The need to address extreme poverty from the perspective of marginality arises from the frustration that the number of the poorest and hungry remains unacceptably high. This triggered the call for an innovative approach from the side of science and action. The conceptual and analytical framework...

The use of mobile phones in poverty reduction and development has ignited much interest over the past decade. To take advantage of the rapid expansion of mobile phones in developing countries, businesses, government agencies and non-governmental organisations are increasingly turning their...

Healthy land ecosystems are essential to sustainable development, including food security and improved livelihoods. Yet, their key services have usually been taken for granted and their true value underrated, leading to land degradation becoming a critical global problem. This pattern of...

Healthy soils are essential for sustaining economies and human livelihoods. In spite of this, the key ecosystem services provided by soils have usually been taken for granted and their true value – beyond market value – is being underrated. This pattern of undervaluation of soils is about to...

We estimate a distance function of grains production using generalized method of moments that enables us to accommodate multiple outputs of farmers as well as address the endogeneity issues that are related with the use of distance functions for multi-output production. Using a panel data set of...

Billions of dollars flow into low-income countries each year to help alleviate poverty. Assessing the effectiveness of these dollars is necessary to measure program success and to allocate such funds among competing projects. This study measures the impact of the first phase of the Cocoa...

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Billions of dollars flow into low-income countries each year to help alleviate poverty. Assessing the effectiveness of these dollars is necessary to measure program success and to allocate such funds among competing projects. This study measures the impact of the first phase of the Cocoa...

The paper uses a stochastic frontier analysis of production functions to estimate the level of technical efficiency in agriculture for a panel of 29 developing countries in Africa and Asia between 1994 and 2000. In addition, the paper examines how different components of an agricultural...