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Lam, David

Labour force withdrawal of the elderly in South Africa
February 2004
David Lam, Murray Leibbrandt and Vimal Ranchhod
The elderly in South Africa face a complex set of challenges. South Africans over age 50 spent most of their lives under apartheid. Levels of inequality in education between races and within races are far greater among these older cohorts than they are for younger South Africans. Elderly black South Africans lived their most productive years under the restrictions on employment, residency, and other opportunities that apartheid imposed. As they now enter retirement they face new pressures caused by the impact that HIV/AIDS and high unemployment rates are having on the next generation. At the same time, South Africa’s elderly have access to an old age pension system that is among the most generous in the developing world. The old age pension helps lift many older South Africans out of the most extreme forms of poverty, and puts many of them in a position supporting their children and grandchildren. Decisions of the elderly about work and retirement are made in this complex set of circumstances. Older workers face an increasingly competitive labor market characterized by high unemployment, with limited opportunities for those with poor education and training. They often live in large extended households in which their own resources may be an important source of economic support. The pension provides an important source of support, without necessarily competing with work. The state old age pension program has spawned a considerable body of research. This research is reviewed in the next section of the paper. The review shows that state old age pension is the key plank of South Africa’s social safety net, that these pensions are well targeted at the poor and, because of the large number of three-generation and skip-generation households in South Africa, this includes many poor children. In addition, it seems that many of the unemployed survive through their links to related pensioners. More recent research has begun to explore the impact of these pensions on labor participation behavior.
Presented at the DPRU-TIPS-Cornell University Forum on "African Development and Poverty Reduction: The Macro-Micro Linkage," October 13-15, 2004, Cape Town, South Africa

Lambert, Sylvie

Progression through School and Academic Performance in Senegal: Descriptive Survey Results
July 2004
Dumas, Christelle, Peter Glick, Sylvie Lambert, David E. Sahn, and Leopold Sarr
This report provides a preliminary descriptive analysis of some of the data from The Progression through School and Academic Performance in Senegal Study, a joint research project of Cornell University, Centre de Recherche en Economie Appliquée (CREA), and INRA. This project is based around a nation-wide household survey with a special focus on schooling, complimented by academic and life skills tests and additional surveys of local schools and communities. The topics covered in this report focus on the household survey and test score data and include: enrollment rates; school attainment; grade repetition; dropouts and progression to secondary school; academic and life skills test scores; and perceptions about education and schooling.

Larson, Bruce

Water Pricing, the New Water Law, and the Poor: An Estimation of Demand for Improved Water Services in Madagascar
December 2002
Minten, Bart, Rami Razafindralambo, Zaza Randriamiarana, and Bruce Larson

Generalized cost recovery is one of the basic principles of the new Water Law that has recently been adopted by the Malagasy government. However, the effect of this change in policy is still poorly understood. Based on contingent valuation surveys in an urban and a rural area in southern Madagascar, this study analyzes the effect of changes in prices for water services. The results suggest that a minimum size of 90 households in a village is necessary to reach full cost recovery for well construction. Given that this is significantly above the current size of villages in the survey area, full cost recovery seems therefore impossible and subsidies are necessary to increase access to improved water services. Cost recovery for maintenance is relatively easier to achieve. In urban areas, water use practices and willingness to pay for water services depend highly on household income. To better serve the poor, it is therefore suggested that rich households, who rely on private taps, cross-subsidize poor households as a significant number of households is unwilling or unable to pay for water from a public tap. Given that public taps make up a small part of the total consumption of the national water company JIRAMA, lower income from public taps are shown to have only a marginal effect on its total income. However, as experiences in other countries as well as in Madagascar have shown, a fee on public taps is necessary as water for free leads to spoilage, does not give any incentive for the distributor to expand networks, and might therefore be a bad policy for the poor overall.

