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on Africa |
| By: | Wodon, Quentin; Zaman, Hassan |
| Abstract: | The increase in food prices represents a major crisis for the world's poor. This paper aims to review the evidence on the potential impact of higher food prices on poverty in sub-Saharan Africa, and examines the extent to which policy responses will benefit the poor. The paper shows that rising food prices are likely to lead to higher poverty in sub-Saharan Africa as the negative impact on net poor consumers outweighs the benefits to poor producers. A recent survey shows that the most common policy response in sub-Saharan African countries is reducing taxes on food while outside the region price controls or targeted consumer subsidies are the most popular measure. Sub-Saharan African countries also have a higher prevalence of food-based safety net programs which are being scaled up to respond to rising prices. The review suggests that the benefits from reducing import tariffs on staples may accrue largely to the non-poor. Social protection programs show more promise, but geographic targeting is likely to be crucial in ensuring that benefits reach the neediest. The paper also argues that anti-poverty interventions ought to retain their focus on rural areas where poverty remains highest even after taking into account the adverse impact on the urban poor due to the rise in food prices. |
| Keywords: | Food&Beverage Industry,Rural Poverty Reduction,Safety Nets and Transfers,Population Policies |
| Date: | 2008–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4738&r=afr |
| By: | Abbink, Klaus; Jayne, Thomas S.; Moller, Lars C. |
| Abstract: | Strategic interaction between public and private actors is increasingly recognized as an important determinant of agricultural market performance in Africa and elsewhere. Trust and consultation tend to positively affect private activity while uncertainty of government behavior impedes it. This paper reports on a laboratory experiment based on a stylized model of the Zambian maize market. The experiment facilitates a comparison between discretionary interventionism and a rules-based policy in which the government pre-commits itself to a future course of action. A simple precommitment rule can, in theory, overcome the prevailing strategic dilemma by encouraging private sector participation. Although this result is also borne out in the economic experiment, the improvement in private sector activity is surprisingly small and not statistically significant due to irrationally cautious choices by experimental governments. Encouragingly, a rules-based policy promotes a much more stable market outcome, thereby substantially reducing the risk of severe food shortages. These results underscore the importance of predictable and transparent rules for the state's involvement in agricultural markets. |
| Keywords: | Markets and Market Access,Food&Beverage Industry,Public Sector Corruption&Anticorruption Measures,Food Security,Access to Markets |
| Date: | 2008–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4727&r=afr |
| By: | Michel Fok (Annual crop systems - CIRAD : UPR102); Marnus Gouse (Department of Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development - University of Pretoria); Jean-Luc Hofs (Annual crop systems - CIRAD : UPR102); Johann Kirsten (Department of Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development - University of Pretoria) |
| Abstract: | The bulk of the South African cotton crop is produced by large scale commercial farmers. Therefore it might be misleading to present South Africa’s impressive Genetically Modified Cotton (GMC) adoption figures as evidence of successful GMC use by smallholder farmers. The total South African cotton area and number of farmers decreased drastically since the introduction of GMC and this causes observers to question the so-called success story of GMC in South Africa. Nevertheless, the smallholders' commitment in using Bt-cotton has been real and still is. Several assessment studies have demonstrated how profitable the adoption of Bt-cotton could be, but they did not take into account the local context of agriculture. The study we have implemented during the 2002/03 cropping season took place in a year of erratic rainfalls and when the institutional framework of cotton production has furthermore evolved negatively. Our study hence provides additional information on the adoption of Bt-cotton when context turns to become unfavourable. In this case, the mere access to cotton production is restrained to a limited number of producers; the cotton production becomes financially more risky while the profitability of using Bt-cotton is nullified. The South African cotton sector struggles in an unstable production and market environment and smallholders, with limited resources and limited production, managerial and marketing capacity and choice, suffer most. Technology introduction on its own cannot sustainably increase production; factors like institutional arrangements play a vital role. This reminds us that rain-fed agriculture remains sensitive to climatic hazards and that new technology adoption under these conditions might increase financial risk associated with cotton production. |
