)得到的精准扶贫政策效果,揭示出如果忽略城乡居民收入差距随时间的变化,则会高估精准扶贫政策效果约1.5～4倍,再次证明模型的有效性。通过引入控制变量探讨政策以外的其他影响因素,发现城镇化水平、经济发展水平、第三产业占比、人均农业产值有助于缩小城乡居民收入差距,人均土地状况会扩大城乡居民收入差距,固定资产投资和消费水平的影响不显著。[结论]精准扶贫政策对于缩小城乡居民收入差距具有显著效果,且对深度贫困地区的影响更明显。     

Traditional Management Systems, Poverty and Change in the Arid Zone Fisheries of Northern Nigeria

This paper, based on fieldwork results, explores traditional management systems (TMS) in the arid zone fisheries of north-eastern Nigeria with particular reference to their impact on rural poverty. The first section provides a historical background by tracing the evolution of the TMS since the nineteenth century, with reference to government policy on fisheries management and poverty alleviation. The second gives an overview of TMS, including definitions, distribution, principal objectives, regulatory mechanisms and the impact of TMS on the performance of the fisheries and on the livelihoods of rural people. The third considers the perceptions and attitudes of the fishing communities with regards to the fisheries and TMS. The paper concludes, paradoxically, that while TMS provide a basis for the sustainable livelihoods of many fishing people, they also reflect and enforce the social positions of the rich and powerful members of society who oversee them, at the expense of the poor. In the future, poverty alleviation in fisheries will need to incorporate both sectoral and non-sectoral strategies – dealing with the existing 'paradox of TMS' by encouraging appropriate institutional changes and community development, and recognizing the importance of employment creation in other sectors of the economy as a source of alternative income.     

TRQ‐complications: who gets the benefits when the EU liberalizes Mercosur's access to the beef markets?

The European Union (EU) and the Mercosur countries resumed negotiations on trade liberalization in May 2010 after several years of interruption. The article analyzes who stands to benefit and who is likely to lose if the EU liberalizes Mercosur's access to domestic beef markets. This economic assessment is performed using a partial equilibrium model for beef operating at a low level of product aggregation, paying specific attention to the role of Tariff Rate Quotas (TRQs). Consultations with experts from the meat sector allowed us to identify the allocation of the quota rents to different stakeholders. Under an agreement based on the EU's negotiation proposal, trade impacts are projected to be small due to the present quota overfill. As expected, impacts are more pronounced under the conditions set out in Mercosur's proposal. The results confirm that the distribution of quota rents can be decisive in determining welfare effects.     

Poverty targeting, resource degradation and heterogeneous endowments—a micro-simulation analysis of a less-favored Ethiopian village

Persistent and widespread poverty in less-favored areas (LFAs) is attributed to fragile natural resources and poor markets. Limited assets may keep households outside the reach of poverty policies targeted at LFAs. We explored in a stylized manner the role of heterogeneous household assets for (1) policies aimed at poverty reduction; (2) within-village income inequality; and (3) soil erosion. With a farm-household micro-simulation model we analyzed for each household in a remote Ethiopian village three sets of policies: technology improvement, infrastructure investment, and off-farm employment through migration or cash for work (CFW) programs. Combating poverty with a single policy, migratory off-farm employment reduces the poverty headcount most. Because of self-selection, CFW programs performed best in terms of reaching the poorest of the poor. CFW also reduced within-village income inequality most, while a price band reduction increased income inequality. Only technology improvements resulted in a trade-off between poverty and soil erosion. Price band and off-farm employment policies reduced erosion while outperforming technology improvements in terms of poverty reduction. We found that combining two policies was most helpful in assisting poorer households to overcome the limitations of their asset endowments. A CFW program combined with reduced price bands yielded most in terms of poverty reduction and income inequality. This policy complementarity is, however, less important for better-endowed households. Reducing the reliance of households on agriculture offered a win-win situation of reducing poverty and maintaining natural resources. Combining policies helped to overcome asset limitations, to target policies to the poorest households and to reduce income inequalities.     

The distributional effects of the Hilmer reforms on the Australian gas industry*

We analyse changes in the Australian gas industry during 1990s that were motivated by the Hilmer Reforms. We estimate the effects on real household income of the changes by combining a computable general equilibrium model with a microsimulation model. Although the structural changes were significant in their effects on the gas industry, they are estimated to have had minor effects on real household income in all Australian regions owing to the small size of the gas industry and household gas consumption at that time, and low importance of gas as an input to other industries. The changes are estimated to have slightly increased income inequality owing to the redistribution of income from labour to other primary factors.     

论2020后农村减贫战略与政策:从“扶贫”向“防贫”的转变

中国农村贫困格局的变化在客观上要求调整农村减贫的战略与政策。2020之后农村贫困的治理战略需要由长期以来的"扶贫战略"转向"以防贫为主"的新的贫困治理战略框架。2020之后中国减贫的战略目标将需要从过去长期以来通过制定不同的绝对贫困标准并继而努力超越绝对贫困标准,转变为通过逐步实现城乡社会公共服务均等化等手段来缓解不平等为主要目标。2020后以防贫为主要目标的减贫政策应将现行所有的政策工具进行重新的梳理建立起相互衔接、互不重复、目标明确的新的减贫政策体系。     

Consistent poverty comparisons and inference

Building upon the cost of basic needs (CBN) approach, an integrated approach to making consumption-based poverty comparisons is presented. This approach contains two principal modifications to the standard CBN approach. The first permits the development of multiple poverty bundles that are utility consistent. The second recognizes that the poverty line itself is a random variable whose variation influences the degree of confidence in poverty measures. We illustrate the empirical importance of these two methodological changes for the case of Mozambique. With utility consistency imposed, estimated poverty rates tend to be systematically higher in rural areas and lower in urban areas. We also find that the true confidence intervals on the poverty estimates—those incorporating poverty line variance—tend to be considerably larger than those that ignore poverty line variance. Finally, we show that these two methodological changes interact. Specifically, we find that imposing utility consistency on poverty bundles tends to tighten confidence intervals, sometimes dramatically, on provincial poverty estimates. We conclude that this revised approach represents an important advance in poverty analysis. The revised approach is straightforward and directly applicable in empirical work.     

