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Solidarity Networks in Preindustrial Societies: Rational Peasants with a Moral Economy
Abstract
The key characteristics of solidarity systems are outlined, and the author shows that mutual insurance can be sustained as an equilibrium of a repeated game. Incentive problems are then addressed and linked to the lack of privacy, the right to susbsistence, ex ante solidarity, and networks. Private accumulation of wealth and other asymmetries between players are shown to lead to asymmetries in the insurance mechanism itself. Patron-client relationships are reviewed in that light. Equilibrium refinements are reviewed, and their applicability to mutual insurance contracts is discussed. Finally, policy implications concerning the prevention of destitution are presented. In conclusion, Posner's view is reasserted: there is no contradiction between the fact that people in preindustrial societies pursue their long-term self-interest and the central idea of the moral economy of peasants, namely, that the ethical values of precapitalist societies emphasize solidarity as a moral obligation and subsistence as a right. -from Author
... According to Wood and Gough (2006), dependent mutual aid relationships are typical in social insecurity regimes. Characterised by the absence of formal social protection mechanisms, households are forced to turn to their personal network, at the risk of entering into clientelist relationships (Fafchamps, 1992). These dependency logics are particularly marked among poor households (Gondard-Delcroix et al., 2021;Marques, 2015;Offer, 2012;Wood, 2003). ...
... It suggests that poor individuals tend to engage in asymmetrical support relationships (Mumtaz, 2023;Wood, 2003;Wood & Gough, 2006). In rural contexts, these types of relationships are perfectly illustrated by sharecropping arrangements, which demonstrate patron-client domination logics (Fafchamps, 1992;Stavropoulou et al., 2017). From this perspective, this article will empirically test this hypothesis, by crossing the variable characterizing the reciprocity categories and the variables characterizing living conditions. ...
... Finally, the high social status of alters is correlated with asymmetric reciprocity norms. This confirms the importance of patron-client relationships in poor rural areas (Fafchamps, 1992;Mumtaz, 2023;Stavropoulou et al., 2017). ...
The development of formal social protection in African countries is critical. The Covid-19 crisis has largely increased this need. Informal social protection mechanisms remain central to households' management of shocks. This article investigates the relationship between reciprocity norms and dependency in contexts of extreme poverty. Using egocentric networks, the study conducts an original analysis of reciprocity norms based on 2868 social relationships across three regions in southern Madagascar. Four reciprocity categories are identified within support relationships: symmetrical reciprocity, no reciprocity, and two asymmetrical reciprocities. Using a mixed method approach, the findings reveal that reciprocity norms are closely associated with household living conditions, with individuals in poverty more likely to be integrated into relationships characterized by asymmetrical reciprocity. Moreover, the article identifies a strong correlation between food-safety shocks and asymmetrical reciprocity. Lastly, the results highlights the significant role of local organizations in formation of symmetrical support relationships. These findings underline the need to develop analyses and policies that take into account the diversity of social protection mechanisms (formal and informal).
... Appropriating resources that benefit the ethnic group and its members may be deemed acceptable to the ethnic group even though it might not be accepted to outsiders because the actors are adhering to the ethnic standard of conduct or what is right to them (Götz, 2015). The initiative-taking actions of individuals to produce an outcome for ethnic members (Sayer, 2001) is a form of reflexive control that orients meta-agents to adhere to standards of conduct within the social group (Berman, 1998;Fafchamps, 1992). Engaging in corruption at the workplace through cooptation of coworkers with 'baits of the pie' (Torsello, 2021;Yarahmadi et al., 2020) or exploitation of company property (e.g., stationery) to meet ethnic obligations (Ekeh, 1975) becomes common (Ashforth et al., 2008;Tchouta, 2020;Yarahmadi et al., 2020). ...
... Several studies show "the dynamics of the African context" (George et al., 2016), "syncretism of African cultures from historical and modern influences (Armah, 2018;Illorah, 2009)" and suggestion that there might be "curvilinear complex interactions" (Zoogah & Zoogah, 2020, p. 804). Given that moral economy is often viewed from an institutional (Götz, 2015) as well as ethnic capital and resource (Fafchamps, 1992) perspectives, the findings here fit with the dynamic approach of management in Africa. ...
... We provide evidence of the complexity of factors influencing deviant behaviors of employees. In so doing we join researchers (de Sardan, 1999;Fafchamps, 1992;Jackson, 2013) in calling for realignment of Western scholars' mindset as they study autochthons in other contexts. ...
There is increased interest in deviant behavior in the workplace. However, research is lacking on the moral economy of such behavior. Moral economy is particularly important in contexts where syncretic forces impinge on deviant behavior. Consequently, we use moral economy reasoning to examine the relationship between ethnic obligation and deviant behavior in the African context. In Study 1, data (N = 27, 148) show an inverted U-shape effect of meta-agency and deviant behavior. In Study 2, difference-in-difference (DID) analysis of data (N = 25,387 in 2005 and N = 51,587 in 2013) shows significant DID effect of meta-agency. Primary data from Study 3 (N = 229) shows a U-shaped effect of agency and deviant behavior. In Study 4 (N = 333), a replication shows support for the U-shape effect in Study 3. The four studies thus show complex patterns that reflect U-shape and inverted U-shape relationships between ethnic obligation and deviant behavior as indicated by bribery, corruption, and unethicality. Robustness checks support the curvilinear relationships suggesting that the effects are not due to chance. We discuss implications for research and practice.
... The literature has largely focused on three outcomes of marketization: first, the upgrade from subsistence agriculture to market-based production, distribution, and consumption. Second, the reduction of crops produced, which often led to cash-cropping monoculture and agricultural intensification (Fafchamps, 1992;Ickowitz et al., 2019;Von Braun & Kennedy, 1986). Third, the diversification of the sources of income in off-farm activities, through the development of food processing industries (Swinnen & Vandeplas, 2011). ...
... Marketization was recognised as conducive to increasing productivity enhancement and thus long-term agricultural growth (Ickowitz et al., 2019;Von Braun & Kennedy, 1986). Scholars and policymakers have proposed moving away from self-subsistence farming to overcome the inefficient use of inputs and resources (Fafchamps, 1992). Because of their natural comparative advantages in abundant land and low-skilled labour, it was argued that low-income countries should intensify their cash-crops production for export (Haddad, 2002;Naylor & Falcon, 2010), and import food from the international market. ...
... This would improve farmers' well-being other than free resources from householdproduction (Collier & Dercon, 2013;Dorward et al., 2009). In this context, crop diversity has often been associated with extensive and inefficient forms of subsistence-oriented agriculture because, being based on a direct link between production and consumption, it would create a barrier to specialisation and economies of scale (Carletto et al., 2015;Fafchamps, 1992). ...
The effects of marketization on crop diversity and dietary diversity is very contested. Therefore, more empirical work is needed to unpack the multidimensional factors that underpin these processes. This article expands the analytical understanding of the linkages between these dimensions by looking at the case of Uzbekistan. First, it uses quantitative methods to assess the hypotheses that (a) wealth leads to higher dietary diversity; (b) agricultural marketization leads to lower dietary diversity; and (c) crop diversity leads to higher dietary diversity. Regression analysis shows that only wealth is an independent determinant of dietary diversity. Second, the article uses qualitative data to argue that state policies and social norms, by influencing food availability, knowledge and nutritional values, are key to unpacking the relationships between marketization, crop diversity and dietary diversity.
... In particular, the use of the deductive approach is regarded with suspicion in certain instances like Halperin (1994). Valuable references to the debate from the point of view of an economist are included in Fafchamps (1992). 3 The model is actually more general than this. ...
... Incentive problems are one of them. In the absence of a punishment or a reward those experiencing positive shocks might not be interested in sharing (Fafchamps, 1992;Besley, 1995). ...
... Overall, risk-reducing activities have the advantage over risk-sharing of avoiding informational and incentive problems that might reduce the efficiency of risk-sharing. On the other hand these informational and incentive problems are reduced by the characteristics of small-scale societies such as villages or bands, where the scope of sanctions is larger than in formal anonymous markets, and where informational problems are minimized because of the intensity of social interaction (Fafchamps, 1992;Besley, 1995). ...
The intense mortality fluctuations characteristic of preindustrial populations and some poor populations today, have been linked to harvest or catch fluctuations. These fluctuations have been highlighted as one of the explanations of low population growth rates. These affirmations were statistically measured, but they were not grounded on theory.
This dissertation attempts to make explicit the theory behind the economic determinants of mortality fluctuations in poor populations. The first component of the theory is the biological connection between nutrition, epidemics and mortality. A class of models is proposed that relies on the characterization of mortality risk by using a latent variable, healthiness, that depends dynamically on the nutritional and epidemic experience of the individual. Under general conditions increased variability in nutritional intake leads to higher mortality levels for a given average intake.