| Keywords: | Cotton, South Africa, GMO, Bt, impact evaluation, profitability |
| Date: | 2008–01–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-00324376_v1&r=afr |
| By: | Mwangi S. Kimenyi (University of Connecticut); Roxana Gutierrez Romero (University of Oxford) |
| Abstract: | Although many studies find that voting in Africa approximates an ethnic census in that voting is primarily along ethnic lines, hardly any of the studies have sought to explain ethnic voting following a rational choice framework. Using data of voter opinions from a survey conducted two weeks before the December 2007 Kenyan elections, we find that the expected benefits associated with a win by each of the presidential candidates varied significantly across voters from different ethnic groups. We hypothesize that decision to participate in the elections was influenced by the expected benefits as per the minimax-regret voting model. We test the predictions of this model using data of voter turnout in the December 2007 elections and find that turnout across ethnic groups varied systematically with expected benefits. The results suggest that individuals participated in the elections primarily to avoid the maximum regret should a candidate from another ethnic group win. The results therefore offer credence to the minimax regret model as proposed by Ferejohn and Fiorina (1974) and refute the Downsian expected utility model. |
| Keywords: | Economics of Voting, Voting Paradox, Minimax-regret, Ethnic Divisions |
| JEL: | D72 |
| Date: | 2008–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uct:uconnp:2008-35&r=afr |
| By: | Wodon, Quentin; Tsimpo, Clarence; Backiny-Yetna, Prospere; Joseph, George; Adoho, Franck; Coulombe, Harold |
| Abstract: | Concerns have been raised about the impact of rising food prices worldwide on the poor. To assess the impact of rising food prices in any particular country it is necessary to look at both the impact on food producers who are poor or near-poor and could benefit from an increase in prices and food consumers who are poor or near-poor and would loose out when the price increases. In most West and Central African countries, the sign (positive or negative) of the impact is not ambiguous because a substantial share of food consumption is imported, so that the negative impact for consumers is larger than the positive impact for net sellers of locally produced foods. Yet even if the sign of the impact is clear, its magnitude is not. Using a set of recent and comprehensive household surveys, this paper summarizes findings from an assessment of the potential impact of higher food prices on the poor in a dozen countries. Rising food prices for rice, wheat, maize, and other cereals as well as for milk, sugar and vegetable oils could lead to a substantial increase in poverty in many of the countries. At the same time, the data suggest that the magnitude of the increase in poverty between different countries is likely to be different. Finally, the data suggest that a large share of the increase in poverty will consist of deeper levels of poverty among households who are already poor, even if there will also be a larger number of poor households in the various countries. |
| Keywords: | Rural Poverty Reduction,Food&Beverage Industry,Population Policies,Poverty Lines |
| Date: | 2008–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4745&r=afr |
| By: | Mwangi S. Kimenyi (University of Connecticut); Roxana Gutierrez Romero (University of Oxford) |
| Abstract: | What might have caused the post-2007 election violence in Kenya? Was it election irregularities as widely claimed or could it have been simmering ethnic-rivalries waiting to spill over? While not directly focusing on the post-election violence, we investigate a number of issues that divided Kenyans in the 2007 Presidential election. Following a rational choice framework and using survey data of voter opinions, we find that Kenyan voters are strategic, seeking to maximize their well-being and influenced by a number of factors that go beyond their ethnicity such as their absolute and relative living standards, access to public goods and also grievances arising from perceptions of discrimination. The evidence suggests that Kenyan voting behavior is economically motivated, with retrospective interests, thus contrasting other studies that consider Kenyans to be wholly identity voters. The study also reveals significant heterogeneity depending on the voters' primary loci of identification-- either in terms of their ethnicity, occupation or nationalistic terms (Kenyans). The apparent ethnic divisions have resulted in a polarized society with consequential weakening of the institutional base for economic development. The study points to the necessity of institutional reforms that can better harmonize ethnic claims and avert conflicts in the future. |
