Accurate targeting is key for the success of any development policy. While a number of factors might explain low targeting efficiency such as governance failure, political interference or lack of political will, this paper focuses on improving indicator-based models that identify poor households...

The paper analyses the 1996 EU food aid reform and addresses the question of its impact on improving EU food aid allocation in terms of reaching those countries which are most vulnerable to food insecurity. Using a two-stage regression model the analysis finds that EU food aid in kind is...

Agricultural productivity growth is widely seen as an essential instrument of poverty reduction, food security and broader economic growth. Paradoxically, however, the agricultural sector is often neglected by African governments in what is often termed ‘urban bias’. This paper explores what...

India is the second largest producer of silk and also the largest consumer of silk in the world having a strong tradition bound domestic market. In this paper, growth functions were estimated for India’s aggregate production and trade parameters using annual data from 1984/85 to 2006/07. To...

This study develops and uses a programming model for farm-level resource use and output supply response to estimate the effects of agricultural land tax in South Africa: A case study of Free State, a region of extremely large commercial farms that gained their size and economic heft during the...

In this paper we inquire why after more than 25 years of domestic agricultural reforms in Mexico and 15 years of trade liberalization of maize under NAFTA –a non-competitive crop and the major staple in Mexico–domestic production of this field crop has increased. We present new empirical...

This paper assesses the impact of the composition of government spending on economic growth in developing countries. We use a dynamic GMM model and a panel data set for 44 developing countries between 1980 and 2004. We find that the various types of government spending have different impact on...

Mass media plays a crucial role in information distribution and thus in the political market and public policy making. Theory predicts that information provided by mass media reflects the media’s incentives to provide news to different types of groups in society, and affects these groups’...

China has embarked on a major program to modernise agricultural and agribusiness structures with far reaching implications for rural development, international competitiveness / trade and food safety. There are, however, few studies that examine in detail how the modernisation program has...

While economies of scope of lending and mobilizing deposits in banking are justified theoretically (Diamond, 1984) and found empirically (see Saunders, 1999), in microfinance, the existence and the magnitudes of scope economies has not been investigated. We use a semi parametric smooth...