The second component of the theory is behavioral. Given the negative impact on survival of fluctuating individual food consumption, and people's concern about their survival, behavior is modified in order to smooth food consumption. This behavior is limited by the available technology and the organization of society. Behavioral adaptations to risk are therefore dependent on the particular environment and society. Institutions and constraints are studied for hunter-gatherer, horticultural and agricultural populations. These practices include a whole range including the selection of crops and technology, food-sharing and reciprocity, mobility or crop storage.
Economic theory provides a valuable tool for understanding the limits and possibilities of these strategies. A model of optimal crop storage is proposed that considers the effects of consumption on healthiness and mortality. Risk aversion or survival maximization lead to similar optimal storage policies. Together with the dynamic models of healthiness, the storage model captures the dynamic relationship between harvest fluctuations and mortality as empirically measured. It introduces nonlinearities that explain the asymmetry between mortality peaks and valleys, the recurrence of peaks, and the effects of selection on the response function.
Mortality time-series from British Bengal and Punjab are analyzed, which conform to the patterns expected from the theoretical analysis, and a method is proposed to measure the impact of risk on mortality levels.
... In contexts like this, social networks and connections to public officials play a key role in citizens' relation to the state. Networks based on kinship or affiliation to a group play a key role in risk-sharing arrangements, access to financial resources and jobs in developing countries with large informal sectors (Fafchamps 1992;Fafchamps and Lund 2003;9 Previous research has found that wealthier individuals are more likely to bribe and less likely to be extorted (Bohn 2012;Fried et al. 2010;Robinson and Seim 2018). These findings are attributed to the fact that wealth may be interpreted by public officials as a proxy for political connections. ...
... 19 This measure of social proximity is based on the assumption that kinship produces stronger bonds than friendship or acquaintances. This assumption is justified in so far as kinship and extended family networks have been shown to play an important role in risk-sharing arrangements and access to financial resources and jobs in developing countries (Fafchamps 1992;Fafchamps and Lund 2003). Moreover, this measure is also informative of the respondent's social proximity to the other public officials within the same agencies, since respondents who has a direct tie to a public official are likely to be more socially proximate to other public officials that work in the same agency. ...
The incidence of petty corruption in public service delivery varies greatly across citizens and geography. This paper proposes a novel explanation for citizen engagement in collusive forms of petty corruption. It is rooted in the social context in which citizen-public official interactions take place. I argue that social proximity and network centrality provide the two key enforcement mechanisms that sustain favor exchanges among socially connected individuals. Bribery, as a collusive arrangement between a citizen and a public official, relies on the same enforcement mechanisms. Using an original dataset from a household survey conducted in Guatemala, the analysis shows that social proximity and centrality allow citizens to obtain privileges through implicit favor exchanges and illicit payments. These findings are not driven by better access to information about the bribery market. This paper contributes to our understanding of the role of preexisting social relations in sustaining corrupt exchanges.
... these arrangements and systems are usually described as non-market and make little use of formal contractual arrangements that need to be codified through a legal system (Besley, 1995). Fafchamps (1992) and dercon et al. (2006) described them as informal, traditional, or preindustrial, while Booth (1994 described them as premarket institutions. these systems are based on moral obligations and operate with the moral economy or community (Fafchamps, 1992;tufuor et al., 2015). in this paper, the author refers to all such arrangements and systems in this range as informal systems. ...
... Fafchamps (1992) and dercon et al. (2006) described them as informal, traditional, or preindustrial, while Booth (1994 described them as premarket institutions. these systems are based on moral obligations and operate with the moral economy or community (Fafchamps, 1992;tufuor et al., 2015). in this paper, the author refers to all such arrangements and systems in this range as informal systems. ...
Informal social and economic systems of kinship, labour relations, child fostering, food sharing and shelter sharing have characterized African societies. These arrangements have played significant roles in household risk management in Ghana in previous times and are still relevant in the management of economic hardships. Within the context of rapid globalisation and modernisation, these social and economic arrangements have changed over time, with some dire ramifications including economic hardships. Using secondary data consisting of literature sources, this paper examines these informal social and economic systems, highlighting their underlying concepts, transformations, and relevance in the prevention and management of risks associated with care, labour, and poverty. The author finds reciprocity and solidarity as the dominant underlying concepts of the social and economic systems understudied. Further, there were transformations in these arrangements contributed by factors, such as scarcity of resources, modernisation, weakening of kinship ties, unmanaged urbanisation, economic monetisation, and economic development. The paper recommends the incorporation of underlying concepts, such as reciprocity and solidarity in social protection policies for sustainable management of risks and economic hardships in the future. This will support poverty reduction efforts and the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goal 1 (SDG1).
... We refer to Rationality, Morality and Collective Action, where Elster (1985) highlights the existence of mixed motivations of participants in collective action, including a sense of duty, pleasure of participation, peer pressure, and so forth. Furthermore, Fafchamps (1992) lays out detailed arguments for acts of solidarity, which may include gift exchanges or food sharing, in preindustrial society being consistent with notions of both rationality where people pursue their long-term self-interest as well as the moral economy of peasants. Recent advances in behavioural and experimental economics also suggest that rationality and morality theories on peasant behaviour need not lie in contradiction. ...
... While the moral economy and rational peasant theories may differ at an intellectual plane, the practical implications of both lead to similar effects in the context of conflict. Especially in a society such as North Kivu which is built on solidarity networks of kinship and village bonds, a 'repeated game scenario' would reconcile any inherent differences between these ideologies (see Fafchamps, 1992, for a detailed representation). ...
Our study establishes a linkage between household food sufficiency and food sharing behaviour with the reduction of low-intensity, micro level conflict using primary data from 1763 households of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. We develop a theoretical explanation of such behaviour using the seminal theories of dissatisfaction originating from food insecurity and the reciprocity of gifts in economic anthropology. We first examine if food sufficient households are less likely to engage in low-intensity conflict. Following, we investigate possible heterogeneous effects of food sufficiency, conditional on food sharing behaviour. Using propensity score matching, we find that food sufficiency reduces household conflict risk by an average of around 10 percentage points. Upon conditioning on food sharing behaviour, we find that conflict risk in the subpopulation of food sufficient households is 13.8 percentage points lower for households that share their food while the effects disappear for households that do not share their food. Our results hold through a rigorous set of robustness checks including doubly robust estimator, placebo regression, matching quality tests and Rosenbaum bounds for hidden bias. We conclude that food sufficiency reduces low-intensity conflict for households only in the presence of food sharing behaviour and offer explanations and policy prescriptions.
... Néanmoins, des travaux soulignent la primauté de certaines obligations, comme les obligations sociales et/ou religieuses, sur la satisfaction des besoins individuels (Mahieu, 2003 ;Rist, 2007). En se structurant autour des normes de réciprocité, les relations d'entraide peuvent ainsi avoir des effets ambivalents dans la (Fafchamps, 1992 ; ...
... Les individus ayant conscience du risque d'exclusion en cas de non-respect des conditions de réciprocité peuvent également s'auto-exclurent de ces relations d'entraide par peur de ne pas pouvoir en assurer le retour (Lubbers et al., 2020a ;Offer, 2012 Selon Wood et Gough (2006), les relations d'entraide sous dépendance sont typiques des régimes d'insécurité sociale. Caractérisés par l'absence de mécanismes de protection sociale formels, les ménages ne disposant pas des ressources nécessaires sont contraints de solliciter leur réseau, au risque de s'inscrire dans des relations clien-télistes (Fafchamps, 1992 6. Le zébu constitue dans le sud de Madagascar l'un des principaux moyens de capitalisation économique, mais aussi symbolique. L'insécurité croissante régionale ne fait que renforcer les difficultés socioéconomiques. ...
Cette thèse se propose d’étudier le développement des systèmes de protection sociale enAfrique subsaharienne. Nous considérons les systèmes de protection sociale comme des ensembles multi-niveaux (transnational, national, local) et multi-acteurs. Nous appréhendons ces différents niveaux de protection sociale en mobilisant une approche socio-économique qui utilise l’analyse des réseaux sociaux. Cette approche nous permet de tenir compte du caractère réticulaire et négocié des différents niveaux de protection sociale. Nous proposons ainsi d’étudier le niveau transnational en identifiant les trois principaux régimes de protection sociale en Afrique subsaharienne et en analysant le rôle des rapports de force nationaux et internationaux. À l’échelle nationale, nous étudions la mise en place de la politique publique de protection sociale à Madagascar. Pour ce faire, en combinant les méthodes des policy network et de l’advocacy coalition framework nous analysons l’influence des coalitions transnationales dans la mise en place d’une politique publique de protection sociale en Afrique subsaharienne. Et enfin, au niveau local, nous étudions la place des normes de réciprocité dans les pratiques de protection sociale des ménages. Dans cette perspective, nous analysons les réseaux égocentrés de gestion des chocs développés par les ménages. Nous caractérisons trois formes de réciprocité (symétrique, asymétrique et absence réciprocité) selon les conditions de vie des ménages et les réseaux d’entraide.