| Keywords: | Election, Economics of Voting, Ethnic Divisions, Conflict |
| JEL: | D72 D74 |
| Date: | 2008–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uct:uconnp:2008-38&r=afr |
| By: | Denis Cogneau (DIAL, IRD, Paris); Sandrine Mesplé-Somps (DIAL, IRD, Paris) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines for the first time inequality of opportunity for income in Africa, by analyzing large-sample surveys, all providing information on individuals' parental background, in five comparable Sub-Saharan countries: Ivory Coast, Ghana, Guinea, Madagascar and Uganda. We compute inequality of opportunity indexes in keeping with the main proposals in the literature, and propose a decomposition of between-country differences that distinguishes the respective impacts of intergenerational mobility between social origins and positions, of the distribution of education and occupations, and of the earnings structure. Among our five countries, Ghana in 1988 has by far the lowest income inequality between individuals of different social origins, while Madagascar in 1993 displays the highest inequality of opportunity from the same point of view. Ghana in 1998, Ivory Coast in 1985-88, Guinea in 1994 and Uganda in 1992 stand in-between and can not be ranked without ambiguity. Inequality of opportunity for income seems to correlate with overall income inequality more than with national average income. Decompositions reveal that the two former British colonies (Ghana and Uganda) share a much higher intergenerational educational and occupational mobility than the three former French colonies. Further, Ghana distinguishes itself from the four other countries, because of the combination of widespread secondary schooling, low returns to education and low income dualism against agriculture. Nevertheless, it displays marked regional inequality insofar as being born in the Northern part of this country produces a significant restriction of income opportunities. _________________________________ Ce papier analyse, pour la première fois en Afrique, les inégalités de chance en termes de revenu. Cinq pays sont étudiés, à savoir la Côte d’Ivoire, le Ghana, la Guinée, Madagascar et l’Ouganda à partir d’enquêtes représentatives au niveau national contenant des informations sur les origines sociales de chaque individu. Nous calculons les différents indices d’inégalités de chance proposés par la littérature et nous proposons une décomposition des différences d’inégalités de chance entre pays. Cette décomposition distingue les influences respectives des différences dans la mobilité sociale intergénérationnelle, dans la structure de l'éducation et des professions et enfin dans les échelles de rémunération. Il apparaît que parmi les cinq pays étudiés, le Ghana en 1988 est le pays dans lequel l'inégalité de revenu entre origines sociales est la plus faible, tandis que c’est à Madagascar en 1993 qu’elle est la plus élevée. Les positions intermédiaires respectives du Ghana en 1998, de la Côte d'Ivoire en 1985-88, de la Guinée en 1994 et de l’Ouganda en 1992 ne peuvent pas être classées de manière robuste. L'inégalité des chances en termes de revenu semble plus corrélée avec l'inégalité de revenu globale qu’avec le niveau de revenu moyen par tête. La décomposition des inégalités de chances montre que la mobilité intergénérationnelle est plus élevée dans les deux anciennes colonies britanniques (le Ghana et l’Ouganda) que dans les trois anciennes colonies françaises. De plus, le Ghana se distingue des quatre autres pays par une plus large diffusion de l’enseignement primaire et secondaire, des rendements bas de l’éducation, et un faible dualisme entre le secteur agricole et les autres secteurs. Il n’en demeure pas moins que le fait d’être né au Nord du pays diminue fortement les opportunités de revenu, de même qu'en Côte d'Ivoire. |
| Keywords: | Income inequality, Equality of opportunity, Intergenerational mobility, Africa, inégalité de revenu, égalité de chance, mobilité intergénérationnelle, Afrique. |
| JEL: | D31 D63 J62 O15 |
| Date: | 2008–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dia:wpaper:dt200804&r=afr |