A Microeconometric Analysis of Household Consumption Expenditure Determinants in Yam-growing Areas of Nigeria and Ghana

This paper provides an analysis of microeconomic factors that explain household consumption expenditure in rural areas using cross-sectional data obtained from 1,400 randomly selected yam-producing households of Nigeria and Ghana. The correlates of consumption expenditure were examined using two techniques: ordinary least squares (OLS) and a quantile regression (QR) approach for a more comprehensive picture at different points of the distribution. Determinants of consumption expenditure are markedly different between the regressions and across the conditional quantiles of the expenditure in both countries. Results further indicate that age, education, and household size were important in explaining consumption expenditure using OLS. However, via conditional QR, the following additional factors became evident: membership of formal and informal institutions, main occupation, family structure, and farm size. Only education was consistently significant in both regressions and across the conditional quantiles, suggesting that responses to investments in education lead to increase in expenditure that will stimulate other sectors of the economy

Considering the links between non-timber forest products and poverty alleviation

The debates around the value and importance of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) are complex and ongoing. The complexity is a result of many factors, including the wide variety of species, products and uses, as well as the variety of constituencies and disciplines each seeing advantage from ‘co-opting’ the importance of the contribution of NTFPs to their own areas of interest and concern. Conservationists are interested in NTFPs because their combined high value in many settings offers a potential alternative to the destruction of forests by either commercial logging or their widespread conversion to other land uses