... Consequently, adaptations are expected to evolve to limit these losses [14,15]. Research from diverse disciplines has pointed to the multitude of behavioural adaptations humans use to reduce risk [16][17][18][19][20][21]. Individuals are able to access a number of mechanisms depending on need and circumstance [22], and specific mechanisms cluster together and strengthen one another [15,23]. ...
... An increase in wealth and storage may further impact risk-pooling as well as mobility [20]. Given the abundance-shortage dynamic of reciprocal cooperation, wealthier individuals may find themselves overburdened by increased obligations to share while rarely requiring help themselves as risks are retained within the household [17,[58][59][60] (but not consistently, see [61]). Individuals with more resources have less need for larger networks, withdrawing from them [59] as the direct benefits from reciprocal cooperation are reduced. ...
Women cooperate over multiple domains and while research from western contexts portrays women's networks as limited in size and breadth, women receive help, particularly with childcare, from a diverse range of individuals (allomothers). Nonetheless, little exploration has occurred into why we see such diversity. Wide maternal childcare networks may be a consequence of a lack of resource accumulation in mobile hunter–gatherers—where instead households rely on risk-pooling in informal insurance networks. By contrast, when households settle and accumulate resources, they are able to retain risk by absorbing losses. Thus, the size and composition of mothers' childcare networks may depend on risk-buffering, as captured by mobile and settled households in the Agta, a Philippine foraging population with diverse lifestyles. Across 78 children, we find that childcare from grandmothers and sisters was higher in settled camps, while childcare from male kin was lower, offering little support for risk-buffering. Nonetheless, girls’ workloads were increased in settled camps while grandmothers had fewer dependent children, increasing their availability. These results point to gender-specific changes associated with shifting demographics as camps become larger and more settled. Evidently, women's social networks, rather than being constrained by biology, are responsive to the changing socioecological context.
This article is part of the theme issue ‘Cooperation among women: evolutionary and cross-cultural perspectives’.
... For ex-post coping strategies, households may sell livestock or productive assets or decrease consumption (Dercon, 2002;Zimmerman and Carter, 2003;Kazianga and Udry, 2006;Patnaik and Narayanan, 2015). Households also use formal or informal social safety nets (FSSNs or ISSNs) to mitigate the consumption impacts of adverse weather-related shocks (Fafchamps, 1992;Pan, 2009). Coping strategies in general can help poor households recover better from adverse shocks (Tran, 2014). ...
... These include saving and borrowing (Paxson, 1992), selling non-financial assets (Kazianga and Udry, 2006;Bardhan and Udry, 1999;Fafchamps et al., 1998), adjusting labor supply (Kochar, 1999;Cameron and Worswick, 2003;Maitra, 2001), reducing investment in children's education (Fitzsimons, 2007), migration (De Brauw and Harigaya, 2007;Taylor et al., 2003), and off-farm employment (Kochar, 1999). Households also use formal or informal social safety nets (FSSNs or ISSNs) to mitigate the consumption impacts of adverse weather-related shocks (Fafchamps, 1992;Pan, 2009). In the remainder of this paper, we follow Gao and Mills (2018), Baez et al. (2017), and Modena and Gilbert (2012) to set up a framework to examine the effects of shocks and the portfolios of coping measures on household food consumption. ...
Purpose
The paper aims to assess the impact of weather-induced shocks on household food consumption in the rural Vietnamese Mekong Delta (VMD) through the case of Long An province and evaluate the effectiveness of widely used coping strategies in mitigating weather-related shock impacts.
Design/methodology/approach
The system generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation method is applied to explore information on shock incidence, recovery, and time occurrences. The paper uses a sample of 272 repeated farming households from 5-wave survey data from 2008 to 2016, resulting in 1,360 observations.
Findings
The paper confirms the robust negative effect of a natural shock on food consumption. Additionally, using savings proves to be the most potent measure to smooth food consumption. Other favorable coping strategies are “getting assistance from relatives, friends” or “getting assistance from the Government, and non-government organizations (NGOs).” The mitigating effects are also traced in the current analysis.
Research limitations/implications
Using caution when generalizing the results from Long An to the whole VMD is reasonable. The rather limited observations of coping strategies do not allow the authors to analyze any specific strategy.
Originality/value
The proposed approach employs the GMM technique and controls for endogenous coping strategies and thus provides accurate estimates of the effects of weather-related shocks and the mitigation effectiveness in the rural VMD.
... In the absence of high-quality institutions and insurance, social capital acts as a safety net, especially in developing countries (e.g., Rosenzweig 1988;Fafchamps 1992;Townsend 1994;Fafchamps and Lund 2003). Social contracts do not always emerge based on voluntary participation (e.g. ...
... The implications of norms for sharing of resources, or for decisions regarding consumption and accumulation of wealth, are essential to the economic conditions of individuals and groups. This is especially true in developing countries, where individuals often have to rely on community-based informal structures that offer them social security and decrease their exposure to risk (Rosenzweig 1988;Fafchamps 1992;Townsend 1994;Udry 1994;Fafchamps and Lund 2003). For example, the relevance of kinship in societies with weak social welfare nets and bad institutional quality can be considered one of the ultimate determinants of an individual's status and success -holding unobserved abilities constant. ...
This paper aims to provide a brief review of the much neglected ‘dark side’ of social capital. To highlight the contextual nature of social capital by way of examples from different geographies, we draw attention to the potentially detrimental effects associated with the concept. A significant body of literature addresses the advantages of being connected to various types of social bridges and bonds. While emphasising the ‘bright side’ of social capital, that literature pays limited attention to the negative attributes of social ties and their potentially detrimental effects on a number of social and economic outcomes. Although it is not reasonable to establish a dichotomy between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ social capital, it is possible to conceptualise such negative attributes in the light of the existing literature, in which the context-dependent nature of social capital is accentuated. We focus on two critical questions: (i) Why is it essential to address the contextual nature of social capital? (ii) How could geography come into play?
... The study of informal risk-sharing arrangement uses several conceptual frameworks to explain the logic of observed inter-household transfers. In a network dominated by a logic of balanced reciprocity, transfers of gift are (quasi) loans made to the receiver when she incurs an adverse shock (Posner, 1980;Eswaran & Kotal, 1989;Fafchamps, 1992). In this setting, repayment obligations are very likely and loans sometimes bear interest (Udry, 1994;Platteau, 1997). ...
... This is also supported by more recent research arguing that substantial solidarity behavior among the poor is an outcome of lesser wherewithal to insure against everyday risks (De Oliveira et al. 2014). Fafchamps (1992) appeared to qualify this position by suggesting that solidarity systems work better when that precariousness is distributed uniformly and raises doubts on these systems' abilities to address the needs of the particularly weak, such as the sick or the poorest of the poor. Drawing on the early literature on solidarity and solidarity systems, Kusaka (2020)using first-hand data from his experience in Bohol, Central Philippines, during the heavy lockdowns of 2020-demonstrated how ordinary Filipinos undermined the "good vs. bad" narrative through mutuality, cooperation, and community in support of the logic of their everyday lives. ...
... This is especially true for smallholders and poor family farmers who have little to no access to loans and insurance. Lack of efficient insurance markets causes increased risk exposure, which results in (1) an increased focus on subsistence crops that offer poor returns but little risk (Heltberg and Tarp, 2002;Sadoulet and de Janvry, 1995;Fafchamps, 1992;Roe and Graham-Tomasi, 1986); and (2) a lesser propensity to use commercial inputs, such as fertilizer (Dercon and Christiaensen, 2011;Kassie et al., 2008). All of these responses typically result in lower farm earnings both now and in the future (Hurley, 2010;Rosenzweig and Binswanger, 1993). ...
... Credit is a major factor in agricultural production and in many cases may be a limiting factor in small-scale agriculture (Salami and Arawomo, 2013). Before the advent of formalized institutional sources of financing agriculture, agricultural credit, took the form of borrowing from friends, relatives, and neighbours, etc. with its attendant terms either in the form of selling products to the lender at a future date and price or repayment at some agreed value (Fafchamps 1992;Coate and Ravallion 1993;Fafchamps and Lund, 2003). After the global food crises of the 1970's, the question of how to advance the economy, occasioned by the increase in both the rural and urban population started assuming greater relevance. ...
