Pro-poor growth has been identified as one of the most promising pathways to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) or any subsequent set of goals aiming to reduce poverty worldwide. Related research has developed a multitude of instruments to measure pro-poor growth using absolute and...

A procedure is developed to examine the ex-post impacts of improved maize varieties on poverty in rural Ethiopia. Yield and cost effects of adoption are estimated econometrically under assumptions of both homogeneous and heterogeneous treatment effects. A backward derivation procedure is...

Biofortification, breeding staple food crops to be dense sources of essential micronutrients, is fast emerging as a strategy to fight micronutrient malnutrition. Large scale biofortification investments are being made in several developing countries, but until recently little rigorous evidence...

A non-neutral stochastic distance function model is used to examine whether output specialization has an impact on the economic performance of vegetable producers in Benin. Specialization is assumed to have an effect on the production frontier and on the distance to the production frontier...

We study the effects of informal labor sharing arrangements and other social interactions on farmers' productivity in a developing country context, testing whether these types of social and work interactions lead to productivity gains through learning, synergy, or both. Using a rich panel data...

Global agriculture must significantly increase production to meet by mid-century the demands for food, feed, and fiber posed by the world’s enlarging population. An important requirement to meeting those demands is a lifting of agricultural total factor productivity (TFP) growth rates. The...

In 2003, China launched a new health insurance system - the New Cooperative Medicine Scheme (NCMS) in its rural areas, where more than 87 percent of China’ rural residents were not covered by any health insurance programs. By the end of 2009, the NCMS had expanded to cover 95 percent of...

Using data from a experimental supportive intervention to India's malaria control program, we study the impact of local capacity on mosquito net usage and fever care seeking patterns. The intervention was conducted simultaneously by three NGOs in two endemic districts in the state of Orissa, and...