Non-Traditional Export Crops and Household Livelihood Strategies: Panel Data Evidence from Guatemala

This study uses a unique panel dataset that spans a 20-year period (1985-2005), and estimates the effect of household non-traditional agricultural export (NTX) adoption on changes in livelihood orientation and participation in non-farm employment in Santiago Sacatepéquez municipality of Guatemala. Given the heterogeneity in adoption patterns, it provides differential impact estimates based on a classification of households that takes into account the timing and duration of NTX adoption. Our findings suggest that over time, household reliance on off-farm income and access to non-farm employment, particularly self-employment and blue collar work, increased in the surveyed communities, irrespective of snow pea adoption. However, the extent of change varied across groups. Although the magnitudes of increase in the aforementioned outcomes among early long-term adopters and late adopters were not statistically significant with respect to the trends among non-adopters, early adopters who withdrew from NTX production in the medium-term exhibited greater and statistically significant increases in the same livelihood outcomes with respect to any other category.Smallholders, Non-Traditional Export Crops, Long-Term Livelihood Changes, Consumer/Household Economics, Crop Production/Industries,

Non-traditional crops, traditional constraints : long-term welfare impacts of export crop adoption among guatemalan smallholders

This study documents the long-term welfare effects of household non-traditional agricultural export (NTX) adoption. The analysis uses a unique panel dataset, which spans the period 1985-2005, and employs difference-in-differences estimation to investigate the long-term impact of non-traditional agricultural export adoption on changes in household consumption status and asset position in the Central Highlands of Guatemala. Given the heterogeneity in adoption patterns, the analysis differentiates the impact estimates based on a classification of households that takes into account the timing and duration of non-traditional agricultural export adoption. The results show that while, on average, welfare levels have improved for all households irrespective of adoption status and duration, the extent of improvement has varied across groups. Long-term adopters exhibit the smallest increase in the lapse of two decades, in spite of some early gains. Conversely, early adopters who withdrew from non-traditional agricultural export production after reaping the benefits of the boom period of the 1980s are found to have fared better and shown greater improvements in durable asset position and housing conditions than any other category.Economic Theory&Research,Rural Development Knowledge&Information Systems,Regional Economic Development,Crops&Crop Management Systems,Rural Poverty Reduction

Non-Traditional Export Crops in Guatemala: Short-Term Tool or Long-Term Strategy for Poverty Alleviation?

This study is the first to document the long-term welfare effects of household non-traditional agricultural export (NTX) adoption. We use a unique panel dataset, which spans the period of 1985-2005, and employ difference-in-differences estimation to investigate the long-term impact of NTX adoption on changes in household consumption status and asset position in Santiago Sacatepéquez municipality of Guatemala. Given the heterogeneity in adoption patterns, we differentiate the impact estimates based on a classification of households that takes into account the timing and duration of NTX adoption. Our results show that while, on average, welfare levels have improved for all households irrespective of adoption status and duration, the extent of improvement varied across groups, with long-term adopters exhibiting the smallest increase in the lapse of two decades, in spite of some early gains. Conversely, early adopters who withdrew from NTX production after reaping the benefits of the boom period of the 1980s are found to have fared better and shown greater improvements in durable asset position and housing conditions than any other category.Smallholders, Non-Traditional Export Crops, Long-Term Welfare Effects, Consumer/Household Economics, International Relations/Trade,

Inside the Household: Poor children, women and men

The Poverty and Shared Prosperity series provides a global audience with the latest and most accurate estimates on trends in global poverty and shared prosperity. The 2018 edition — Piecing Together the Poverty Puzzle —broadens the ways we define and measure poverty. It presents a new measure of societal poverty, integrating the absolute concept of extreme poverty and a notion of relative poverty reflecting differences in needs across countries. It introduces a multi-dimensional poverty measure that is anchored on household consumption and the international poverty line of $1.90 per person per day but broadens the measure by including information on access to education and basic infrastructure. Finally, it investigates differences in poverty within households, including by age and gender

Diamonds in the Rough? Repurposing Multi-Topic Surveys to Estimate Individual-Level Consumption Poverty

Traditional per capita measures of poverty assign the same poverty status to individuals living in the same household and overlook differences in living standards within households. There has been a long-standing need for a tool that enables poverty measurement at the individual level, while avoiding overly complex estimation techniques and, if possible, using readily available household survey data. An ordinary least squares–based strategy was recently introduced to estimate individual resource shares. This paper presents the theory behind this approach in an accessible fashion for those interested in individual-level consumption poverty measurement using existing household survey data. The strategy’s assumptions are compared with the assumptions of the prevailing per capita approach to deriving poverty estimates. The empirical analysis presents competing individual-level poverty estimates in four diverse countries under the individual resource shares strategy versus the per capita approach. The results suggest that poverty is underestimated under the per capita approach. There is further evidence that women may be poorer than men, and that children and the elderly are disproportionately affected by poverty. However, the pursuit of the individual resource shares approach reveals cross-country heterogeneity in the extent of increase in headcount poverty estimates, and in the direction of change in headcount poverty estimates for men and women. The paper concludes with suggestions for further methodological research in this area