The study examined the determinants of micro credit access among small holder farmers in Niger Delta, Nigeria. A multi-stage random sampling technique was employed in the selection of 384 farm households from four States out of the nine States that make up the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. Data for the study were obtained from primary sources using interview schedule guided by structured questionnaire. Descriptive and relevant inferential statistics such as frequency, percentages, mean, Heckman Double Hurdle Model and Poisson Model were used to analyze the data. Results obtained showed that; region of residence, education and organizational membership positively and significantly influenced access to microcredit, while total household income had a negative influence on access to microcredit. Also, results of factors that determined the amount of microcredit received by small scale farmers showed that: farm size and organizational membership positively and significantly influenced the amount of microcredit accessed while; interest rate had a negative and significant effect. In addition, factors that influenced frequency of microcredit accessed showed that: gender, education and interest rate were negative and significant, while, age, borrowing experience and social capital were positive and significant. The results call for policies aimed at provision of access to free and affordable education to enable farmers' access and process information on credit opportunities. There is also need to encourage farmers to form cooperatives that will enable them access credit with ease. Land reform policies that will enable small holder farmer's access more land is encouraged.
... From the results in column (2), women's empowerment score was positive (0.303) at a 5% level of significance, which indicated that empowering women helps to increase the level of agricultural production diversity, and this finding supported the research hypothesis II (H2) in this paper. The main reasons are as follows: on the one hand, for subsistence smallholder farmers, when women have the decision-making ability in the household, they tend to prioritize the family's food consumption and nutritional issues, thus choosing to diversify their agricultural production [48]. On the other hand, when rural women have time agency, they generally run home gardens to produce certain vegetables and fruits for family consumption, thus enriching the level of diversification [49]. ...
This study analyzed the role of women's empowerment in diversifying households' diets through their production. Based on the survey data of 1185 rural households of Yunnan, Guizhou, Shaanxi, and Gansu provinces in 2021, this paper measured women's empowerment level from five dimensions: agricultural production, credit resources, income control, leadership, and time allocation. It targeted food safety and further analyzed the role of agricultural production diversity in the pathway of women's empowerment impact on households' food security. The estimation showed that improving women's empowerment enhances diet quality and increases agricultural production diversity. Meanwhile, agricultural production diversity was conducive to improving the food security level of households. After carrying out the mediation effect test, the paper found that agricultural diversity partially mediates the effect of women's empowerment on food security and a total mediation effect on women's empowerment and food security in the poor group. Furthermore, agricultural diversity could further promote households' food and nutrition security based on women's decision-making ability
... Les sociétés dites de solidarité, organisées autour des liens de parenté, du voisinage ou du village, abritent un système d'assurance informelle caractérisé par un partage des risques associés aux aléas environnementaux, potentielles menaces pour l'agriculture. Ce système s'appuie sur le principe de la « réciprocité balancée » (Fafchamps, 1992 ;Platteau, 2004) : le récipiendaire de l'aide (financière, matérielle ou morale) doit retourner la faveur à quiconque dans le village est dans le besoin. ...
Bien que l’Afrique subsaharienne soit le terrain de mutations sociales importantes, notamment quant au rôle de soutien que jouent les familles, le phénomène de l’isolement social y demeure peu abordé. Cet article a pour objectif d’identifier un cadre théorique pour étudier l’isolement social dans les sociétés de solidarité d’Afrique subsaharienne et de décrire comment cet isolement se manifeste chez les Sereer Siin au Sénégal. L’analyse s’appuie sur 52 entretiens réalisés dans le cadre d’une enquête sur les réseaux sociaux menée sur le territoire de l’Observatoire de population de Niakhar (Niakhar Social Networks and Health Project). Ces données suggèrent que l’isolement se manifeste à travers l’incapacité à se maintenir dans le système d’assurance informelle et que l’expérience migratoire (migration de travail pour les hommes et matrimoniale pour les femmes) est un facteur explicatif des situations d’isolement, lorsqu’elle intervient dans certains contextes comme ceux de conflits familiaux et d’appauvrissement.
... Much attention has focused on the role of innovations, markets and property rights in improving productivity and income. Yet, markets rely on socioeconomic and political institutions that affect the economic performance of societies (e.g., Elster 1989;North 1990;Tilly 1990;Fafchamps 1992;Bicchieri 2006). In this context, efficient institutions can be defined as the ones that support economic and policy decisions that maximize aggregate income. ...
This paper explores the role of social rules in economic development. It reviews the historical evidence on social rules and their linkages with human capital. We present supporting evidence from the historical evolution of four important aspects of society: (1) improved dispute resolution mechanisms; (2) the elimination of debt bondage; (3) reductions in the severity of punishments; and (4) the development of limited liability rules and their linkages with the rise of the modern corporation. In each case, we evaluate how social rules have evolved to protect human capital and support economic development.
... Under these tight social norms, rice farmers develop systems of mutual monitoring and reputation, by which villagers continuously evaluate and pressure other villagers to catch up with the standards of the village. We theorize that rice farmers devoted more energy to self-monitoring, to managing their reputation in the community, and to keeping track of other people's reputations (Fafchamps, 1992). This fits with evidence that people from rice-farming areas of China are more vigilant toward other in-group members, like colleagues and classmates (S. ...
Wealthy nations led health preparedness rankings in 2019, yet many poor nations controlled COVID-19 better. We argue that a history of rice farming explains why some societies did better. We outline how traditional rice farming led to tight social norms and low-mobility social networks. These social structures helped coordinate societies against COVID-19. Study 1 compares rice- and wheat farming prefectures within China. Comparing within China allows for controlled comparisons of regions with the same national government, language family, and other potential confounds. Study 2 tests whether the findings generalize to cultures globally. The data show rice-farming nations have tighter social norms and less-mobile relationships, which predict better COVID outcomes. Rice-farming nations suffered just 3% of the COVID deaths of nonrice nations. These findings suggest that long-run cultural differences influence how rice societies—with over 50% of the world’s population—controlled COVID-19. The culture was critical, yet the preparedness rankings mostly ignored it.
... Rural societies are dependent on extended kinship ties-from biological bonds to 'fictive' relations of friendship and coparenthood (Eisenstadt 1965;Pitt-Rivers 1973)-which provide social security and support against any threat to survival. Patronage, in those social situations, would thus appear replacing state structures in social welfare and economic exchanges, providing assistance and protection but also allowing some instances of economic exploitation and dependence (see Foster 1961Foster , 1963Boissevain 1966;Blok 1969bBlok , 1974Powell 1970;Black-Michaud 1972;Alavi 1973;Flynn 1974;Hall 1974;Scott 1976Scott , 1977Rothstein 1979;Bodemann 1982;Fafchamps 1992;Guérin 2014). The historical processes leading to political modernization and the expansion of the capitalist market during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries however disrupted the traditional manifestation of patron-client relationships, especially in recent decades (e.g. ...
... His argument was soon criticized by Popkin (1979), who viewed the peasant society of Vietnam as the precapitalist village, and pointed out peasants' opportunistic behaviors. The theoretical discussions continued with attempts to view the peasants' communities within the context of precapitalism, and/or to explain solidarity as a necessity of social insurance under the extreme precariousness of life in primitive preindustrial societies (Fafchamps, 1992;Platteau 1991;Posner, 1980). However, such theoretical discussion without reflecting the actual rural reality has failed to capture the complex nature of rural society in the RRD, where their culture, natural environment, and sociopolitical conditions were uniquely formed historically. ...
This article tackles the challenge to understand rural Asia not from the perspective of the modern Asian economy but from the perspective of rural realities that people face under their rural living environment in connection with nature, local socio-economic, an culture, which exist in parallel with the well-known story of Asian economic growth. To do so, three dimensions are examined: 1) The overall picture of the current rural situation is captured along with observed “compressed development” (Whittaker et al., 2010) from the aspects of rural population behind the “urbanizing Asia,” which is often used to explain the dynamics of Asian economies, as well as the “aging Asia” (Park, Lee & Mason, 2012), recognized as a critical factor when thinking about Asian future economies. 2) To get a better understanding of the mindset of people living in rural areas of “compressed development,” the case of Vietnam, especially the rural community of the Red River Delta, is closely looked at to illustrate how pluri-active smallholders are strategically formulating their livelihood and income-generating economic activities. Then, to reexamine rural Asia, the discussion will be concluded from the viewpoint of peasants, looking at Asia as a whole to understand how people will confront the uncertain and uncertain future in light of possible diverse paths toward Asian rural futures.
... Under these tight social norms, rice farmers develop systems of mutual monitoring and reputation, by which villagers continuously evaluate and pressure other villagers to catch up with the standards of the village. We theorize that rice farmers devoted more energy to self-monitoring, to managing their reputation in the community, and to keeping track of other people's reputations (Fafchamps, 1992). This fits with evidence that people from rice-farming areas of China are more vigilant toward other in-group members, like colleagues and classmates (S. ...
