Temporal Price Trends for Selected Non-Tradable Staples in Northern Ghana: The Case of Major Cereal Foods

Rising food prices undermine the real income of poor and vulnerable consumers, thus threatening their food security status. This study examines the pattern of price change for maize, millet and rice in the Northern Region of Ghana between 2000 and 2012. Average monthly price series for the selected food items in the region constituted the primary data used for the analysis. The study revealed that price of the items generally increased at a faster rate in the past two years than the preceding decade. On the average, price of millet increased by 257% and 544% in 2011 and 2012 respectively compared to 81% for the preceding decade. Similarly, price of local rice grew at about 425% and 381% in 2011 and 2012 respectively compared to an overall increase of 108% from 2000 to 2010. Although positive, the rate of growth in price for maize was relatively slower. While the average rate of growth from 2000 to 2010 was 38% that for 2011 and 2012 was just about 1.9% and 2% respectively. The case of maize appeared to be a reflection of a 5.2% yield improvement as well as 6% expansion of area planted to the crop during the period. Key words: Staple, non-tradable, cereal

Development Assistance, Institution Building, and Social Cohesion after Civil War: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Liberia

Can brief, foreign-funded efforts to build local institutions have positive effects on local patterns of governance, cooperation, and well-being? Prior research suggests that such small-scale, externally driven interventions are unlikely to substantially alter patterns of social interaction in a community, and that the ability of a community to act collectively is the result of a slow and necessarily indigenous process. We address this question using a randomized field experiment to assess the effects of a community-driven reconstruction (CDR) project carried out by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in northern Liberia. The project attempted to build democratic, community-level institutions for making and implementing decisions about local public goods. We find powerful evidence that the program was successful in increasing social cohesion, some evidence that it reinforced democratic political attitudes and increased confidence in local decision-making procedures, but only weak evidence that material well-being was positively affected. There is essentially no evidence of adverse effects.Liberia; reconstruction; post-conflict; institution building; democracy; development; peacebuilding

Perceptions and Attitudes to Waste Disposal: An Assessment of Waste Disposal Behaviors in the Tamale Metropolis

The study was done in the Northern Region of Ghana (Tamale metropolis) in 2012. Primary data on waste collection and management were collected at the household level (210 households) using questionnaires based on the Theory of Reasoned Action (TORA) construct. Secondary data was also collected from records of Zoom-lion Ghana Limited as well as the Tamale Municipal Waste Management Department. The TORA model was employed to evaluate how perceptions and attitudes of households influenced disposal of solid waste and willingness to pay (WTP). Overall, attitude of households had strong influence on the intention to use collection bins in future. On the other hand, social referents had no influence on the intention to use collection bins. Neither the overall attitude nor subjective norms of households had influence on their intention to use open pit as a method of solid waste disposal. Overall, attitude of households had stronger influence on their intention to pay for solid waste collection than the subjective norms. Households are willing to pay an average amount of GH ¢4.0 monthly, which is subject to the type of job or income earned by the household heads. Keywords: Solid waste, household, willingness to pay, attitude, subjective norm

Why Do Women Co-Operate More in Women's Groups?

A substantial amount of development programming assumes that women have preferences or aptitudes that are more conducive to economic development. For example, conditional cash transfer programmes commonly deliver funding to female household heads, and many microcredit schemes focus on women’s savings groups. This chapter examines a public goods game in northern Liberia. Women contributed substantially more to a small-scale development project when playing with other women than in mixed-gender groups, where they contributed at about the same levels as men. We try to explain this composition effect using a structural model, survey responses, and a second manipulation. Results suggest women in the all-women group put more weight on co-operation regardless of the value of the public good, the fear of discovery, or the desire to match others’ behaviour. We conjecture that players have stronger motivation to signal public-spiritedness when primed to consider themselves representatives of the women of the community

Why do women co-operate more in women's groups?

We examine a public goods game in 83 communities in northern Liberia. Women contributed substantially more to a small-scale development project when playing with other women than in mixed-gender groups, where they contributed at about the same levels as men. We try to explain this composition effect using a structural model, survey responses, and a second manipulation. Results suggest women in the all-women condition put more weight on co-operation regardless of value of public good, fear of discovery, or desire to match others' behaviour. Game players may have stronger motivation to signal public-spiritedness when primed to consider themselves representatives of the women of the community

Response to David Freedman

As Jonathan Swift made mockingly clear, “modest proposals” that purport to solve previously unyielding problems can have horrible implications. Such proposals should be subjected to skeptical analysis. So we are pleased that our proposed random method of case selection for the qualitative component of multi-method research has attracted some skeptical commentary in the research community in political science. And we are very grateful to David Freedman for providing a perspective on our approach. He is especially qualified to do so, as he is a leading statistician who has long worried about inflated claims for statistical methods in the social sciences, and has been a champion of approaches that are sensitive to the particularities of each datapoint

