The purpose of this study is to assess the potential of clustering in the development of agriculture and rural communities in China. We shall examine in detail the food industry, which is the link in the food chain that propels the industrialization of agriculture, and identify instances of...

This is a draft paper, submitted in advance of presentation at the 2014 Annual Meeting of the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association.

The impact of genetically modified (GM) crops on the poor in developing countries is still the subject of controversy. While previous studies have examined direct productivity effects of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) cotton and other GM crops, little is known about wider socioeconomic outcomes. We...

Edited volume of the contributions to the mini-symposium of the same title at the IAAE conference 2009.

Are working-age rural migrants to urban areas really better off? This paper uses data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics from 1979 to 1997 to answer this question. It builds on literature by Fisher (2005, 2007) on the role of unmeasured characteristics in influencing rural residential...

This paper analyzes the participation of small farmers in the fresh fruit and vegetable supply systems of supermarkets in Mexico, using the case of small-scale guava farmers in the state of Michoacán. Several findings emerge. The most important determinants of access of these farmers to “more...

A concentration of poor in rural areas has resulted in a research and policy focus on agricultural technologies and (poor) households impact on soil productivity. But farm households do not live of farming alone, non-farm activities play a principal role even in remote areas. With a unique...

Small communities sometimes increase their local sales tax rate in order to maintain or expand public services. The question addressed here is what is the net effect of changing sales tax rates on revenues from sales taxes? Using both semiparametric and nonparametric regression, we find retail...

The presentation deals with the quantification of villages' and rural communities' conditions. Distributing financial sources of rural development among the regions is not an easy task. The authors confirm the fact that the results of different methods used for quantifying conditions may be...