Wealthy nations led health preparedness rankings in 2019, yet many poor nations controlled COVID-19 better. We argue that a history of rice farming explains why some societies did better. We outline how traditional rice farming led to tight social norms and low-mobility social networks. These social structures helped coordinate societies against COVID-19. Study 1 compares rice- and wheat-farming prefectures within China. Comparing within China allows for controlled comparisons of regions with the same national government, language family, and other potential confounds. Study 2 tests whether the findings generalize to cultures globally. The data show rice-farming nations have tighter social norms and less-mobile relationships, which predict better COVID outcomes. Rice-farming nations suffered just 3% of the COVID deaths of nonrice nations. These findings suggest that long-run cultural differences influence how rice societies—with over 50% of the world’s population—controlled COVID-19. The culture was critical, yet the preparedness rankings mostly ignored it.
... Small producer agriculture households along with urban households are net consumers of food (Demetriades and Esplen, 2008;Hertel et al., 2010;Poulton et al., 2010;Skoufias et al., 2011;Skoufias and Vinha, 2013); therefore the effects of price volatility affects agricultural producers. Higher risk may also result in less than optimal production and investment decisions as smallholders go back to a low-risk, low-return-based farming by reducing investments in technology and inputs (Antle and Crissman, 1990;Fafchamps, 1992;Sadoulet and De Janvry, 1995), further accentuating supply shock, especially in a scenario of increasing demand. ...
... One key reason is that the probate records were heavily slanted towards city-dwellers and upper-income groups, suggesting selection bias in the data (Russell 2012: 68-69). 4 For general theory considerations, the discussions provided byStiglitz (1989) andFafchamps (1992). Historically, similar claims of "cultural conservatism" have been advanced for nearly all ethnic groups. ...
A long-standing item of interest in Canadian economic history is the “agricultural crisis” that apparently plagued the large colony of Quebec during the first half of the nineteenth century. One particularly resilient explanation of the crisis claims that cultural conservatism made the colony’s French-Canadian population reluctant to embrace modern farming techniques developed in Britain and the US. This has been supported through comparisons with the English farmers in the colony. Using data from the census of Quebec in 1851, this paper shows that there was no such reluctance. French-Canadian farmers were no less likely to adopt “scientific” farming techniques than English-Canadian farmers in the region.
... His argument was soon criticized by Popkin (1979), who viewed the peasant society of Vietnam as the precapitalist village, and pointed out peasants' opportunistic behaviors. The theoretical discussions continued with attempts to view the peasants' communities within the context of precapitalism, and/or to explain solidarity as a necessity of social insurance under the extreme precariousness of life in primitive preindustrial societies (Fafchamps, 1992;Platteau 1991;Posner, 1980). However, such theoretical discussion without reflecting the actual rural reality has failed to capture the complex nature of rural society in the RRD, where their culture, natural environment, and sociopolitical conditions were uniquely formed historically. ...
... In Ghana, according to 2012-2013 data, approximately 225,000 tons of cocoa were ground in-country, while producing 835,000 tons of raw cocoa (compared to 460 k ground and 1445 k produced in Côte d'Ivoire) (ICCO, 2013); the volume in Ghana increased to 320 k tons in 2018-19 (Statista, 2020). Similarly, in 2012, approximately 60% of cocoa grinding was consolidated in three major companies in two countries: the United States (ADM, and Cargill) and Switzerland (Barry Callehut) (Euromonitor., 2012); since then, Cargill has purchased ADM, making it the leading raw cocoa grinder in the world (Cargill, 2015). ...
As a buzzword, sustainability has come to signal all good things in the world with respect to responsible stewardship of its people, our fellow species, and the tremendous generousness of the very Earth we all stand on—whether in the indigenous spirit of the phrase “leave it better than you found it” or in corporate and developmental decision-making’s adoption of a triple bottom-line that minimizes harm and maximizes benefits from any economic, social, and environmental activity. For private corporations and the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) trend, however, the shift toward finding any comparative or competitive advantage in decision-making for sustainability’s environmental and social bottom-lines has been slow if not just green washing. Moreover, within what progress has been made, the social pillar of sustainability has received the least amount of direct attention. It is often presumed to be addressed through economic proxies (like “improved livelihoods”). This chapter examines the discourse of corporate sustainability efforts for cocoa sourcing in Ghana through the social pillar of sustainability. Taking nothing away from the sincerity or insincerity of corporate sustainability efforts, this analysis reveals a disconnect of values, motivations, and benefits between corporate sustainability for now and local people’s sustainability in perpetuity that threatens the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) generally. Implications and recommendations are discussed as well.
... In Ghana, according to 2012Ghana, according to -2013,000 tons of cocoa were ground in-country, while producing 835,000 tons of raw cocoa (compared to 460 k ground and 1445 k produced in Côte d'Ivoire) (ICCO, 2013); the volume in Ghana increased to 320 k tons in 2018-19 (Statista, 2020). Similarly, in 2012, approximately 60% of cocoa grinding was consolidated in three major companies in two countries: the United States (ADM, and Cargill) and Switzerland (Barry Callehut) (Euromonitor., 2012); since then, Cargill has purchased ADM, making it the leading raw cocoa grinder in the world (Cargill, 2015). ...
Cocoa research is an extensive study, and more understandings regarding cocoa and its derivative products’ taste have been reported in the last 20 years. The focus of taste development in cocoa starts from the plant cultivars, farming, post-harvesting, fermentation, drying, roasting, blending, alkalization, and conching. The processes transform mucilaginous cocoa beans rich in sugar, fat, alkaloids, polyphenols, and minerals into a popular taste of chocolate. This article aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the origins, post-harvest processing, quality control, and flavor development of cocoa beans. Major cocoa flavor markers are theobromine, caffeine, catechin, epicatechin, and proanthocyanidins. However, cocoa flavor notes are built upon intricate combinations of amino acids, alcohols, phenols, volatile acids, esters, aldehydes, ketones, lactones, terpenoids, minerals, glycated and polymeric substances.KeywordsCocoa flavor markersFlavor developmentPost-harvest processingQuality control
... integrated livelihood and resilience activities (such as food assistance for assets and home-grown school feeding) can encourage farmers to re-engage in production and recover their livelihoods. In certain contexts, local and regional food procurement can also be a means of reducing tensions and establishing cooperation among communities in conflict (WFP, 2014a(WFP, , 2015Wiggins and Keats, 2013;Valencia, Wittman and Blesh, 2019;Onumah et al., 2007;Fafchamps, 1992). ...
The recognition of family farmers as social actors enables the creation of effective linkages between policies for rural poverty reduction and policies for market-oriented development – as is the case in Public Food Procurement programmes-. However, these programmes face challenges in terms of institutional development. This paper identifies some of the most relevant challenges and analyses institutional innovations that have been developed recently in Latin American and Caribbean countries to tackle them.
... 45 In such a community, each household can get signals about other household's income or wealth and can work together so that they can establish regular contact to enforce an informal implementation mechanism by creating trust, a necessary element that determines the success or failure of any informal social insurance within networks. Such a closely-knitted community would be able to lower the transaction costs by creating trust (Jarillo 1990), prevent moral hazard and incentive-related problems and solve the Pareto optimal planning problem for the community where households pool their resources and insure each other using informal mechanisms if they are allowed to interact for a long period of time (Fafchamps 1992). Such informal insurance system may take a varieties of forms, such as, interest free loans, exchange of labor, rent free access to cultivating land, grain transfers in times of need, etc., (as in Plattaeu 1991). ...
Poverty alleviation has become one of the main global agendas of the twenty first
century, but the identification and targeting of the poor is facing fundamental problems
due to the lack of required information. We utilize the micro-level estimation technique
to estimate household expenditure for the census households using Nepalese household
surveys, and estimate different measures of poverty and inequality at the national level as
well as at the regional, districts and village levels, and for the different caste/ethnic
groups. Our findings indicate that the reduction in poverty during 1995/96 – 2003/04 is
not uniform across the villages of Nepal, and the level of poverty actually went up in a
significant part of the country. The intensity of inequality went up significantly during the
study period, where enterprise income and remittances contributed the most.
Using public choice theory of conflict, we test the effect of inequality and poverty
on the intensity of Nepal’s conflicts due to the Maoist’s People’s War. We take into
account the heterogeneity among the districts of Nepal and hierarchical nature of the data
7
by introducing multi-level models. The increased poverty accompanied by the
accelerating inequality throughout the country has compounded the divide between the
haves and the have-nots and provided a suitable atmosphere for the conflict. The results
show that higher inequality and poverty escalate the deadly violence while the presence
of social network and the government welfare programs reduces it. An economic
variable, such as employment, however, has no effect on the level of conflict indicating
that Nepal’s conflict is rooted in the age-old grievances and inequality.