Ex post impacts of improved maize varieties on poverty in rural Ethiopia

Public agricultural research has been conducted in Africa for decades. While many studies have examined its aggregate impacts, few have investigated how it affects the poor. This paper helps fill this gap by applying a new procedure to explore the ex post impacts of improved maize varieties on poverty in rural Ethiopia. Plot‐level yield and cost changes due to adoption are first estimated using instrumental variable and marginal treatment effect techniques where possible heterogeneity is carefully accounted for. A backward derivation procedure is then developed to link treatment effect estimates with an economic surplus model to identify the counterfactual household income that would have existed without improved maize varieties. Poverty impacts are finally estimated by exploiting the differences between observed and counterfactual income distributions. Improved maize varieties have led to a 0.8–1.3 percentage drop of poverty headcount ratio and relative reductions of poverty depth and severity. However, poor producers benefit the least from adoption due to the smallness of their land holdings.     

Sustainability impact assessment using integrated meta-modelling: Simulating the reduction of direct support under the EU common agricultural policy (CAP)

Assessing the impact of macro-level policy driven land use changes on regional sustainability is an important task that can facilitate complex decision making processes of introducing reforms. The research work demonstrates the ability of Sustainability Impact Assessment Tool (SIAT), a meta-model, in conducting ex ante spatially explicit cross sectoral impact assessments of changes in common agricultural policy (CAP). The meta-model is able to appraise impacts of CAP amendments on land use and their repercussions on multiple indicators of sustainability. The presented study comprehensively analyses the possible impacts of discontinuing direct financial support to farmers under CAP. The simulations of the meta-model are able to reveal the land use changes both at EU and regional levels as well as to bring forth the subsequent changes in a number of indicators representing the regional sustainability (for five case study regions). In a nutshell, the simulations indicate that a reduction in direct support brings in general, a decrease in farmed area, an increase in forested land, less fluctuation in natural vegetation coverage, increase in abandoned arable land area and negligible changes in built-up area despite regionally diverging land use trends. The simulated changes in sustainability indicators for the study regions in consequence to these land use changes show that the discontinuation of subsidies evokes responses that are in general climate friendly (reduction in methane and N₂O emissions, diminishing energy use and reduction in global warming potential), economically beneficial (increase in gross value of agriculture) and socially desired (decrease in unemployment rate) as well as environmentally harmful (increase in pesticide use). Even though the appraisals of diversity indicators such as forest deadwood and farmland birds are not conclusive for all regions, the changes are positive for the former indicator and slightly negative for the latter in general. The trade-offs among these regional sustainability indicators using their directional associations are also presented for a comprehensive assessment of the impacts.     

The Impact of Agricultural Extension and Roads on Poverty and Consumption Growth in Fifteen Ethiopian Villages

This article investigates whether public investments that led to improvements in road quality and increased access to agricultural extension services led to faster consumption growth and lower rates of poverty in rural Ethiopia. Estimating an Instrumental Variables model using Generalized Methods of Moments and controlling for household fixed effects, we find evidence of positive impacts with meaningful magnitudes. Receiving at least one extension visit reduces headcount poverty by 9.8 percentage points and increases consumption growth by 7.1 percentage points. Access to all-weather roads reduces poverty by 6.9 percentage points and increases consumption growth by 16.3 percentage points. These results are robust to changes in model specification and estimation methods.     

Policy drivers of farm succession and inheritance

Farm succession and inheritance is increasingly considered a complex phenomenon which not only affects core dimensions of farm family life but also the agricultural sector more widely. Intergenerational farm transfer in particular is increasingly viewed as fundamental to the sustainability and development of global agriculture. In the majority of EU countries, the average age of farmers is increasing, while the number of farmers under 40 years of age is decreasing. There is growing concern that this demographic trend may have negative impacts on the agricultural industry because it is younger and not older farmers who are associated with more efficient and effective production practices. The question of what motivates decisions to transfer farms is a complex one, and research to date has not apparently enlightened agricultural policy to the extent that current trends towards an ageing farm population are being managed. This research aims to investigate economic and financial aspects of the policy drivers of farm succession and inheritance in Ireland to understand what it is about the policy environment that is failing to stimulate higher levels of farm transfer. It draws on the Teagasc National Farm Survey data which provides Irish data to the Farm Accountancy Data Network in the European Commission. A hypothetical microsimulation model is used to investigate economic factors of farm transfers, with scenarios created to test these factors and their impacts on the transfer process. The Net Present Value (NPV) of income streams for farmers and their successors are calculated to assess which scenarios have the highest/lowest financial effects. The findings illustrate a range of possible scenarios for farm succession/inheritance, with some results indicating that under current policy retaining a farm until death may be more economically beneficial to a farmer than transferring land before death.