Should We Track Migrant Households When Collecting Household Panel Data?:Household Relocation, Economic Mobility and Attrition Biases in the Rural Philippines

Based on household panel data that tracked migrant households (with an additional survey cost of 17 percent), this article describes behavior of household relocation and quantifies the extent of attrition biases in estimating the determinants of percapita household consumption and of its growth rate. Many households relocate for non-economic reasons, and to rural destinations, while the small number of urban migrants improved their wellbeing faster than did others. Such heterogeneity among migrants may be a reason behind the negligible attrition biases caused by the omission of migrants, in the inference on the average behavioral coefficients among the original population.domestic migration; household relocation; panel data analysis; Philippines; poverty dynamics; sample attrition; urbanization

Politics and Economics of Land Reform in the Philippines: a survey

The Philippines has long been known for its high inequality in distribution of wealth and income; unlike many of its Asian neighbors characterized by relatively less inequality by international standards, the Philippine economy has often been compared to Latin American countries which are characterized by high inequality in land distribution. Partly due to its historically high inequality there has long been intermittent incidence of peasant unrest and rural insurgencies in the Philippines. As a result, the issue of land reform (or ‘agrarian reform’ as more commonly called in the Philippines, of which land reform constitutes the major part) has continuously been on political agenda at least since the early part of the 20th century; nevertheless land reform in the Philippines has been, and still is, an unfinished business. Against such a historical background, the main objective of this essay is to synthesize a broad range of existing literature on the various aspects of land reform policies in the Philippine context as relevant for today’s policy makers. The paper is meant as a stock taking exercise delineating what is known and what is not. We will pay attention to both political and economic issues arising from the land reform policies since both of these aspects are equally important for policy making. Furthermore, in our attempts to derive some lessons/implications for the current policy makers we will draw on both historical experiences in the Philippines and recent land reform experiences from other developing countries.land reform; agrarian reform; redistribution; share tenancy; Philippines

Exploring Environmental Services Incentive Policies for the Philippine Rice Sector: The Case of Intra-Species Agro Biodiversity Conservation

This paper considers a hypothetical scheme of green payments to induce inter-specific agrobiodiversity in the context of Philippine rice farming. We empirically estimate a model of farmer behavior and then simulate the consequences of alternative (hypothetical) PES schemes under a fixed budget constraint. We find that, under this particular application, there is a clear trade-off between the two policy goals of enhancing biodiversity and poverty reduction. Even the totally untargeted lump-sum subsidy would have a larger poverty reduction impact than would the first-best conservation subsidy payment scheme. Therefore, policymakers would be required to strike a delicate balance between the two competing policy objectives. In addition, there is also a clear trade-off between the efficiency of targeted conservation payment and the information requirement for implementing subsidy schemes.payments for environmental services (PES); biodiversity; conservation; poverty; rice; Philippines

Intrahousehold Analysis Using Household Consumption Data: Would the Potential Benefit of Collecting Individual-Level Consumption Data Justify Its Cost?

This paper examines the usefulness and limits of household consumption expenditure data for understanding intrahousehold resource allocation issues. It also examines alternative data collection methods for obtaining household consumption information to be used for addressing such issues. While the high cost involved in the collection of fully individual-level data collection, particularly of food intake data, is generally likely to exceed potential benefit in the context of large-scale and nationally representative household surveys, partially individualized consumption data collection (e. g., education and health), is highly desirable and relatively inexpensive. Furthermore, we explore possible conditions under which collecting individual-level food intake data could be worthwhile. Such conditions are mainly determined in terms of both research foci/policy priorities at hand, and the characteristics of the study areas.consumption expenditure data; survey methodology; intrahousehold resource allocation; household survey

How inefficient are small-scale rice farmers in eastern India really?: Examining the effects of microtopography on technical efficiency estimates

We focus on the impact of failing to control for differences in land types defined along toposequence on estimates of farm technical efficiency for small-scale rice farms in eastern India. In contrast with the existing literature, we find that those farms may be considerably more technically efficient than they appear from more aggregated analysis without such control. Farms planted with modern rice varieties are technically efficient. Furthermore, farms planted with traditional rice varieties operate close to the production frontier on less productive lands (upland and mid-upland), but significant technical inefficiency exists on more productive lands (medium land and lowland).