Finally, we test the implication of the full consumption insurance hypotheses in
the presence of violent conflict that household consumption should not be affected by the
idiosyncratic shocks. We find that food consumption suffers the most from the violence
related shocks. The level of food consumption vulnerability is more pronounced for the
households with low levels of education and income, but the socially disadvantaged
caste/ethnicity is not appeared as a significant factor of food-consumption vulnerability.
... integrated livelihood and resilience activities (such as food assistance for assets and home-grown school feeding) can encourage farmers to re-engage in production and recover their livelihoods. In certain contexts, local and regional food procurement can also be a means of reducing tensions and establishing cooperation among communities in conflict (WFP, 2014a(WFP, , 2015Wiggins and Keats, 2013;Valencia, Wittman and Blesh, 2019;Onumah et al., 2007;Fafchamps, 1992). ...
... Let us now consider the asymmetry of position between the solicitee and solicitor: 15For instance, this kind of mutual informal arrangements scheme is self-enforced in the framework of people's interactions allowing reputational effects that prevent free-riding temptation (Platteau, 2000, p. 192). Agents play such repeated games of indeterminate or infinite duration where cooperation appears as a sustained equilibrium (Coate & Ravallion, 1993;Fafchamps, 1992;Kimball, 1988 on relatively wealthy agents. In fact, as stated above, needy people rely on those they "believe" are more better-off than they are. ...
This dissertation explores solidarity arrangements inherent in developing countries, where financial markets and formal social protection are lacking. Its main objective is to understand better two informal solidarity mechanisms, which represent significant habits for some households. This dissertation, therefore, focuses on informal transfers and child fostering. Specifically, it addresses issues of redistributive pressure and the treatment of foster children in their host households. It is a collection of three essays indevelopment economics. The first chapter aims to advance the understanding of economic research on redistributive pressure by proposing a conceptual framework that provides new tools for measuring such pressure. The second chapter assesses the financial cost of this redistributive pressure for households and its micro-economic correlates using recent household survey data from Côte d’Ivoire. Finally, the third chapter tests the consumption equality hypothesis between foster children and their host siblings using representative data from Côte d’Ivoire.
... integrated livelihood and resilience activities (such as food assistance for assets and home-grown school feeding) can encourage farmers to re-engage in production and recover their livelihoods. In certain contexts, local and regional food procurement can also be a means of reducing tensions and establishing cooperation among communities in conflict (WFP, 2014a(WFP, , 2015Wiggins and Keats, 2013;Valencia, Wittman and Blesh, 2019;Onumah et al., 2007;Fafchamps, 1992). ...
The multiple potential benefits of using the public procurement of food for schools as an instrument to support agricultural production by local smallholders – or home-grown school feeding programmes (HGSF) − are widely recognized. However, many countries still face various challenges related to the implementation of such programmes. Of particular prominence here are challenges related to the alignment of the programmes with regulatory frameworks for public procurement. Nevertheless, the debate about the role of public procurement regulatory frameworks in the design and implementation of HGSF programmes is poorly represented in the development literature, especially in contexts of developing countries. This chapter aims to contribute to this debate. It combines a discussion of the experience of Ethiopia with an analysis of the challenges created by public procurement rules and practices for the implementation and scaling up of existing HGSF initiatives.
... integrated livelihood and resilience activities (such as food assistance for assets and home-grown school feeding) can encourage farmers to re-engage in production and recover their livelihoods. In certain contexts, local and regional food procurement can also be a means of reducing tensions and establishing cooperation among communities in conflict (WFP, 2014a(WFP, , 2015Wiggins and Keats, 2013;Valencia, Wittman and Blesh, 2019;Onumah et al., 2007;Fafchamps, 1992). ...
Sustainable Public Food Procurement (PFP) represents a key game changer for food systems transformation. It can influence both food consumption and food production patterns. It can deliver multiple social, economic and environmental benefits towards sustainable food systems for healthy diets. This publication aims to contribute to the improved understanding, dissemination and use of PFP as a development tool in particular in the case of school meals programmes. Volume 2 of this publication,
presents further analysis of the instruments, enablers and barriers for PFP implementation. It also provides case studies with local, regional and national experiences from Africa, Asia, Europe and North and South America.
... In the case of ISSNs, they are common but do not provide a buffer against weather shocks. This is not surprising, as households in geographically proximate ISSNs may be placed under similar stress by covariate weather shocks and cannot respond to the assistance needs of other households (Fafchamps 1992;Ligon et al. 2002). For FSSNs, our data suggests FSSN programme coverage is weak in the rural areas of Niger and are not used to buffer weather shocks. ...
Weather is an important determinant of household well-being in rural Sub-Saharan Africa. This paper explores the relationship between novel measures of cropping-season weather conditions and household food consumption in rural Niger, and how household coping mechanisms mediate that relationship. We employ a panel logit model to show that the normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI) and extreme heat degree day (EHDD) measures are associated with subjective self-reporting of drought in a panel dataset of 2 264 households. We then show, with a household fixed-effects panel model, that low NDVI and high EHDD measures are associated with significant decreases in household per capita food consumption. Household coping strategies, such as the disbursement of savings, temporary migration of a family member, and the adoption of heat-resistant agricultural technologies, are found to partially mitigate, but not fully alleviate, the negative effects of weather shocks on consumption. More comprehensive coping mechanisms are needed to improve household resilience to weather shocks.
The aim of the study was to analyse the role of savings groups in promoting the resilience of rural semi-arid regions’ women to drought in Zimbabwe using the Umzingwane district as a case study. The study adopted an exploratory research design as a result a qualitative research method was used. Data was collected using interviews which were administered to savings group members and committee members of savings groups. Purposive sampling technique was adopted. The study revealed that saving groups have been providing adequate loans to members to mitigate the effects of drought except during strict COVID-19-induced lockdown (March to June 2020). The study also found that a savings group in partnership with a non-governmental organisation established a gardening scheme that had solar-powered borehole and drip irrigation. This enabled the members to plant crops throughout the year and have access to water leading to the reduction in distance travelled to access water. The study revealed that training and social networks in savings groups have helped the members with skills and ideas to deal with the effects of disasters such as drought. The study recommended that development partners such as the government and NGOs should ride on savings groups when bringing drought mitigation initiatives to the communities. Savings groups should have access to formal financial products to strengthen resilience to disasters such as drought.
Food systems—and the interplay between food production, marketisation and access—are constituent elements of the social reproduction of life. Using a social reproduction framework, this paper problematises the ontological, epistemological and methodological premises of food system studies in agrarian change. Based on primary data collected during multiple rounds of fieldwork in rural Uzbekistan and adopting mixed methods, it offers a triple contribution. First, it assesses the inequalities of food security and dietary diversity among different classes of farmers and agrarian wage workers. Along these lines, it argues that individualised food security indicators do not unveil the systemic determinants that explain unequal patterns of social reproduction through nutrition during processes of agrarian marketisation. To move beyond individual‐based theorisations, it extends the investigation to state policies, market drivers and gender norms in relation to food knowledge, provision, affordability and availability. In so doing, it unpacks the contradictions that explain the uneven conditions of social reproduction of (and through) food. Finally, by investigating the modalities of access and availability of ultra‐processed food in rural areas, it reflects on the tensions between the capitalist global food system and its interaction with the logics of state‐led development to maintain the social reproduction of rural life.
This paper examines the impact of ultraviolet radiation (UV‐R) on state capacity. The results indicate that the intensity of UV‐R is a strong predictor of cross‐country differences in state capacity. Countries with a higher degree of UV‐R exposure tend on average to have weaker states. This finding remains unaffected after controlling for different variables that may be correlated with both UV‐R and state capacity, including an extensive set of geographical, historical and contemporary factors. The observed link between sunlight and state capacity is not driven by potential outliers and is robust to the employment of alternative measures of state capacity, estimation methods and other sensitivity checks. Furthermore, the analysis also reveals that the individualistic–collectivist dimension of culture acts as a transmission channel connecting UV‐R and state capacity. The estimates show that a lower degree of UV‐R exposure leads to the adoption of individualistic values, which in turn contribute to the development of state capacity.
Although flooding is well-thought-out as one of the deadliest natural disasters, there is scarce evidence on how such an environmental shock affect energy poverty prevelence in a developing country context amidst the implementation of disaster risk management strategies. Using the Disaster Poverty Household Survey in Tanzania’s capital Dar es Salaam, we examine the effect of flooding on multidimensional energy poverty while estimating the moderation effects of non-structural ex-ante risk management strategies. After employing a myriad of robust methods, we observe that flooding increases energy poverty prevalence by about 32 %. The mediation analysis shows that income reduction serves as a pathway through which flooding affects energy poverty. Furthermore, estimates from the interaction analysis reveal how effective fiscal non-structural ex-ante risk management methods are in reducing the incidence of energy poverty among flood victims. However, the defense strategies were noted to be inefficient. These results provide policymakers with the necessary tools to create policies that address energy-related needs in areas affected by natural disasters, especially in developing countries.