Larsson, Rolf

Food Security, Agricultural Technology and Policy - The Case of Maize in Sub-Saharan Africa
October 2004
Göran Djurfeldt and Rolf Larsson
This paper deals with the importance of agricultural policy and technology for farmers’ food security and market integration. We draw on data recently collected in interviews with over 3000 farmers in eight sub-Saharan African countries. The results indicate that the food production among African smallholders is highly responsive to increased use of industrial inputs and to marketing opportunities for food crops. In the absence of a favourable macro environment enhancing increased use of inputs, however, the majority of farmers remain stuck in poverty and are barely able to meet their own food needs. In the following we will use maize as an example to demonstrate the crucial role of the African state in providing the necessary macro conditions for realising the production potential inherent in increased technology adoption and increased commercialisation of staple production. This conclusion suggests that development options in African agriculture are different from those often surmised in the general development debate. Hence, we argue that policy makers in governments and among donors often work from assumptions that badly fit existing realities in African agriculture. We criticise a number of tendencies that recur in debates on agricultural development in sub-Saharan Africa. They are not internally consistent, and they seldom occur together, since they typically are associated with different types of actors.
Presented at the DPRU-TIPS-Cornell University Forum on "African Development and Poverty Reduction: The Macro-Micro Linkage," October 13-15, 2004, Cape Town, South Africa

Latreille, Thierry

The conjuncture of poverty microsimulation linked to a macroeconomic forecasting model: A case study in Senegal
September 2004
Thierry Latreille
Poverty reduction policies have become the main guidelines of economic policies in many Sub-Saharan African countries. Therefore the authorities need new social indicators in order to follow the application and the effectiveness of their policies. In recent years renewed efforts have been made to develop new policy tools aimed at better understanding the channels through which PRSP measures affect the poor. We present an approach to linking macro models with representative households and micro household income data in terms of measuring poverty and the distributional effects of poverty reduction policies. This is a simple micro-accounting method which presents an interesting opportunity for linkage to a macro economic forecasting model, the Jumbo model run by the AFD for the CFA Franc Zone. Our approach consists of using a macroeconomic forecasting model (Jumbo) that integrates several representative household groups. An output of the forecast is introduced into a simple model of microsimulation in order to obtain yearly poverty and income distribution indicators. The interpretation of the results with the help of the macroeconomic environment described in the Jumbo model allows an analysis of the conjuncture of poverty.
Presented at the DPRU-TIPS-Cornell University Forum on "African Development and Poverty Reduction: The Macro-Micro Linkage," October 13-15, 2004, Cape Town, South Africa

Lay, Jann

Boda Bodas Rule: Non-agricultural Activities and Their Inequality Implications in Western Kenya
March 2007
Lay, Jann, George Michuki M’Mukaria and Toman Omar Mahmoud
Engagement in non-agricultural activities in rural areas can be classified into survival-led or opportunity-led. Survival-led diversification would decrease inequality by increasing the incomes of poorer households and thus reduce poverty. By contrast, opportunity-led diversification would increase inequality and have a minor effect on poverty, as it tends to be confined to non-poor households. Using data from Western Kenya, we confirm the existence of the differently motivated diversification strategies. Yet, the poverty and inequality implications differ somewhat from our expectations. Our findings indicate that in addition to asset constraints, rural households also face limited or relatively risky high-return opportunities outside agriculture.
Prepared for the AERC-Cornell Conference on “Bottom-Up Interventions and Economic Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa,” May 31-June 1, 2007, Nairobi, Kenya

The Missing Links—Uganda’s Economic Reforms and Pro-Poor Growth
October 2004
Robert Kappel, Jann Lay and Susan Steiner
This article illustrates changing growth regimes in Uganda from pro-poor growth in the 1990s to growth without poverty reduction, actually even a slight increase in poverty, after 2000. Not surprisingly, we find that good agricultural performance is the key determinant of direct pro-poor growth in the 1990s as well as lower agricultural growth is the root cause of the recent increase in poverty. Yet after 2000, low agricultural growth appears to have induced important employment shifts out of agriculture, which have dampened the increase in poverty. We also assess the indirect way of pro-poor growth by analysing the incidence of public spending and the tax system and find that indirect pro-poor growth has only been achieved to a limited extend.
Presented at the DPRU-TIPS-Cornell University Forum on "African Development and Poverty Reduction: The Macro-Micro Linkage," October 13-15, 2004, Cape Town, South Africa

