Agriculture is the mainstay of the Kenyan Economy. However, agriculture has experienced low productivity over the years. Poor access to agricultural finance has been identified as a contributing factor to low crop productivity. Kenyan agriculture has undergone some fundamental changes which have...

This paper examines the extent to which garment industry in Swaziland has contributed to the economic empowerment of the Swazi people through creation of new jobs and improvement in their overall welfare. In Swaziland as elsewhere in many African countries, unemployment has been and is still a...

The paper estimates the cost of tsetse control and treatment of trypanosomiasis and the benefits involved, using benefit-cost analysis. It also estimates the extent to which socio-economic characteristics of farmers affect the use of tsetse control techniques, using a maximum Likelihood-Binary...

Although microfinance has elicited different reactions from different stakeholders, there seems to be a general agreement that it is useful in reducing poverty. This study is an attempt to contribute in to the debate on the impact of microfinance on household incomes. We use a pooled data set...

Banks in non-metropolitan areas compete in a spatially-differentiated environment. Particularly with the advent of electronic banking services, however, there is some question as to how much market power is conferred by spatial separation from rivals. This paper estimates a structural model of...

Farming as a primary source of income has failed to guarantee sufficient livelihood for most farming households in developing countries, and agricultural development policies have largely produced little improvement, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. Diversification into off-farm activities has...

Modern agricultural commodity markets are simultaneously governed by a physical and a financial market element. Whether financial “index trading” activity influences price levels on the futures markets has been investigated by empirical studies using Granger Causality Analysis. A critical...

Presumed portfolio benefits of commodities and the availability of index fund-type investment products increase attractiveness of commodity markets for financial traders. But resulting “index trading” strategies are suspected to inflate commodity prices above their fundamental value. We use...

The addition of commodities to financial portfolios and resulting weight adjustments may create volatility linkages between commodity and financial markets, especially during financial crises. Also, biofuel mandates are suspected to integrate agricultural and energy markets. We calculate...