Representativeness of Individual-Level Data in COVID-19 Phone Surveys: Findings from Sub-Saharan Africa

The COVID-19 pandemic has created urgent demand for timely data, leading to a surge in mobile phone surveys for tracking the impacts of and responses to the pandemic. Using data from national phone surveys implemented in Ethiopia, Malawi, Nigeria and Uganda during the pandemic and the pre-COVID-19 national face-to-face surveys that served as the sampling frames for the phone surveys, this paper documents selection the biases in individual-level analyses based on phone survey data. In most cases, individual-level data are available only for phone survey respondents, who we find are more likely to be household heads or their spouses and non-farm enterprise owners, and on average, are older and better educated vis-a-vis the general adult population. These differences are the result of uneven access to mobile phones in the population and the way that phone survey respondents are selected. To improve the representativeness of individual-level analysis using phone survey data, we recalibrate the phone survey sampling weights based on propensity score adjustments that are derived from a model of an individual’s likelihood of being interviewed as a function of individual- and household-level attributes. We find that reweighting improves the representativeness of the estimates for phone survey respondents, moving them closer to those of the general adult population. This holds for both women and men and for a range of demographic, education, and labor market outcomes. However, reweighting increases the variance of the estimates and, in most cases, fails to overcome selection biases. This indicates limitations to deriving representative individual-level estimates from phone survey data. Obtaining reliable data on men and women through future phone surveys will require random selection of adult interviewees within sampled households

Same Question but Different Answer Experimental Evidence on Questionnaire Design's Impact on Pverty Measured by Proxies

Does the same question asked of the same population yield the same answer in face-to-face interviews when other parts of the questionnaire are altered? If not, what would be the implications for proxy-based poverty measurement? Relying on a randomized household survey experiment implemented in Malawi, this study finds that observationally equivalent as well as same households answer the same questions differently when interviewed with a short questionnaire versus the longer counterpart that, in a prior survey round, would have informed the prediction model for a proxy-based poverty measurement exercise. The analysis yields statistically significant differences in reporting between the short and long questionnaires across all topics and types of questions. The reporting differences result in significantly different predicted poverty rates and Gini coefficients. While the difference in predictions ranges from approximately 3 to 7 percentage points depending on the model specification, restricting the proxies to those collected prior the variation in questionnaire design, namely demographic variables from the household roster and location fixed effects, leads to same predictions in both samples. The findings emphasize the need for further methodological research, and suggest that short questionnaires designed for proxy-based poverty measurement should be piloted, prior to implementation, in parallel with the longer questionnaire from which they have evolved. The fact that at the median it took 25 minutes to complete the food and non-food consumption sections in the long questionnaire also implies that the implementation of these sections might not be as overly costly as usually assumed

Non-Traditional Export Crops and Household Livelihood Strategies: Panel Data Evidence from Guatemala

This study uses a unique panel dataset that spans a 20-year period (1985-2005), and estimates the effect of household non-traditional agricultural export (NTX) adoption on changes in livelihood orientation and participation in non-farm employment in Santiago Sacatepéquez municipality of Guatemala. Given the heterogeneity in adoption patterns, it provides differential impact estimates based on a classification of households that takes into account the timing and duration of NTX adoption. Our findings suggest that over time, household reliance on off-farm income and access to non-farm employment, particularly self-employment and blue collar work, increased in the surveyed communities, irrespective of snow pea adoption. However, the extent of change varied across groups. Although the magnitudes of increase in the aforementioned outcomes among early long-term adopters and late adopters were not statistically significant with respect to the trends among non-adopters, early adopters who withdrew from NTX production in the medium-term exhibited greater and statistically significant increases in the same livelihood outcomes with respect to any other category

The Effects of Smallholder Agricultural Involvement on Household Food Consumption and Dietary Diversity: Evidence from Malawi

We investigate how household agricultural involvement affects food consumption and dietary diversity in Malawi. Ceteris paribus, a 10% increase in onfarm income share increases food consumption/capita by 2.9%, calorie intake/person/day by 1.7%, and leads to small improvements in dietary diversity. There are significant differences in the relationship between on-farm income shares and caloric shares: a positive and significant relationship with the shares from energy dense/low protein cereals/grains, but not significant with shares from nuts/pulses and sugars. Negative relationships are found with shares from roots/tubers, vegetables/fruits, oils/fats, and meat/fish/milk. While food consumption and dietary diversity increase with agricultural involvement, the quality of diets is an issue. As purchased calories are associated with richer/high quality diets, particularly protein rich, households with lower dependency on agriculture meet those diets more easily, highlighting the importance of crop and income diversification to dietary diversity. Nutrition education and crop diversification programs can improve food security and nutritional outcomes