Leibbrandt, Murray

Measuring Recent Changes in South African Inequality and Poverty Using 1996 and 2001 Census Data
October 2005
Leibbrandt, Murray, Laura Poswell, Pranushka Naidoo, Matthew Welch and Ingrid Woolard
The paper analyses poverty and inequality changes in South Africa for the period 1996 to 2001 using Census data. To gain a broader picture of wellbeing in South Africa, both income-based and access-based measurement approaches are employed. At the national level, findings from the income-based approach show that inequality has unambiguously increased from 1996 to 2001. As regards population group inequality, within-group inequality has increased; while between-group inequality has decreased (inequality has also increased in each province and across the rural/urban divide). The poverty analysis reveals that poverty has worsened in the nation, particularly for Africans. Provincially, the Eastern Cape and Limpopo have the highest poverty rates while the Western Cape and Gauteng have the lowest poverty rates. Poverty differs across the urban-rural divide with rural areas being relatively worse off than urban areas. However, due to the large extent of rural-urban migration, the proportion of the poor in rural areas is declining. The access-based approach focuses on type of dwelling, access to water, energy for lighting, energy for cooking, sanitation and refuse removal. The data reveal significant improvements in these access measures between 1996 and 2001. The proportion of households occupying traditional dwellings has decreased while the proportion of households occupying formal dwellings has risen slightly (approximately two-thirds of households occupy formal dwellings). Access to basic services has improved, especially with regard to access to electricity for lighting and access to telephones. On a provincial level, Limpopo and the Eastern Cape display the poorest performance in terms of access to basic services. The paper concludes by contrasting the measured changes in well being that emerge from the income and access approaches. While income measures show worsening well being via increases in income poverty and inequality, access measures show that well being in South Africa has improved in a number of important dimensions.
In Poverty and Policy in Post Apartheid South Africa, edited by Haroon Bhorat and Ravi Kanbur. Cape Town, South Africa: HSRC Press, 2006.

Financial Services and the informal economy
October 2004
Cally Ardington and Murray Leibbrandt
This paper examines the impact of formality of employment on the utilisation of financial services, using data from the October 2000 Income and Expenditure Survey and the September 2000 Labour Force Survey. The presence of an employed member in the household is seen to be important for the utilisation of both bank accounts and funeral insurance, even after controlling for income. Furthermore there are strong links between the nature of this employment and utilisation of financial services. Employees are more likely to utilise financial services than the self-employed. Among employees, the probability of utilising financial services increases with the degree of formality of employment. These effects are stronger for formal banking services than for funeral insurance which includes informal burial societies.
Presented at the DPRU-TIPS-Cornell University Forum on "African Development and Poverty Reduction: The Macro-Micro Linkage," October 13-15, 2004, Cape Town, South Africa

Youth labour markets in Africa
October 2004
Murray Leibbrandt and Cecil Mlatsheni
This paper makes use of a review of the literature on African labour markets, the international literature on youth and the labour market and a fifteen country African data set to analyze the current situation of youth in sub-Saharan labour markets. Economies in Sub-Sahara Africa are generally viewed as having achieved poor economic growth over the past four decades or so (Bigsten 1996, Collier & Gunning 1999, Kaplan 1996). This has had an adverse impact on poverty and inequality. On the whole per capita incomes have fallen since the early 1970s (ADB 1997). Some of the reasons cited in this literature for the poor growth performance of sub-Saharan Africa include: lack of openness to trade, lack of financial depth, deficient public services, lack of social capital, high incidence of shocks and misguided economic policy. The process of economic development involves the allocation of labour within sectors and the reallocation of labour between sectors and to the extent that this process is impeded, the transformation of the economy is slowed and made less efficient (Bigsten and Horton 1997). Thus the functioning of the labour market is central to economic growth, income distribution and poverty alleviation and is thus an important (if not the most important) prong in the various areas that should be considered for policy intervention.
Presented at the DPRU-TIPS-Cornell University Forum on "African Development and Poverty Reduction: The Macro-Micro Linkage," October 13-15, 2004, Cape Town, South Africa