Humans form and maintain friendships across long distances, which can provide access to non-local resources and support against large shocks that affect the entire local community. However, there may be a greater risk of defection in long-distance friendships, as monitoring for defection is more difficult at greater distances; accordingly, help between long-distance friends may be more explicitly contingent than between close-distance friends. We interviewed 918 participants from 21 fishing villages in Tanzania about whether they had received help in the form of a gift or loan from a friend living in their village and a friend living in a neighboring village. As there are local expectations that loans will be repaid but gifts will not, we predicted that close-distance friends would be more likely to help with gifts, whereas long-distance friends would be more likely to help with loans. Contrary to our predictions, gifts and loans between close- and long-distance friends were similar in kind and amount, though close-distance friends provided help more frequently, possibly because close-distance friends are more likely to meet frequently and belong to the same religious congregation. These results indicate that long-distance friendships are an important, and likely robust, strategy for managing risk and accessing more resources.
The article discusses the use of network partnership in the process of interaction between the consultant and the client in the framework of the search, the client’s receipt of investments and further project support. Traditionally, the process of interaction between the client and the consultant is presented in such a way that only these two parties are the main participants in the consultation process. The article discusses the experience of building a multidisciplinary complex consulting process, in which many participants are involved. This experience is based on the practice of the Business Angels of Russia network community. This article analyses the practice of mainly small consulting organisations that are very different from large ones and provide significantly more customised services. The consulting related to investing funds in the client’s business is in the author’s focus. At the same time, only clients belonging to small and medium-sized enterprises naturally stand out in the work. As a rule, they do not seek advice from wellknown and renowned brands in the field of consulting services. As a rule, they do not have enough money for their services, and large consulting firms themselves choose mainly large clients to work with.
Marriage can provide protection (in various forms) to women but also comes with vulnerabilities. How much so will depend on the context. Marriage and marital shocks are both common in Sub-Saharan Africa, but the institutions relevant to women’s security vary within the region. The paper investigates whether women who have never married or have suffered a marital rupture have worse nutritional status relative to married women in their first union. Conditional means for women’s nutritional status are compared by marital status across 20 countries. Overall, the results indicate significantly lower nutritional status for Africa’s widowed and divorced women between ages 15 and 49. This is generally found to be the case with country and household fixed effects and controls for HIV status. However, looking at country-specific results underlines that disadvantage is by no means universal. Once one controls for likely confounders, a few countries stand out as places where women are especially vulnerable to marital shocks, notably Ethiopia, Rwanda, Swaziland and Zambia. This is the first study to systematically investigate the individual welfare consequences of marital dissolution for women in Africa, and to assess how widespread and generalizable the events and outcomes noted in the existing literature are within and across countries.
Unpaid care work and working in the informal sector have restricted women’s access to finance. These money restrictions are partly because of cultural barriers framing gender roles and institutions structured towards a service economy that is representative of women. Also, the market’s emphasis on minimum state intervention and freedom of trade and capital has steered redistribution away from addressing gender-related socioeconomic inequalities. Redistribution has instead been fostered to stimulate the growth of private markets and provide entrepreneurs with a path for socio-economic mobility. It has created gendered wealth and income asymmetries and deepened gender inequalities in accessing finance. Can fintech, arguably the next iteration of development models, bridge this inequality gap? Should tax justice continue to be construed from a public finance perspective where taxes collected are not always used to provide commensurate public benefits to citizens? Or can tax justice be purposively construed to include religious tax practises inspired by an exogenous, religiously inspired fiscal system, for example, Islam? Relatedly, can Muslim non-state actors also be subservient to the exogenous Islamic fiscal system and facilitate redistribution using the available religious funds transmitted through fintech? Redistributive taking under the Islamic fiscal system as part of the collective consciousness of the Muslim community should be analysed as part of the conceptual framework that explains what tax justice means. This paper attempts to explore how the concept of redistribution can be examined using the Islamic wealth tax. It will explain how a faith-based organisation in Nairobi uses the Islamic wealth tax to meet the development needs of women looking for financial access to improve their economic well-being.
Why are some communities better than others at generating cooperative behavior? We argue that mutual dependence on collective social institutions (CSI) increases expectations of cooperation, a key building block for collective action. We examine the effects of mutual dependence by studying property rights institutions in rural Malawi and Zambia. We find that respondents expect their neighbors with customary property rights to be more cooperative than those with land titles – a situation of lower shared dependence on the CSI. A conjoint survey experiment with more than 7,000 respondents allows us to separate the impact of mutual dependence within the CSI from other salient characteristics, including migration status, wealth and ethnicity. Additionally, we explore three forms of institutional obligations that help explain why reduced mutual dependence dampens expectations of cooperation. These findings provide a richer theoretical understanding of the pre-conditions for cooperative behavior and the interdependence that sustains collective action.
This paper explores spending zakat to support the financial improvement of women from low-or no-income households. It assesses the feasibility of remitting zakat over the m-pesa platform. M-pesa is a Kenyan mobile banking app that allows subscribers to send and receive money through their mobile phones without the use of the internet. The theory underpinning the paper's analysis on the use of zakat to support the economic improvement of women is based on tax justice and social extraction. Taken together these theories suggest that redistribution can also be facilitated by non-state actors who apply their own norms in regulating how to spend their collective revenue towards improving lives. As such, the paper therefore, starts the discussion by highlighting the need for redistribution using taxes, extends the conception of conventional tax to include zakat and justifies this position by interrogating whether the Kenyan fiscal space and its constitution can recognise zakat as part of tax system that supports the state to promote social and economic wellbeing. Whether zakat contributes to the social and economic improvement of people is examined by inquiring into a specific case study of Mama Riziki. The paper employs the discursive approach and is based on a mixed methods approach. The findings reveal that zakat based conscious financing can improve livelihoods at a household level.
Private income transfers are becoming increasingly recognized as a key aspect of the U.S. economy. The majority of private income transfers occur inter vivos (i.e., between living persons), but very little is known about this type of transfer behavior. This paper tests alternative hypotheses concerning motivation for inter vivos transfers. Two motives are considered: altruism and exchange. Evidence presented here casts doubt on the altruistic model of transfer behavior. Observed patterns for inter vivos transfers are more consistent with exchange-related motives. This finding has important implications for the effects of public transfer programs on the distribution of economic well-being. Copyright 1987 by University of Chicago Press.
This paper investigates pure strategy sequential equilibria of repeated games with imperfect monitoring. The approach emphasizes the equilibrium value set and the static optimization problems embedded in extremal equilibria. A succession of propositions, central among which is "self-generation," allow properties of constrained efficient supergame equilibria to be deduced from the solutions of the static problems. The authors show that the latter include solutions having a "bang-bang" property; this affords a significant simplification of the equilibria that need be considered. These results apply to a broad class of asymmetric games, thereby generalizing their earlier work on optimal cartel equilibria. Copyright 1990 by The Econometric Society.
Corruption in the public sector erodes tax compliance and leads to higher tax evasion. Moreover, corrupt public officials abuse their public power to extort bribes from the private agents. In both types of interaction with the public sector, the private agents are bound to face uncertainty with respect to their disposable incomes. To analyse effects of this uncertainty, a stochastic dynamic growth model with the public sector is examined. It is shown that deterministic excessive red tape and corruption deteriorate the growth potential through income redistribution and public sector inefficiencies. Most importantly, it is demonstrated that the increase in corruption via higher uncertainty exerts adverse effects on capital accumulation, thus leading to lower growth rates.
Sufficient conditions are given for a general n person game to have a nonempty core. The conditions are a consequence of convexity of preferences if the game arises from an exchange economy. The proof of sufficiency is based on a finite algorithm, and makes no use of fixed point theorems.
The analytical and empirical foundations of the moral-economy and rationalchoice approaches to peasant behavior are critically examined. Normative decisionmaking models are compared to models that assume household utility maximization. Differences between collective and individual rationality are highlighted. The importance and implications of risk aversion are explored. The effect of the introduction of markets on the economic security of peasant producers is considered, and evidence from Southeast Asian economic history is used to test the implications of both approaches. The results serve to challenge and qualify the arguments put forth by the moral economists on both analytical and empirical grounds.
In agrarian village societies beset with many hazards and uncertainties, people evolve various means of coping with risk. What is perhaps less known is that credit transactions can sometimes serve the function of reducing risk in such societies. This article is concerned with examining several insurance‐motivated credit arrangements in small‐scale fishing communities. A hunger insurance mechanism of ‘reciprocal credit’ and a system of interlinked contracts aimed at insuring against risks in the spheres of labour and marketing relations will be extensively dealt with. Moreover, the concept of ‘triadic’ relationships will be shown to have special relevance in the case of traditional insurance arrangements aiming at controlling problems of ‘moral hazard’.
