Institutional Environment and Technical Efficiency: A Stochastic Frontier Analysis of Cotton Producers in West Africa

This paper examines the effects of the institutional environment on West African cotton farmers’ technical efficiency (TE). First, key aspects of the cotton sector institutional environment are discussed, including input and credit access, and producers’ organisations. Then, a stochastic frontier production function, which incorporates technical inefficiency effects, is applied to farm level data collected in Benin, Burkina Faso and Mali. The survey includes farmers’ evaluations of the cotton sector institutional environment. Results suggest that institutional level features influence producers’ TE, besides farm‐level characteristics. Cotton growers who report a negative experience with the joint liability programme, who identify the cotton price mechanism or access to credit as the main constraints to performance, and who cultivate more hectares of cereals are technically more inefficient in producing cotton. Findings suggest that cotton farmers in Mali are less technically efficient in producing cotton than in Burkina Faso and Benin. Agricultural development policies focusing on reducing farmers’ financial stress, particularly through the establishment of adequate price mechanisms (i.e. higher farm‐gate prices and timely payments to farmers) and improvement in the input–credit markets should be encouraged to improve TE in West Africa.     

Analyzing the welfare‐improving potential of land in the former homelands of South Africa

This article contributes to the debate on the role of land in reducing poverty in rural South Africa. It uses the year of arrival in the former homelands as an instrument for land access and size. This identification strategy is based on the fact that African households were forcibly relocated to the homelands during the apartheid. Due to increasing population pressure, later arrivals were less likely to be assigned land. The results show that land has a large positive effect on household welfare. Because the homelands are relatively disadvantaged areas, these results provide a lower bound for the positive effects of land on household welfare.     

Financial development and private investment in Sub-Saharan Africa

This study examines the relationship between financial sector development and private investment in Sub-Saharan Africa. It uses panel data covering the period 1991-2004 from 18 countries in Africa. The main findings of the study are as follows: there is a negative relationship between interest rate and private investment, signaling large interest rate spreads in African economies. It is also found that both the credit to the private sector and the turnover ratio have significant relationships with private investment. However, the effect of turnover ratio on investment is insignificant. The insignificance of the stock market indicator reflects the low stage of stock market development in most of the African economies. In addition, it is found that the informal sector is still large and has positive effects on private investment and that institutional variables play a key role in determining the level of private investment in Africa.     

The effect of distance and road quality on food collection, marketing margins, and traders' wages: evidence from the former Zaire

Food price variation is typical of the food economies of many low income countries. The presence or absence of road infrastructure is perceived to be one of the main determinants of this variation. This analysis shows that in the case of the former Zaire, food price dispersion is significant both across products and across regions. It is demonstrated that transportation costs explain most of the differences in food prices between producer regions and that road quality is an important factor in the transportation costs. However, food prices decrease relatively faster than transportation costs increase and traders' wages are higher on bad roads.     

Governance, Democracy and Poverty Reduction: Lessons Drawn from Household Surveys in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America

Public statistics face quite a challenge when it comes to measuring new dimensions of development (institutions, governance, and social and political participation). To take up this challenge, modules on Governance, Democracy and Multiple Dimensions of Poverty have been appended to household surveys by National Statistics Institutes in twelve African and Latin American developing countries. This paper presents the issues addressed and the methodological lessons learnt along with a selection of findings to illustrate this innovative approach and demonstrate its analytic potential. We investigate, for instance, the population's support for democratic principles, the respect for civil and political rights and the trust in the political class; the ‘need for the State’, particularly of the poorest; the extent of petty corruption; the reliability of expert surveys on governance; the perception of decentralization policies at local level; the level and vitality of social and political participation, etc. The conclusive appraisal made opens up prospects for the national statistical information systems in the developing countries. The measurement and tracking of this new set of objective and subjective public policy monitoring indicators would benefit from being made systematic.     

Forecasting system thermal efficiencies in technology importing countries

Forecasting the thermal efficiency of a set of power plants belonging to a country is important for energy, water, and environmental planning.In this article an analysis of the way in which the system thermal efficiency (STE) changes is provided, and a forecasting model for the electric utilities of technology importing countries is developed.The model is based on the identification of the speed with which technology is transferred from abroad and of the adjustment process of the system's efficiency to that of the best plant's.The application of the calculation to the South African utility shows that the STE in the year 2015 will be 20 to 25 percent higher than that in the year 1983.     

How Big is the Crowding-Out Effect of User Fees in the Rural Areas of Ethiopia? Implications for Equity and Resources Mobilization

Using a nested multinomial logit model, this study investigates the demand “reduction” and “diversion” effects of user fees in rural areas of Ethiopia. The results reveal that an increase in user fees of public clinics, which are the most widely used alternative, can have a significant demand reduction effect on the poorest of the poor. This implies that despite cost recovery has been advocated as an alternative means of health care financing in most of the developing world, increasing user fees may drive the poorest segment of the population out of the health care market unless some protective measures are taken.