Lentz, Erin

Improving Food Aid’s Impact: What Reforms Would Yield The Highest Payoff?
July 2008
Lentz, Erin C. and Christopher B. Barrett
Developing an integrated model of the food aid distribution chain, from donor appropriations through operational agency programming decisions to household consumption choices we simulate alternative policies and sensitivity analysis to establish how varying underlying conditions — e.g., delivery costs, the political additionality of food, targeting efficacy — affect the optimal policy for improving the well-being of food insecure households. We find that improved targeting by operational agencies is crucial to advancing food security objectives. At the donor level, the key policy variable under most model parameterizations is ocean freight costs associated with cargo preference restrictions on US food aid.
In World Development 36(7): 1152-1172, July, 2008

Food Aid Targeting, Shocks and Private Transfers Among East African Pastoralists
June 2004
Lentz, Erin and Christopher B. Barrett
Public transfers of food aid are intended largely to support vulnerable populations in times of stress. We use high frequency panel data among Ethiopian and Kenyan pastoralists to test the efficacy of food aid targeting under three different targeting modalities, food aid’s responsiveness to different types of shocks, and its relationship to private transfers. We find that, in this region, self-targeting food-for-work or indicator-targeted free food distribution more effectively reach the poor than does food aid distributed according to community-based targeting. Food aid flows do not respond significantly to either covariate, community-level income or asset shocks. Rather, food aid flows appear to respond mainly to more readily observable rainfall measures. Finally, food aid does not appear to affect private transfers in any meaningful way, either by crowding out private gifts to recipient households nor by stimulating increased gifts by food aid recipients.

Leonard, Wilhelm

Small Business Entrepreneurship in Dar es salaam -Tanzania: Exploring Problems and Prospects for Future Development
October 2004
Rashid M. Mfaume and Wilhelm Leonard
Small Business Entrepreneurship haves been seen as a hub in generating income for the majority of urban dwellers with no formal paid employment. In Tanzania, entry into small business entrepreneurship is usually not seen as a problem. One can start small business at any time and in any place. However, the development of this informal sector has been profoundly characterized by two parallel phenomena which are perhaps contradictory in character. One is the increasing politicization effort encouraging people to engage in Small and Medium Entrepreneurship (SME). This has led to the proliferation and mushrooming of small business most of which are in the form of petty trading, at least everywhere in the urban centres. The second is the parallel increase in events suggesting prevalence of crime and bureaucratic hurdles which affect SME and counter reaction from the small traders. While the second can be characterized as due to the increasing repressive action by city authority over vendors, the counter reaction behaviour of itinerant and small traders toward city authority is also evident in most urban areas. Generally, the sector is characterized by constant tension and feuds between small traders and urban authorities. Drawing on research findings, the present paper challenges the possibility of reducing poverty in Tanzania using the strategy of developing the small business entrepreneurship under the situation where there is an increasing level of petty crime and bureaucratic hurdles. It is argued and indeed, concluded that if the pres ent intricate and controversial situation surrounding SME and small business is not reversed, if not brought to rest, the development of SME is on slippery slope. The option suggested to tame the conundrum includes, developing discourse portfolio between small traders and bureaucratic authority and authorities formulating policies that can promote development of small business entrepreneurship.
Presented at the DPRU-TIPS-Cornell University Forum on "African Development and Poverty Reduction: The Macro-Micro Linkage," October 13-15, 2004, Cape Town, South Africa

Lesorogol, Carolyn K.