In Bernheim, Peleg, and Whinston (“Coalition-Proof Equilibria. I. Concepts,” J. Econ. Theory42 (1987), 1–12), we proposed the notion of Coalition-Proof Nash equilibrium and Perfectly Coalition-Proof Nash equilibrium as solution concepts for strategic environments in which players can freely discuss their strategies, but cannot make binding commitments. This paper undertakes applications to several economic problems, including the behavior of Cournot oligopolists, oligopolistic entry deterrence, cooperation in finite horizon games, and social choice rule implementation.
There exist optimal symmetric equilibria in the Green-Porter model [4, 8] having an elementary intertemporal structure. Such an equilibrium is described entirely by two subsets of price space and two quantities, the only production levels used by firms in any contingency. The central technique employed in the analysis is the reduction of the repeated game to a family of static games.
In an important class of “noncooperative” environments, it is natural to assume that players can freely discuss their strategies, but cannot make binding commitments. In such cases, any meaningful agreement between the players must be self-enforcing. Although the Nash best-response property is a necessary condition for self-enforceability, it is not sufficient—it is in general possible for coalitions arrange plausible, mutually beneficial deviations from Nash agreements. We provide a stronger definition of self-enforceability, and label the class of efficient self-enforcing agreements “coalition-proof.”
The paper shows that if the performance of hired farmhands is affected by supervision from family members, and if the availability of credit is dependent on the amount of land owned, then a systematic (positive or negative) relationship between per-acre yields and farm size will prevail. A model with no supervision effects on labor productivity would predict that yields are unaffected by farm size. The paper also investigates the relation between land utilization and owned holding size when land rental possibilities are limited. Results are shown to be compatible with various observed patterns in LDCs.
This paper is concerned with exploring the role of the household as a risk-mitigating institution in low-income rural settings, with particular attention to the relationship between the structure of households and ex post income (consumption) smoothing. Aside from the family's pre-eminent role in determining population growth and human capital investment, two key development factors, the ties of common experience, altruism and heritage among family members enable families to transcend some of the information problems barring the development of impersonal markets, a salient characteristic of low-income environments.
Offers possible explanations for observed behaviour in the land-abundant tropics where agriculture is a mixture of cropping and livestock management, and draws on economic theory to hypothesize likely changes in behaviour in the face of institutional change. Focuses on the role of transactions in the economy, suggesting that the current agricultural problems of the semiarid tropics are at least partially attributable to a restricted domain for transacting. -after Author
We use two rounds of surveys, taken in 2000 and 2008 in the Zhili Township children's garment cluster in Zhejiang Province, to examine in depth the evolution of this industrial cluster. Firm size has grown on average in terms of output and employment, and increasing divergence in firm sizes has been associated with a significant rise in specialization and outsourcing among firms in the cluster. Although the investment amount needed to start a business has more than tripled, this amount remains low enough that formal bank loans remain an insignificant source of finance. Because of low entry barriers, the number of firms in the cluster has risen, driving down profits and bidding up wages, particularly since the year 2000. Facing severe competition, more firms have begun to upgrade their product quality. By the year 2007, nearly half of the sampled firms had established registered trademarks and nearly 20 percent had become International Office of Standardization (ISO) certified.
Private transfer payments are modeled as outcomes of a constrained social choice pro blem facing donors. The approach is applied to a large household leve l data set for Java and hypotheses are tested concerning the performa nce of the "moral economy" as a social security system. Transfer be havior is found to be very different between rural and urban areas. W hile transfer receipts and outlays are income inequality reducing in rural areas, this is not the case in urban areas. There is also evidence of transfers being targeted to disadvantaged households such as the sick, elderly, and (for urban areas) the unemployed. Copyright 1988 by MIT Press.
This article studies moral hazard with many agents. The focus is on two features that are novel in a multiagent setting: free riding and competition. The free-rider problem implies a new role for the principal: administering incentive schemes that do not balance the budget. This new role is essential for controlling incentives and suggests that firms in which ownership and labor are partly separated will have an advantage over partnerships in which output is distributed among agents. A new characterization of informative (hence valuable) monitoring is derived and applied to analyze the value of relative performance evaluation. It is shown that competition among agents (due to relative evaluations) has merit solely as a device to extract information optimally. Competition per se is worthless. The role of aggregate measures in relative performance evaluation is also explored, and the implications for investment rules are discussed.
Discusses the equilibrium in supergames with evaluation relations determined according to overtaking criterion. Differences between the situation of players undertaking to play a single game, and players who know that they will play the same game repeatedly in the future; Influence of the power of the threats on the existence of equilibrium points.
In repeated games, subgame-perfect equilibria involving threats of punishment may be implausible if punishing one player hurts the other(s). If players can renegotiate after a defection, such a punishment may not be carried out. We explore a solution concept that recognizes this fact, and show that in many games the prospect of renegotiation strictly limits the cooperative outcomes that can be sustained. We characterize those outcomes in general, and in the prisoner's dilemma, Cournot and Bertrand duopolies, and an advertising game in particular.
In a repeated partnership game with imperfect monitoring, the authors distinguish among the effects of (1) reducing the interest rate, (2) shortening the period over which actions are held fixed, and (3) shortening the lag with which accumulated information is reported. All three changes are equivalent in games with perfect monitoring. With imperfect monitoring, reducing the interest rate always increases the possibilities for cooperation, but the other two changes always have the reverse effect when the interest rate is small. Copyright 1991 by The Econometric Society.
We study subgame perfect equilibria of finitely repeated games. We prove a limit "folk theorem" for these games. Under weak conditions, any feasible and individually rational payoff vector of the one-shot game can be approximated by the average payoff in a perfect equilibrium of a repeated game with a sufficiently long horizon.
This paper presents a systematic framework for studying infinitely repeated games with discounting, focussing on pure strategy (subgame) perfect equilibria. It introduces a number of concepts which organize the theory in a natural way. These include the idea of an optimal penal code, and the related notions of simple penal codes and simple strategy profiles. I view a strategy profile as a rule specifying an initial path (i.e., an infinite stream of one-period action profiles), and punishments (also paths, and hence infinite streams) for any deviations from the initial path, or from a previously prescribed punishment. An arbitrary strategy profile may involve an infinity of punishments and complex history-dependent prescriptions. The main result of this paper is that much of this potential strategic complexity is redundant: every perfect equilibrium path is the outcome of some perfect simple strategy profile. A simple strategy profile is independent of history in the following strong sense: it specifies the same player specific punishment after any deviation by a particular player. Thus simple strategy profiles have a parsimonious description in terms of (n+1) paths where n is the number of players. Unlike the undiscounted case there is no need to "make the punishment fit the crime." In particular, a player who has a "myopic" incentive to deviate from his own punishment may be deterred from doing so simply by restarting the punishment already in effect. The key to the above result is that, with discounting, worst perfect equilibria exist for each player. These define an optimal penal code. The notion of a simple penal code yields an elementary proof of the existence of an optimal penal code and leads directly to the theorem on the "sufficiency" of simple strategy profiles.
At least from the time of Ricardo, economists have begun their investigations of how competitive markets work, how wages, rents and prices are determined, by a detailed examination of agriculture. Even today, agriculture is taken as the paradigm-and perhaps almost the only important example-of a truly competitive market (or at least this was the case until the widespread government intervention in this market). For a number of years I have been concerned with how competitive markets handle risk taking, and how risk affects real resource allocation. Risks in agriculture are clearly tremendously important, yet remarkably the traditional theoretical literature has avoided explicit treatment 3 of risk sharing in agricultural environments. The consequences of this are important. First, it makes suspect the traditional conclusions regarding sharecropping. Is it really true that sharecropping results in too low a supply of labour, because workers equate their share of output times the (value of the) marginal productivity of labour to the marginal disutility of work, whereas Pareto optimality requires the (value of the) marginal productivity of labour be equal to the marginal disutility of work? Or is it true, as Wicksell asserted, that there is no distincion between landlords hiring labour or labour renting land? Second, it leaves unanswered many of the important economic questions. How is the equilibrium share determined? Why have some economies (in the past or at present) used one distribution system, other economies used others? Our object is to formulate a simple general equilibrium model of a competitive agricultural economy. (Other general equilibrium models of competitive economies with uncertainty have been formulated by Arrow [2] and Debreu [9], Diamond [10], and Stiglitz [14]. Each of these has its serious limitations in describing the workings of the modern capitalist economy. (See Stiglitz [15]).) The model is of interest not only for extending our understanding of these simple economies but also in gaining some insight into the far more complex phenomena of shareholding in modern corporations. Our focus is on the risk sharing and incentive properties of alternative distribution systems. The analysis is divided into two parts. In the first, the amount of labour (effort) supplied by an individual is given, and the analysis focuses on the risk sharing aspects of