Food security without food transfers?: A CGE analysis for Ethiopia of the different food security impacts of fertilizer subsidies and locally sourced food transfers

Both availability and access issues underpin Ethiopia's food security challenges. The country is mostly dependent on drought-exposed, rain fed agriculture, and high transaction costs inhibit trade in staples. Most of the population lives in rural areas where poverty is widespread and livelihoods vulnerable to shocks and poverty traps. This paper looks at different approaches to improve food security in Ethiopia. Specifically, it compares the impacts on the access and availability dimensions of policy-based fertilizer subsidies, targeting yield growth against one of additional food transfers, sourced from local markets. It also explores the possibility of combining the subsidies with a switch to local procurement of current food transfers. It first runs a micro simulation model based on empirically estimated yield functions to quantify the likely effects of additional fertilizer application on national yields, suggesting a rather modest response. It then simulates the policies of interest using the static IFPRI standard CGE model, calibrated for Ethiopia using the 2005/06 social accounting matrix of the Ethiopian Development Research Institute (EDRI). Simulation results point in two directions. First, the food transfer policy is more effective at raising consumption of staples by the targeted rural poor. Second, the moderate yield growth induced by the subsidy shows economic multipliers, stronger effects on domestic supply and welfare gains accruing to all poor through increased factor incomes and decreased staple prices. Yield growth seems a promising avenue to pursue food security and, more generally, poverty reduction goals. Nevertheless, policies focusing on one dimension of the yield function alone, such as fertilizer subsidies, are unlikely to deliver the necessary improvement in yields. Food transfers may still be the most effective short- to mid-term answer to food access insecurity when high return agricultural productivity policies are not available and when internal resources can be used to bear policy costs, avoiding the exchange rate distortions associated with foreign financial assistance.

Does the risk of poverty reduce happiness?

We investigate the unexplored link between the risk of poverty and happiness in the context of a developing country. Using unique longitudinal data, we estimate workers’ vulnerability to income poverty and find a strong negative relationship between vulnerability and life satisfaction, over and above the positive income effect commonly documented in the literature. The result is robust and cannot be reduced to the effect of two-sided uncertainty. A matched behavioral experiment shows that respondents are significantly loss averse. We conclude that downside risk is an important determinant of happiness and of economic decisions under uncertainty. Policies that mitigate downward risk may thus have direct impacts on both well-being and efficiency

Expectations, network centrality, and public good contributions : Experimental evidence from India

Do individuals in a position of social influence contribute more to public goods than their less connected partners? Can we motivate these influential individuals by disclosing how others expect them to act? To answer these questions, we play a public good game on a star network. The experimental design is such that efficiency and equality considerations should motivate central players to contribute more than others. Using a subject population familiar with contributions to public goods on social networks, we find that central players contribute just as much as the average of other players, leading to a large loss of efficiency. When we disclose the expectations of other players, we find that central players often adjust their contributions to meet the expectations of the group. Expectations disclosure leads to higher contributions in groups that have weak social ties outside of the experiment. In groups where ties are strong, it has no significant effect. This evidence casts doubt on the idea that individuals who, by their social position, can contribute more effectively to the public good rise to the challenge by contributing more than others. In some, but not all social groups, these individuals can be motivated to increase contributions by disclosing the expectations of others

Improvement of calibration capabilities with an a posteriori evaluation of the lighting impulse international comparison EURAMET.EM-S42

By the evaluation of the EURAMET.EM-S42 intercomparison results, the Laboratorio Alte Tensioni e Forti Correnti (LATFC) of Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica (INRiM, Italy NMI) starts an analysis of the calibration capabilities with the developed measuring system for lightning impulse voltages. This paper addresses the issue of the expanded uncertainty re-evaluation for the INRiM’s CMCs up to 200 kV according to a new analysis of the comparison reference value (CRV), without affecting the results of the other participants in the comparison for all the involved lighting impulse parameters. A validation of the new uncertainty values has been performed by means the calculation, for some test data waveforms extract for reference standard IEC 61083 - 2, of the convolution with the measured divider step response

Improvement of calibration capabilities with an a posteriori evaluation of the lighting impulse international comparison EURAMET.EM-S42

By the evaluation of the EURAMET.EM-S42 intercomparison results, the Laboratorio Alte Tensioni e Forti Correnti (LATFC) of Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica (INRiM, Italy NMI) starts an analysis of the calibration capabilities with the developed measuring system for lightning impulse voltages. This paper addresses the issue of the expanded uncertainty re-evaluation for the INRiM’s CMCs up to 200 kV according to a new analysis of the comparison reference value (CRV), without affecting the results of the other participants in the comparison for all the involved lighting impulse parameters. A validation of the new uncertainty values has been performed by means the calculation, for some test data waveforms extract for reference standard IEC 61083 - 2, of the convolution with the measured divider step response

Heterogeneous returns and the persistence of agricultural technology adoption

In this paper we explore whether low rates of sustained technology use can be explained by heterogeneity in returns to adoption. To do so we evaluate impacts of the Cocoa Abrabopa Association, which provided a package of fertilizer and other inputs on credit to cocoa farmers in Ghana. High estimated average productive impacts for treated farmers are found to be consistent with negative economic profits for a substantial proportion of the treated population. By constructing an individual specific measure of returns,we demonstrate that low realized returns among adopters are associated with low retention rates, even after conditioning on output levels and successful repayment. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that high average returns mask substantial and persistent heterogeneity, and that farmers experiment in order to learn about their idiosyncratic returns.

Curse of anonymity or tyranny of distance? The impacts of job-search support in urban Ethiopia

Urban jobs are key drivers of economic growth in developing countries. Finding ways to connect and match young and skilled workers with better jobs remains a key policy challenge. In Ethiopia, experiments with training and transport subsidies show great promise

Anonymity of distance? Job search and labour market exclusion in a growing African city

Do obstacles to job search contribute to labour market exclusion in developing countries? To answer this question, we contrast two very different interventions, designed to alleviate spatial and informational constraints for unemployed youth in a congested African city: a transport subsidy and a job-application workshop. Both treatments have large positive effects on the probability of finding stable and formal jobs. Neither treatment has a significant average effect on the overall probability of employment, but we detect a sizeable increase in earnings and employment rates among the most disadvantaged job-seekers. Our results highlight the importance of job-search constraints as mechanisms for exclusion of the most disadvantaged. They also show that, if targeted well, low-cost interventions can have large impacts, improving equity in the labour marke