Longitudinal Analysis of the Impact of Land Privatization on Samburu Pastoralist Livelihood Strategies: 2000-2005
June 2006
Lesorogol, Carolyn K.
Extensive pastoralism as practiced by East African pastoralists such as the Samburu of Northern Kenya, is premised on access to relatively large tracts of rangeland. Most pastoral land has been communally managed by groups of pastoralists who have, over time, developed rules and norms for regulating access to and use of the resources. In recent years, however, a number of pastoral groups have begun to privatize land, raising questions about the implications of this shift for pastoral livelihoods and the future of commonly held rangelands themselves (Ensminger and Rutten 1991, Rutten 1992, Kimani and Pickard 1998). The “new thinking” about pastoralism, which emerged during the 1990s, suggests that maintaining pastoralists’ mobility is critical to enabling them to remain successful herders (Behnke et.al. 1993, Scoones 1994, McCabe 2004). Accordingly, privatization of pastoral lands and the trend toward increasing sedentarization of pastoralists, appears to be a threat to the continued viability of pastoral production and livelihoods (Fratkin and Roth 2005). However, there is little empirical data demonstrating the effect of a shift from communal to private rangeland on household well-being or economic survival strategies. More information is needed to determine the effects of privatization on livestock production and livelihood strategies of pastoral households. This paper presents findings from an ongoing research project inquiring into these questions.
Presented at the Policy Research Conference on “Pastoralism and Poverty Reduction in East Africa,” held in Nairobi, Kenya, June 27-28, 2006.

Little, Peter

Challenging Orthodoxies: Understanding Poverty in Pastoral Areas of East Africa
July 2008
Little, Peter D., John McPeak, Christopher B. Barrett and Patti Kristjanson
Understanding and alleviating poverty in Africa continues to receive considerable attention by a range of diverse actors, including politicians, international celebrities, academics, activists, and practitioners. Despite the onslaught of interest, there surprisingly is little agreement on what constitutes poverty in rural Africa, how it should be assessed, and what should be done to alleviate it. Based on data from an interdisciplinary study of pastoralism in northern Kenya, this article examines issues of poverty among one of the continent’s most vulnerable groups, pastoralists, and challenges the application of such orthodox proxies as incomes/expenditures, geographic remoteness, and market integration. It argues that current poverty debates ’homogenize‚ the concept of ’pastoralist‚ by failing to acknowledge the diverse livelihoods and wealth differentiation that fall under the term. The article concludes that what is not needed is another development label (stereotype) that equates pastoralism with poverty, thereby empowering outside interests to transform rather than strengthen pastoral livelihoods.
Overview Paper for the Policy Research Conference on “Pastoralism and Poverty Reduction in East Africa,” held in Nairobi, Kenya, June 27-28, 2006
In Development and Change 39(4), pp. 587-611, 2008

‘Moving in Place’: Drought and Poverty Dynamics in South Wollo, Ethiopia
February 2006
Little, Peter D., Priscilla Stone, Tewodaj Mogues, Peter Castro, and Workneh Negatu
This article discusses the impact of drought on poverty dynamics in the South Wollo area of northeastern Ethiopia. Using both survey and anthropological/qualitative data covering a six-year period, the paper assesses which households were able to hold on to assets and recover from the 1999-2000 drought and which were not. It suggests that while the incidence of poverty changed very little during 1997 to 2003 despite the occurrence of a major drought, the fortunes of the poorest improved, but not enough to keep them from poverty. The study concludes by asking how current policies affect patterns of poverty and inequality and what might be done to improve welfare in South Wollo.
In Journal of Development Studies 42(2):200-225, 2006
In Understanding and Reducing Persistent Poverty in Africa, Christopher Barrett, Peter Little, Michael Carter (eds.), Routledge, 2007.

