Ukraine is renowned as the breadbasket
of Europe thanks to its black soils ( Chernozem black
because of the high organic matter content) which offer
exceptional agronomic conditions. One-third of the worldwide
stock of the fertile black soils, which cover more than half
of Ukraine s arable land, a large variety of climatic zones,
and favourable temperature and moisture regimes, offers
attractive conditions for the production of a large range of

Benin has made substantial progress over
the past decade in reinforcing macroeconomic stability,
which has laid the foundation for modest but accelerating
growth. After averaging less than 3.7 percent from
2007-2011, GDP growth rose to 5.4 percent in 2012 and
reached 5.6 percent in 2013. Growth is expected to remain
strong at 5.5 percent in 2014. Benin s enhanced growth
performance has been supported by ongoing efficiency

Is Africa's rural economy
transforming as its economies grow? This paper uses
comparable income aggregates from 41 national household
surveys from 22 countries to explore the extent of income
diversification among rural households in Sub-Saharan
Africa, and to look at how income diversification in
Sub-Saharan Africa compares with other regions, taking into
account differences in levels of development. The paper also

This paper studies the credit market
implications and real effects of one the largest borrower
bailout programs in history, enacted by the government of
India against the backdrop of the 2008-2009 financial
crisis. The study finds that the stimulus program had no
effect on productivity, wages, or consumption, but led to
significant changes in credit allocation and an increase in
defaults. Post-program loan performance declines faster in

This paper investigates the impact of
land tenure insecurity on the migration decisions of
China's rural residents. A simple model first frames
the relationship among these variables and the probability
that a reallocation of land will occur in the following
year. After first demonstrating that a village leader's
support for administrative land reallocation carries with it
the risk of losing a future election, the paper exploits

Although a large literature discusses
the productivity effects of land fragmentation, measurement
and potential endogeneity issues are often overlooked. This
paper uses several measures of fragmentation and controls
for endogeneity and crop choice by looking at inherited
paddy and wheat plots to show that these issues matter
empirically. While crop choice can mitigate effects,
fragmentation as measured by the Simpson index increases

This paper examines the determinants of
agricultural productivity and its link to poverty using
nationally representative data from the Nigeria General
Household Survey Panel, 2010/11. The findings indicate an
elasticity of poverty reduction with respect to agricultural
productivity of between 0.25 to 0.3 percent, implying that a
10 percent increase in agricultural productivity will
decrease the likelihood of being poor by between 2.5 and 3

In many developing countries,
consumption of animal source foods among the poor is still
at a level where increasing its share in total caloric
intake may have many positive nutritional benefits. This
paper explores whether ownership of various livestock
species increases consumption of animal source foods and
helps improve child nutritional status. The paper finds some
evidence that food consumption patterns and nutritional

Economists have either avoided or
struggled with the concept of culture and its role in
economic development. Although a few theoretical works --
and even fewer empirical studies -- have appeared in the
past decades, this paper tries to build on a
multidisciplinary approach to review the evidence on whether
and how culture matters for development. First, the paper
reviews available definitions of culture and illustrates

In Africa, where most agriculture is rainfed, crop growth is limited by water availability. Rainfall variability during a growing season generally translates into variability in crop production. While the seasonality of rainfall in the drier rangelands can play a significant role in productivity, rain-use efficiency (RUE)—the amount of biomass produced (in kilograms of dry matter per hectare) per millimeter of rainfall—also drives production.

This issue of the Research digest
newsletter contains the following topics of interest: how to
move the exchange rate if you must; focus - urbanization and
poverty reduction; Turkey's export boom in the 2000s;
social protection, poverty, and the post-2015 agenda;
village India: the growing importance of the nonfarm sector;
incentive audits: a new tool for preventing financial
crises?; and, biodiversity and national accounting.

This paper investigates the
effectiveness of protected areas in slowing tropical forest
clearing in 64 countries in Asia/Pacific, Africa, and Latin
America for the period 2001-2012. The investigation compares
deforestation rates inside and within 10 kilometers outside
the boundary of protected areas. Annual time series of these
deforestation rates were constructed from recently published
high-resolution data on forest clearing. For 4,028 parks,