Perspectives on Small-scale Mining in the Birim North District of Ghana

Small-scale mining operations in the study area are illegal (galamsey). Using the Conceptual mapping approach, we explored the effects of the illegal activity on the environment and livelihoods in two farming communities in the Birim North District. Majority (89%) of the galamsey operators (n=180) are migrants from five regions, besides the Eastern. Indigenes from the Volta Region constituted the bulk (53%), followed by Ashanti region with 17%. Participants aged between 16 and 39 years formed 74% of the miners with women making up 10%. They migrated in search for job opportunities that were limited or non-existent in their respective regions of origin. Three types of galamsey operations identified were underground, underwater, and surface mining. The activities have degraded vast farmlands through indiscriminate excavation and exposure of topsoil to agents of erosion. With 8% of drinking water sources in the district declared as unsafe, contamination of water bodies that serve communities along their course gives great course for worry. Abandoned mines serve as death traps and breeding grounds for mosquitoes. Labour supply for agriculture becomes relatively scarce due to competing interests with mining. The evidence suggests that only 11% of the mineworkers who double as food crop farmers visit their farms daily while an overwhelming majority (89%) work at the mines daily. Despite the negative consequences, galamsey is relatively rewarding for those involved in it and favourable to the local economy. At the current GH¢:US$rate of 3.8:1, mine operators earn an average of$7,280-$9,620 (good scenario) and$1,456-$1,950 (bad scenario) annually, compared to the seasonal (annual) earnings of$787.5 from agriculture. Keywords: Galamsey, mining, small-scale, environment, pollution, livelihoods, sustainable

Contemporary Price Trends and their Economic Significance in the Ashanti Region of Ghana

The objective of this study was to examine the current trend in price of staples and the possible effect on income. Price volatility is explained by changes in the trend itself, and to a lesser extent by variation around its mean (historical volatility approach), which is based on observed past prices. This measure was adopted to gauge the variation in commodity price around the mean. The results show that although prices increased steadily over the years, volatility was relatively minimal between 2002 and 2006 as compared to the period after. Unlike the cereals, more than 50% of vegetables traded on the markets are imported from neighbouring countries. The price range for vegetables was thus much wider than cereals. Supply shortfalls and transportation cost were cited as the two most significant factors contributing to rising prices on the markets. The findings confirm theoretical evidence that unexpected increase in prices erode the purchasing power of consumers, especially the poor who spend much of their incomes on food. A consumer receiving the current minimum wage and spending everything on the respective commodities within one month lost substantially in terms of volumes purchased between 2006 and 2013. For instance, the quantity of tomatoes and maize purchased declined by 74% and 65% respectively between 2006 and 2007. The trend suggests that uncontrolled volatility in prices has serious effects on income and for that matter food security. Stakeholders need to target production increase and improved distribution systems as means to reduce price volatility, which will protect poor consumers against the challenge of coping with wide price variations. Keywords: Price trend, volatility, income, coefficient of variation, standard deviatio

A Simple Political Economy of International Relations Between Democracies and Autocracies

The University Archives has determined that this item is of continuing value to OSU's history.James Fearon is the Theodore and Frances Geballe Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences, Professor of Political Science and CISAC affiliated faculty member at Stanford University. His research focuses on democracy and international disputes, explanations for interstate wars, and, most recently, the causes of civil and especially ethnic violence. He is presently working on a book manuscript with David Laitin on civil war since 1945.Ohio State University. Mershon Center for International Security StudiesEvent webpage, streaming video, event photo

Fertilizer Subsidy Programme in Ghana: Evidence of Performance after Six Years of Implementation

This study relied mainly on production data from the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Ghana and FAOSTATS between 2007 and 2012. Comparative and relative analysis of secondary data on the annual evolution of fertilizer subsidy budgets with total crop production and area expansion trends were used to assess the usefulness or otherwise of the programme. Ghana’s fertilizer subsidy programme still seems to be ineffective almost six years after commencement. Since inception in 2008, a total of GH¢202.5 million has been invested. The evidence however suggests that little has been achieved by way of output growth that can be attributed to fertilizer use. Although the relationship between crop output and budget spending on subsidy was generally positive, it was not significant even at the 10% level, thus weakening the possible impact of the subsidy programme and corroborating claims that most of the recorded growth in agriculture is due to land area expansion as opposed to yield increases. This study alludes to the increasing interest that sustainability concerns must be factored into such subsidy programmes. There is therefore the need for government audit the current programme and fashion out better implementation strategies, possibly adopt the smart approach which has been shown to be more focused and result oriented. Keywords: Subsidy, smart subsidy, fertilizer, food crops, industrial crops, cereals, vegetables, sustainabilit