World grains prices dramatically increased between 2007 and 2008, but rice prices especially surged. Utilizing the much larger spike in rice prices than in wheat, this article compares the response of Indian households consuming rice as the staple grain to households consuming wheat. Households...

Efficient information exchanges between sellers and buyers are essential if prices are to act as a signal for resource allocation in an economy. In the case of seed and planting materials, information on quality traits are often difficult for consumers (farmers) to obtain prior to purchase,...

Social networks play an important role in generating learning externalities that can drive the diffusion of innovative, and potentially poverty-reducing, technologies. This is particularly the case in developing countries where rural education, extension, and agricultural information services...

This paper investigate the effect of credit constraints on children’s academic performances in Vietnam. To estimate precise effect, this paper measures the credit constraints directly and address endogeneity of credit constraints. The results tell us that credit constraints have more effect on...

We investigate whether food price subsidies affect household nutrition using a dramatic expansion of the availability of subsidized rice in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh in the early 2000's. Households in Chhattisgarh increased their consumption of pulses, animal-based protein, and produce...

With the rapidly changing economic environments and numerous challenges hindering smallholders’ adoption of externally developed technologies, it is often argued that farmers’ innovations may be essential in the livelihoods of rural farm households and need to be promoted. Yet a rigorous...

We empirically address the implications of biofuel policy regarding major grains, to the subsequent evolution of the markets for calories from the three major grains, maize, wheat and rice. The implied market variables, namely, market price, consumption, and stocks, using a structurally...

This paper builds a model determining optimal capacities of diversion dams or water transfer projects. The model incorporates stochastic inflows to the dams and the role of the dam capacity in reducing overflows, and gives a closed-form expression of the marginal benefit of capacities....

Food vs. Fuel, Cointegration analysis, VECM, agricultural prices, fuel prices

This paper serves to disentangle the complex system of Indian food policies, related to wheat and rice procurement, storage, distribution and trade. Using time series for national aggregate data, these policies are econometrically analyzed, next their implications for the markets are assessed...