Understanding and Reducing Persistent Poverty in Africa
February 2006
Barrett, Christopher B., Michael R. Carter and Peter D. Little
This paper introduces a special issue exploring persistent poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. As a set, these papers break new ground in exploring the dynamics of structural poverty, integrating qualitative and quantitative methods of analysis and adopting an asset-based approach to the study of changes in well-being, especially in response to a wide range of different (climatic, health, political, and other) shocks. In this introductory essay, we frame these studies, building directly on evolving conceptualisations of poverty in Africa.
In Journal of Development Studies 42(2): 167-177, lead article
In Understanding and Reducing Persistent Poverty in Africa, Christopher Barrett, Peter Little, Michael Carter (eds.), Routledge, 2007.

Liverpool, Saweda Onipede

Understanding the Differential Impact of Institutions and Institutional Interventions on Smallholder Behavior and Livelihoods in Rural Ethiopia
May 2007
Liverpool, Saweda Onipede, Alex Winter-Nelson and Shahidur Rashid
This paper focuses on making the case that: 1) there is differential impact of modern technology adoption on livelihoods for rural households of different asset poverty typologies; 2) this difference can be explained in part, by the differential impact of services provided by various institutions on participation in these modern agriculture practices amongst rural households in different poverty classes; 3) there is a need to assess more closely the nature of constraints faced by different classes of poor agricultural households and the packages offered by different institutional interventions geared towards encouraging farmer participation in various agricultural practices expected to increase their productivity and improve livelihood; and 4) this analysis shows that recognizing target group differences (e.g. using asset poverty typologies) are an important consideration in program development as well as program evaluation.
Prepared for the AERC-Cornell Conference on “Bottom-Up Interventions and Economic Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa,” May 31-June 1, 2007, Nairobi, Kenya

Lloyd, Tim

Real Exchange Rate Response to Capital Inflows: A Dynamic Analysis for Growth
July 2004
Oliver Morrissey, Tim Lloyd and Maxwell Opoku-Afari
One of the most challenging problems in developing countries such as Ghana is exchange rate management, that is, ‘getting the exchange rate right’ especially in the context of exchange rate misalignment. The major research and policy question is what constitutes the equilibrium real exchange rate (ERER) and how can it be measured? Acknowledging the importance of fundamentals in determining the equilibrium real exchange rate, the paper concentrates on the effects of capital inflows (by decomposing capital inflows into official inflows, “permanent” inflows and “non-permanent” inflows). Vector Autoregressive (VAR) techniques are used to model the long-run equilibrium real exchange rate in Ghana, and based on a multivariate orthogonal decomposition technique, the equilibrium steady state path is identified which is used in estimating misalignments. As predicted by the Dutch Disease theory, results indicate that capital inflows tend to appreciate the real exchange rate in the long-run. Capital inflows is the only variable generating real appreciation in the long-run; technology change, trade (exports) and terms of trade all tend to depreciate the real exchange rate. The only variable that has a significant (depreciating) effect on the real exchange rate in the short-run is trade, implying that changes in exports are the major driver of exchange rate misalignment. It is also shown that the real exchange rate is slow to adjust back to equilibrium, implying policy ineffectiveness or inflexibility.
Presented at the ISSER-University of Ghana-Cornell University International Conference on "Ghana at the Half Century," July 18-20, 2004, Accra, Ghana

Lo, Marieme

Les écoles communautaires de base au Sénégal: Contribution à la scolarisation universelle, l’éradication de la pauvreté, et la mise en place d’un programme national pour le développement durable
April 2005
Assié-Lumumba, N’Dri, Mamadou Mara, and Marieme Lo

Lugaz, C.

Improving Schools in a Context of Decentralization: Findings from Research in West Africa – Benin, Guinea, Mali and Senegal
November 2005
De Grauwe, A. and C. Lugaz (IIEP); D. Odushina and M. Moustapha (Bénin) ; D. Baldé (Guinée) ; D. Dougnon (Mali); and C. Diakhaté (Sénégal)
Discussions on decentralization have increased in complexity in recent years because of the deepened realization that the ‘school’ as an institutional unit is a core actor in ensuring educational quality. A growing number of studies demonstrate that the management of a school, the relationships between the different actors (the head teacher, the teachers and the community) and the school’s own involvement in defining and evaluating its improvement have a profound impact on the quality of education. This ‘autonomization’ of the school in combination with the more traditional forms of decentralization, has led to greater diversity in the policies implemented in different countries.
Paper prepared for the Regional Conference on “Education in West Africa: Constraints and Opportunities” in Dakar, Senegal, November 1-2, 2005

