Search

The development priorities of individuals living in 11 communities in the arid and semi-arid rangelands of southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya are examined. The econometric analysis of their responses has shown that variation in ranking of future priorities is mainly pushed by variation across communities. The result has given support to community-based method to priority setting.

The causal connection between exporting and productivity using plant-level panel data for Ethiopian manufacturing is examined. The total factor productivity's trajectory and other productivity measures of groups of firms classified by their export history are traced. The learning-by exporting is tested using a one-step system-general method of moments approach.

The efficiency of sharecropping as a contractual arrangement in land rental markets in Ethiopia is investigated. Agricultural input and output intensities on sharecropped plots are lower than on owned plots, and that friction prevents producers from increasing productivity by gaining access to additional land.

This study analyzes the persistence of poverty in both rural and urban areas in Ethiopia during 1994-2004. The key finding is that households move frequently in and out of poverty but the difficulty of exiting from poverty, like the chance of avoiding slipping back, increases with the time spent in that state and varies considerably between male- and female-headed households. Our results imply that it is important to design anti-poverty policies both to hinder households from slipping into extreme poverty and to minimize the length of the poverty spell for households once they have fallen into it. Key words--poverty persistence, hazard models, state dependence, Ethiopia

Differences in food production efficiencies were noted among farmers within and outside the Extension Package Program in eastern Ethiopia. Food production efficiency would rise with an integrated credit, extension, and input supply system using the appropriate technology.

The relationship between drought driven resource scarcity and political violence is analyzed.

After the fall of Ethiopia's socialist government, people in Konso in the south appropriated idioms associated with neoliberal economic reforms to describe and to shape their reconfiguration of hereditary status groups, as some historically despised Xauta artisans and merchants became wealthy and some dominant Etenta cultivators adopted Xauta identity. Countering scholarship that assumes a recent break with previously separate and stable status groups, I argue that, throughout the 20th century, people in Konso reshaped inherited social categories through interactions with novel information and changing political-economic circumstances. Emergent relations today are shaped in an increasingly transnational postsocialist context, and they reconfigure, rather than eliminate, local hegemonies. [hereditary status groups, emergence, neoliberalism, hegemony, marginality, Konso, Ethiopia]

A new decomposition of poverty changes is developed to analyse the determinants of poverty changes during a period of economic reform (1989-1995) in villages in Ethiopia. Poverty fell substantially, but with diverse experiences across villages. Shocks mattered, but the main factors driving consumption changes were relative prices changes, resulting in changes in the returns to land, labour, human capital and location. The experience of the poor is mixed: one group of the poor in 1989, with relatively good land and location, outperformed all other households, while another group with much poorer endowments and location experienced virtually unchanged and persistent poverty. JEL classification: O12; Q12; I32 Keywords: Economic reform; Poverty; Growth; Africa; Ethiopia

Effect of irrigation on the economic development of Ethiopia is examined. Irrigation plays a major role in increasing agricultural productivity, thereby boosting the development and also influences income distribution.

An overview of Ethiopia's 140-year quest for a workable development model by emulating the models of countries like imperial Russia, Japan, United Kingdom and other Western states is provided. An analysis of its quest indicates that the needs and cultures of Ethiopia, which run counter to the processes of development of their instigators were trying to foster, separated Ethiopia's unsuccessful modernizers from their far more successful counterparts in a number of Third World states.

Impact of drought on poverty conditions in the southern part of Wollo in Ethiopia is presented. Using survey and qualitative methods, it assessed which families are able to with stand and which are not, during drought period. Though, poor people economic conditions, have improved during 1997 to 2000, the scale of improvement did not match the scale of drought. Study also suggested measures to improve welfare in South Wollo.

Limited empirical evidence exists either to refute or confirm the pervasive belief that food aid has significant disincentive effects on recipient food production. Using household-level data from rural Ethiopia, we demonstrate that while simple descriptive statistics appear consistent with the disincentive effects hypothesis, once one controls properly for the endogeneity of food aid receipt, no empirical support remains for the hypothesis that food aid creates disincentive effects among recipient households. The macro economic evidence yields similar findings. Applying vector autoregression methods to national-level data, controlling for possible confounding variables, we find that food aid has no disincentive effect on food production. Key words--targeting, agricultural productivity, placement effects, emergency assistance, Ethiopia

Using a nested multinomial logit model, this study investigates the demand 'reduction' and 'diversion' effects of user lees in rural areas of Ethiopia. The results reveal that an increase in user fees of public clinics, which are the most widely used alternative, can have a significant demand reduction effect on the poorest of the poor. This implies that despite cost recovery has been advocated as an alternative means of health care financing in most of the developing world, increasing user lees may drive the poorest segment of the population out of the health care market unless some protective measures are taken. Key words--Africa, Ethiopia, user fees, demand for health, demand reduction, demand diversion

Investment in electric utilities and extension of electric power to rural areas could be achieved by attracting private investment through technical and regulatory improvements.

The article analyses the different income portfolios of households using survey data from rural Ethiopia and rural Tanzania. It suggests that the different portfolios held by households cannot be explained by their behaviour towards risk as is usually suggested It is better explained by differences in ability, location, and in access to credit. A logit analysis of households with different income portfolios, controlling for the effects of location, suggests that entry into high-return activities is determined by investment in particular skills or by access to capital., I. INTRODUCTION Peasant households in developing countries typically earn income from many different sources. A rural household may have a plot of land, purchase consumer goods and inputs in local [...]

The article suggests further improvements in the methodology to analyse market integration. It provides corrections to and methodological extensions of recent work in this journal. It also presents a way of applying market integration techniques to the analysis of shocks such as market liberalisation and war The method is applied to the effects of liberalisation and the end of the civil war on food markets in Ethiopia. The conclusion is that liberalisation had important effects on the long-run and short-run integration of food markets., 1. INTRODUCTION Two recent contributions in the Journal of Development Studies by Palaskas and Harriss-White [1993] and Alexander and Wyeth [1941] have proposed improvements to the analysis of market integration. [...]

Surveys of pastoral households in a semi-nomadic Borana community during 1987-1988 were used to test the hypothesis that poorer families living closest to a market town would be most affected by the enhanced opportunity to sell dairy products, which would intensify competition between people and calves for milk and have negative implications for calf management. These poorer families indeed reported the highest rates of milk offtake per cow, and the milk increment was probably sold to purchase more grain for human consumption at the expense of mi& intake for the calf Consequently, this strategy may increase the susceptibility of malnourished calves to disease, especially those from lower-producing dams. Benefits of improved human energy intake from grain and retention of livestock capital must be weighed against risks of calf death and possible malnutrition of people from milk restriction when assessing dairy marketing trade-offs that are most acute for the poor. Opportunity to sell dairy products at favorable terms of trade helps the poorest people survive, and their risks could be mitigated by policies that facilitate grain marketing in the rangelands and interventions that improve calf feeding management, diversify human diets, and create alternative opportunities for women to generate income. The households postulated to be most at risk were identified from a complex, but logical, interaction among factors of distance to market, household wealth, and the quality of milking cows held. This indicates that targeting such needy groups for development assistance may require a more detailed and interdisciplinary analysis of production systems than is commonly practiced.