Livestock Transactions as Coping Strategies in Zambia:New Evidence from High-Frequency Panel Data

This study re-examines the buffer stock hypothesis regarding livestock by taking into account differences in wealth level, asset types, and periods after a shock. This paper takes advantage of a unique panel data set of agricultural households in Southern Province, Zambia. The data were collected by weekly interviews of 48 sample households from November 2007 to December 2009, covering two crop years in which an unusually heavy rainfall event took place. If we consider delayed responses to the heavy rain shock, our econometric analyses support the buffer stock hypothesis for cattle as well as small livestock. Overall, this paper suggests that conventional annual data sets used by existing literature may miss the period-dependent transactions of assets after a shock.Asset smoothing, Buffer stock, Weather risk, Livestock, Sub-Saharan Africa

The Effectiveness of Community-Based Development in Poverty Reduction: A Descriptive Analysis of a Women-Managed NGO in Rural Pakistan

To assess the targeting performance of community-based development activities and deduce the impact of such activities on poverty reduction, we implemented a survey of a non-governmental organization (NGO) in northwestern Pakistan. A distinct characteristic of this NGO is that it is managed mostly by women and its interventions are conducted through community-based organizations (COs), most of whose members are also female. This characteristic is rather unusual for a male-dominated society like Pakistan. Descriptive analyses of village, CO, and household level data shows that the NGO was able to target poorer villages. Villages with COs are characterized by lower adult literacy rates, lower availability of basic amenities, and higher susceptibility to natural disasters. With regard to household-level welfare indicators - such as consumption, women’s empowerment, children’s school enrolment, and the weight-for-age of infants - we found that the consumption levels of CO member households tended to be lower than that of households in non-CO villages. However, the difference between CO member households and non-member households in CO villages was insignificant, possibly owing to the mixing of the selection effect (i.e., poorer households are served by the NGO) and the causal effect of interventions on poverty reduction. On women’s empowerment and child schooling, CO member households tend to perform better than other households, suggesting the favorable impact of the interventions and/or the self-selection of such households vis-à-vis program participation.

The Effectiveness of Community-Based Development in Poverty Reduction : A Descriptive Analysis of a Women-Managed NGO in Rural Pakistan

To assess the targeting performance of community-based development activities and deduce the impact of such activities on poverty reduction, we implemented a survey of a non-governmental organization (NGO) in northwestern Pakistan. A distinct characteristic of this NGO is that it is managed mostly by women and its interventions are conducted through community-based organizations (COs), most of whose members are also female. This characteristic is rather unusual for a male-dominated society like Pakistan. Descriptive analyses of village, CO, and household level data shows that the NGO was able to target poorer villages. Villages with COs are characterized by lower adult literacy rates, lower availability of basic amenities, and higher susceptibility to natural disasters. With regard to household-level welfare indicators -- such as consumption, women’s empowerment, children’s school enrolment, and the weight-for-age of infants -- we found that the consumption levels of CO member households tended to be lower than that of households in non-CO villages. However, the difference between CO member households and non-member households in CO villages was insignificant, possibly owing to the mixing of the selection effect (i.e., poorer households are served by the NGO) and the causal effect of interventions on poverty reduction. On women’s empowerment and child schooling, CO member households tend to perform better than other households, suggesting the favorable impact of the interventions and/or the self-selection of such households vis-à-vis program participation.

Quantitative Temperature Dependence of Longitudinal Spin Seebeck Effect at High Temperatures

This article reports temperature-dependent measurements of longitudinal spin Seebeck effects (LSSEs) in Pt/Y$_3$Fe$_5$O$_{12}$ (YIG)/Pt systems in a high temperature range from room temperature to above the Curie temperature of YIG. The experimental results show that the magnitude of the LSSE voltage in the Pt/YIG/Pt systems rapidly decreases with increasing the temperature and disappears above the Curie temperature. The critical exponent of the LSSE voltage in the Pt/YIG/Pt systems at the Curie temperature was estimated to be 3, which is much greater than that for the magnetization curve of YIG. This difference highlights the fact that the mechanism of the LSSE cannot be explained in terms of simple static magnetic properties in YIG.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, 1 tabl

Knowledge, Attitude, and Protective Behavior against Pesticide Health Risks: The Case of Vegetable Farmers in Northern Vietnam

Natural Resource Economics Discussion Papers are preliminary research reports by members of the GSA-NRE Kyoto University circulated for comments and suggestions. They have not been externally peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the editorial board.Health consequences of harmful pesticide use are a growing concern in developing countries. As an analytical framework for farmers' protective behavior, the literature has long proposed the knowledge, attitude, and behavior (KAB) model in which knowledge translates to perceptions, leading to behavioral changes. However, there are mixed results on the role of knowledge and perceptions in farmers' self-protection against pesticide-related health risks. This study tests the KAB model using survey data from 138 vegetable farmers in northern Vietnam, in a regression framework. The empirical results show that knowledge affects general protection practices (e.g., handwashing after spraying) in the direct and indirect pathways via risk perceptions. In contrast, knowledge affects personal protective equipment use through attitudes relevant to risk perceptions, consistent with the classical linear progression in the KAB model. Thus, risk perceptions mediate the link between risk awareness and protection against pesticide-related health risks. Overall, the KAB model's goodness-of-fit to the data depends on protective actions, offering a possible explanation for the mixed results in the literature. We also identify poisoning experiences and advice from peers, retailers, and media, rather than governmental training, as significant sources of knowledge formation processes. Finally, we offer policy recommendations to facilitate safe pesticide use by small-scale Vietnamese farmers

Basis Risk and Low Demand for Weather Index Insurance

Natural Resource Economics Discussion Papers are preliminary research reports by members of the GSA-NRE Kyoto University circulated for comments and suggestions. They have not been externally peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the editorial board.Basis risk --an imperfect correlation between an aggregate index and idiosyncratic crop damage-- has been widely recognized as a major impediment to embracing index insurance. However, empirical evidence is still scarce because of the difficulty in its direct measurement. In this study, we estimate the impact of the basis risk on demand for a rainfall index insurance product using household survey data from rural Zambia. First, we develop a simple model of insurance demand to motivate our econometric specifications. Then, we quantify the basis risk for each surveyed household with past rainfall data at the plot-level. Exploiting changes in insurance design across years, we use within-household variations in the basis risk to estimate its impact. Empirical results illustrate that the basis risk has significant and adverse effects on insurance demand. Despite its statistical significance, our results also suggest that minimizing the basis risk would not yield enough economic benefits to offset the associated costs

Livestock Transactions as Coping Strategies in Zambia: New Evidence from High-Frequency Panel Data

This study re-examines the buffer stock hypothesis regarding livestock by taking into account differences in wealth level, asset types, and periods after a shock. This paper takes advantage of a unique panel data set of agricultural households in Southern Province, Zambia. The data were collected by weekly interviews of 48 sample households from November 2007 to December 2009, covering two crop years in which an unusually heavy rainfall event took place. If we consider delayed responses to the heavy rain shock, our econometric analyses support the buffer stock hypothesis for cattle as well as small livestock. Overall, this paper suggests that conventional annual data sets used by existing literature may miss the period-dependent transactions of assets after a shock.Asset Smoothing, Buffer Stock, Weather Risk, Livestock, Sub-Saharan Africa