Lumonya, Daniel

Escaping Poverty and Becoming Poor in 36 Villages of Central and Western Uganda
February 2006
Krishna, Anirudh, Daniel Lumonya, Milissa Markiewicz, Firminus Mugumya, Agatha Kafuko, Jonah Wegoye
Twenty-four per cent of households in 36 village communities of Central and Western Uganda have escaped from poverty over the past 25 years, but another 15 per cent have simultaneously fallen into poverty. A roughly equal number of households escaped from poverty in the first period (ten to 25 years ago) as in the second period (the last ten years) examined here. However, almost twice as many households fell into poverty during the second period as in the first period. Progress in poverty reduction has slowed down as a result. Multiple causes are associated with descent into poverty and these causes vary significantly between villages in the two different regions. For nearly two-thirds of all households in both regions, however, ill health and health-related costs were a principal reason for descent into poverty. Escaping poverty is also associated with diverse causes, which vary across the two regions. Compared to increases in urban employment, however, land-related reasons have been more important for escaping poverty in both regions.
In Journal of Development Studies 42(2): 346-370, 2006
In Understanding and Reducing Persistent Poverty in Africa, Christopher Barrett, Peter Little, Michael Carter (eds.), Routledge, 2007.

Lund, Frances

Labour migration and households: a reconsideration of the effects of the social pension on labour supply in South Africa
September 2004
Dorrit Posel, James Fairburn and Frances Lund
This paper re-examines the effect of the South African social pension on the labour supply of working-age adults using data from 1993. We take account of the fact that households may include non-resident members, and therefore that the pension may play a role in facilitating migration to work or look for work. We find that rural African women are significantly more likely to be migrant workers when they are members of a household in receipt of a pension, and that it is female pension income that drives this result. We explore a number of possible reasons why pension income might have this effect.
Presented at the DPRU-TIPS-Cornell University Forum on "African Development and Poverty Reduction: The Macro-Micro Linkage," October 13-15, 2004, Cape Town, South Africa

Luseno, Winnie K.

Bayesian Herders: Updating of Rainfall Beliefs In Response To External Climate Forecasts
March 2007
Lybbert, Travis J., Christoper Barrett, John G. McPeak, and Winnie K. Luseno
Temporal climate risk weighs heavily on many of the world’s poor. Model-based climate forecasts could benefit such populations, provided recipients use forecast information to update climate expectations. We test whether pastoralists in southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya update their expectations in response to forecast information. The minority of herders who received these climate forecasts updated their expectations for below normal rainfall, but not for above normal rainfall. This revealed preoccupation with downside risk highlights the potential value of better climate forecasts in averting drought-related losses, but realizing any welfare gains requires that recipients strategically react to these updated expectations.
In World Development 35(3):480-497

Decomposing Producer Price Risk: A Policy Analysis Tool With An Application to Northern Kenyan Livestock Markets
August 2004
Barrett, Christopher B., and Winnie K. Luseno
This paper introduces a simple method of price risk decomposition that determines the extent to which producer price risk is attributable to volatile inter-market margins, intra-day variation, intra-week (day of week) variation, or terminal market price variability. We apply the method to livestock markets in northern Kenya, a setting of dramatic price volatility where price stabilization is a live policy issue. In this particular application, we find that large, variable inter-market basis is the most important factor in explaining producer price risk in animals typically traded between markets. Local market conditions explain most price risk in other markets, in which traded animals rarely exit the region. Variability in terminal market prices accounts for relatively little price risk faced by pastoralists in the dry lands of northern Kenya although this is the focus of most present policy prescriptions under discussion.
In Food Policy 29(4):393-405

Lybbert, Travis J.

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