In the 1990s, prior to its accession to the WTO, China dramatically reduced market distortions in its agriculture. We use panel data of 10,488 households from 1989 to 2000 and ask whether these reforms improved the welfare of rural Chinese households measured by the share of calories from...

China underwent tremendous agricultural market reforms in the 1990s prior to its accession to the WTO, drastically decreasing domestic market distortions. We ask whether these reforms have led to agricultural commercialization and have improved the welfare of rural Chinese households measured by...

Constrained access to land is increasingly recognized as a problem impeding rural household welfare in densely populated areas of Africa. This study utilizes household and plot level data from rural Kenya to explore the linkage between land access and food security. We find that a 10% increase...

This paper studies the effect of local off-farm employment and migration on rural households’ technical efficiency of crop production using a five-year panel dataset from more than 2,000 households in five Chinese provinces. While there is not much debate about the positive contribution of...

This paper studies the regional distribution of the benefits from trade in Mexico after NAFTA. Specifically, we ask whether or not NAFTA has increased the concentration of economic activity in Mexico. Unlike previous work which uses state-level data, we identify the effect of NAFTA on economic...

This study uses panel data from 1,142 Kenya smallholder households over four survey periods to examine the determinants of participation in land rental markets and to quantify the impact of renting land on households’ crop income and total income. We find that land rental markets in Kenya...

Replaced with revised version of paper 06/22/11.

This paper studies how the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) affected income distribution within Mexico given internal migration. In low-skilled labor-abundant developing countries, trade liberalization should theoretically increase the income of low-skilled workers, decreasing income...