Subsidy to Promote Girls' Secondary Education: The Female Stipend Program in Bangladesh

Secondary school enrollment rates in the developing countries are usually lower for girls than boys, especially in rural areas. In the mid 1990’s a female school stipend program was introduced to subsidize girls’ secondary education in rural Bangladesh. Although all of rural Bangladesh was eventually covered by this program, it was not introduced at the same time in all areas and to all class cohorts. This variation in timing is the source of parameter identification in the analysis. Using two different datasets and school/village-level fixed effects, we estimate the effects of this stipend program on school enrollments. The analysis based upon two cross-sectional household surveys covering a common set of villages finds that the female stipend program increased girls’ secondary education substantially, but had no discernable effect on the schooling of boys. The analysis performed with an annual panel of school-level data also finds a significant effect of the stipend program on girl’s enrollment and reduced the enrollment of boys in coeducational secondary schools.female education; gender; stipend program; conditional cash transfer; impact evaluation; Bangladesh

In Search of a Strategy for Making Growth More Pro-Poor in the Philippines

The main driver of poverty reduction has shifted from agricultural to non-agricultural income growth in rural Philippines in the past two decades. Agricultural growth is still relatively more important (vis-à-vis non-agricultural growth), however, in reducing rural poverty in relatively more isolated provinces. Our results suggest that agricultural investments should focus on areas with underdeveloped infrastructure but with comparative advantage in agriculture. At the same time, non-agricultural income growth can be made more pro-poor by investing in mobility infrastructure and health, facilitating international labor migration, and lowering income inequality.poverty, growth and inequality, pro-poor growth, role of agriculture, the Philippines, Asia

Intrahousehold Analysis Using Household Consumption Data: Would the Potential Benefit of Collecting Individual-Level Consumption Data Justify Its Cost?

This paper examines the usefulness and limits of household consumption expenditure data for understanding intrahousehold resource allocation issues. It also examines alternative data collection methods for obtaining household consumption information to be used for addressing such issues. While the high cost involved in the collection of fully individual-level data collection, particularly of food intake data, is generally likely to exceed potential benefit in the context of large-scale and nationally representative household surveys, partially individualized consumption data collection (e. g., education and health), is highly desirable and relatively inexpensive. Furthermore, we explore possible conditions under which collecting individual-level food intake data could be worthwhile. Such conditions are mainly determined in terms of both research foci/policy priorities at hand, and the characteristics of the study areas

A Note on the Analysis of Female Headed Households in Developing Countries

In this paper, we will attempt to clarify some issues commonly found in recent discussions surrounding female headship analysis, in general, and will also discuss recent literature on the relationship between female headship and poverty, in particular. The issues addressed here include: the confusion between female headship analysis and gender analysis of poverty; the existence of alternative definitions of household headship; and the existence of different analytical purposes of using the concept of household headship and the need for using appropriate headship definitions for each purpose

Politics and Economics of Land Reform in the Philippines: a survey

The Philippines has long been known for its high inequality in distribution of wealth and income; unlike many of its Asian neighbors characterized by relatively less inequality by international standards, the Philippine economy has often been compared to Latin American countries which are characterized by high inequality in land distribution. Partly due to its historically high inequality there has long been intermittent incidence of peasant unrest and rural insurgencies in the Philippines. As a result, the issue of land reform (or ‘agrarian reform’ as more commonly called in the Philippines, of which land reform constitutes the major part) has continuously been on political agenda at least since the early part of the 20th century; nevertheless land reform in the Philippines has been, and still is, an unfinished business. Against such a historical background, the main objective of this essay is to synthesize a broad range of existing literature on the various aspects of land reform policies in the Philippine context as relevant for today’s policy makers. The paper is meant as a stock taking exercise delineating what is known and what is not. We will pay attention to both political and economic issues arising from the land reform policies since both of these aspects are equally important for policy making. Furthermore, in our attempts to derive some lessons/implications for the current policy makers we will draw on both historical experiences in the Philippines and recent land reform experiences from other developing countries