This paper attempts to demonstrate how location of an agricultural economic activity in relation to urban centers determines households' decision to allot their agricultural land to the production of either staple crop or a high value but risky cash crop. Analyzing household data from villages...

This paper considers the integration of economies as a merger of populations. The premise is that the merger of groups of people alters their social landscape and their comparators. The paper identifies the effect of the merger on aggregate distress. A merger is shown to increase aggregate...

This paper asks whether population growth is conducive to the sustainability of cooperation. A simple model is developed in which farmers who live around a circular lake engage in trade with their adjacent neighbors. The payoffs from this activity are governed by a prisoner’s dilemma “rule...

Over the last decade, commodity prices have registered substantial booms and busts marked by extreme volatility. Wheat in particular, one of the main non-oil commodities, has registered a roller-coaster in price levels which seems to be inconsistent with supply and demand fundamentals. To...

Increases in water demand due to population growth, industrial development and urbanization necessitate economically efficient use of water resources worldwide. This is particularly true in the dryland zones of the world relying on irrigated agriculture for economic development such as in...

We demonstrate that a rank-preserving transfer from a richer individual to a poorer individual can exacerbate income inequality (when inequality is measured by the Gini coefficient). This happens when individuals’ preferences depend negatively not only on work time (effort) but also on low...

Increasing water demand due to population growth, irrigation expansion, industrial development, and the need for ecosystem improvements under mounting investment costs for developing new water sources calls for the efficient, equitable and sustainable management of water resources. This is...

This study adds a microeconomic perspective to the discussion on ethnic diversity and economic performance in developing countries by investigating the motivation for intra-ethnicity marriage in rural Sub-Saharan Africa. Specifically, the paper proposes that ethnic similarity between spouses...

Understanding how producers make decisions to allot acreage among crops and how decisions about land use are affected by changes in prices and their volatility is fundamental for predicting the supply of staple crops and, hence, assessing the global food supply situation. The innovations of the...

Land use and crop production in the Khorezm region in western Uzbekistan, exemplarily for the irrigated low-lands of Central Asia, is adversely affected by the excessive, non-sustainable use of irrigation water on one hand, repeated droughts on the other hand, and by soil degradation by...