The poverty impact of rural roads : evidencefrom Bangladesh

The rationale for public investment in rural roads is that households can better exploit agricultural and nonagricultural opportunities to use labor and capital more efficiently. But significant knowledge gaps remain as to how opportunities provided by roads actually filter back into household outcomes and their distributional consequences. This paper examines the impacts of rural road projects using household-level panel data from Bangladesh. Rural road investments are found to reduce poverty significantly through higher agricultural production, higher wages, lower input and transportation costs, and higher output prices. Rural roads also lead to higher girls'and boys'schooling. Road investments are pro-poor, meaning the gains are proportionately higher for the poor than for the non-poor.Transport Economics Policy&Planning,Rural Roads&Transport,Economic Theory&Research,Rural Transport,Rural Poverty Reduction

Distortions to Agricultural Incentives in Bangladesh

Distorted incentives, agricultural and trade policy reforms, national agricultural development, Agricultural and Food Policy, International Relations/Trade, F13, F14, Q17, Q18,

Competitiveness of the knitwear industry in Bangladesh : a study of industrial development amid global competition

This paper assesses the technical efficiency and profitability of the knitwear industry in Bangladesh taking into account the sector’s role in poverty reduction. While stochastic frontier analysis was invoked to assess technical efficiency, three alternative measures, namely the rate of return, total factor productivity and the Solow residual, were used to gauge the extent and determinants of the profitability of the industry based on firm-level data collected in 2001. The estimation results indicate the high profitability of the knitwear firms. In Bangladesh, the dynamic development of the industry has entailed great diversity in efficiency in comparison with the garment industries of other developing countries. While there is a significant scale effect in profitability and productivity, no supporting evidence was found for the positive impact on competitiveness of industrial upgrading in terms of usage of expensive machinery and vertical integration and industrial agglomeration

Competitiveness of the knitwear industry in Bangladesh : a study of industrial development amid global competition

This paper assesses the technical efficiency and profitability of the knitwear industry in Bangladesh taking into account the sector’s role in poverty reduction. While stochastic frontier analysis was invoked to assess technical efficiency, three alternative measures, namely the rate of return, total factor productivity and the Solow residual, were used to gauge the extent and determinants of the profitability of the industry based on firm-level data collected in 2001. The estimation results indicate the high profitability of the knitwear firms. In Bangladesh, the dynamic development of the industry has entailed great diversity in efficiency in comparison with the garment industries of other developing countries. While there is a significant scale effect in profitability and productivity, no supporting evidence was found for the positive impact on competitiveness of industrial upgrading in terms of usage of expensive machinery and vertical integration and industrial agglomeration.Bangladesh, Knitwear, Poverty reduction, Productivity, Profitability, Stochastic frontier analysis, Apparel industry, Textile industry

The Poverty Impact of Rural Roads: Evidence from Bangladesh

A rationale for public investment in rural roads is that households can better exploit agricultural and nonagricultural opportunities to employ labor and capital more efficiently. Significant knowledge gaps persist, however, as to how opportunities provided by roads actually filter back into household outcomes as well as distributional consequences. This study examines the impacts of two rural road-paving projects in Bangladesh using a new quasi-experimental household panel data set surveying project and control villages before and after program implementation. A household panel fixed-effects methodology controlling for initial area conditions is used to estimate the impact of paved roads on household and individual outcomes and account for potential bias in program placement at the village level. Rural road investments are found to reduce poverty significantly through higher agricultural production, lower input and transportation costs, and higher agricultural output prices at local village markets. Rural road development has also led to higher secondary schooling enrollment for boys and girls, as compared to primary school enrollment. We find that road investments have also benefited the poor, meaning the gains are significant for the poor and in some cases disproportionately higher than for the nonpoor. (c) 2009 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved..