The Philippines already experiences and
will continue to face impacts from climate change. In the
decades ahead, the most serious consequences will be felt in
coastal and urban areas. Severe hardships are expected in
agriculture and fisheries, leading to negative impacts on
jobs and the economy. With these risks in mind the
Philippine Government has initiated significant climate
reforms, establishing a basis for transformation. To assess

With farms cultivating tens or hundreds
of thousands of hectares, Ukraine is often used to
demonstrate the existence of economies of scale in modern
grain production. Panel data analysis for all the
country's farms with more than 200 hectares in
2001-2011 suggests that higher yields and profits are due to
unobserved factors at rayon (district) and farm level rather
than economies of scale. Productivity growth was driven not

This basic Agriculture Public
Expenditure Review (AgPER) documents and analyzes
information on the volume and structure of Liberia's
past public expenditure on the agriculture sector and draws
conclusions that can provide an orientation for future
policies in view of the effectiveness of spending. The
AgPER's focus is on the sectors of agriculture,
including crops, fisheries, and forestry, in line with the

Public knowledge about India's
ambitious Employment Guarantee Scheme is low in one of
India's poorest states, Bihar, where participation is
also unusually low. Is the solution simply to tell people
their rights? Or does their lack of knowledge reflect deeper
problems of poor people's agency and an unresponsive
supply side? This paper reports on an information campaign
that was designed and implemented in the form of an

Ghana, like many other African
countries, had made a commitment in 2003 to allocate at
least ten percent of their national budgetary resources to
develop the agricultural sector by 2008, following the
adoption of the Comprehensive African Agriculture
Development Programme (CAADP), with an aim towards realizing
food security and poverty reduction. This Agriculture Public
Expenditure Review (AgPER) for Ghana analyzes data on public

Agricultural production is inextricably tied to climate, making agriculture one of the most climate-sensitive of all economic sectors. In countries such as the Former Yugoslav Republic (FYR) of Macedonia, the risks of climate change for the agricultural sector are a particularly immediate and important problem because the majority of the rural population depends either directly or indirectly on agriculture for their livelihoods.

In societies with widespread gender
discrimination, development programs that encourage female
participation in local governance can potentially redress
gender imbalances in economic, political, and social
outcomes. Using a randomized field experiment encompassing
500 Afghan villages, this study finds that a development
program which incorporates mandated female participation
increases female mobility and involvement in income

Diversification into high-value cash
crops among smallholders has been propagated as a strategy
to improve welfare in rural areas. However, the extent to
which cash crop production spurs projected gains remains an
under-researched question, especially in the context of
market imperfections leading to non-separable production and
consumption decisions, and price shocks to staple crops that
might be displaced on the farm by cash crops. This study is

Niger, owing to its climatic,
institutional, livelihood, economic, and environmental
context, is one of the most vulnerable countries of the
world. Poverty is pervasive in Niger and it ranks low on
almost all the human development indicators. Agriculture is
the most important sector of Niger's economy and
accounts for over 40 percent of national gross domestic
product (GDP) and is the principle source of livelihood for

In the standard model of corruption, the
rich are more likely to pay bribes for their children's
education, reflecting higher ability to pay. This prediction
is, however, driven by the assumption that the probability
of punishment for bribe-taking is invariant across
households. In many developing countries lacking in rule of
law, this assumption is untenable, because the enforcement
of law is not impersonal or unbiased and the poor have

This paper addresses whether microcredit
participants in Bangladesh are trapped in poverty and debt,
as many critics have argued in recent years. Analysis of
data from a long panel survey over a 20-year period confirms
this is not the case, although numerous participants have
been with microcredit programs for many years. The results
of the analysis suggest that participants derive a variety
of benefits from microcredit: It helps them to earn income

Agriculture plays an important role in
the state of Santa Catarina, Brazil. Most of its production
depends on small family-owned farms, which are greatly
exposed to climatic and price shocks. In order to help small
farmers to manage risks, the federal and state governments
have been carrying out several programs and measures to
reduce and transfer agricultural risks. Santa Catarina ranks
seventh out of 26 Brazilian states in terms of agricultural