SAGA Publications - Authors

VIEW
PUBLICATIONS
BY:

→ RESEARCH THEME

→ GEOGRAPHICAL FOCUS

→ PUBLICATION DATE

SAGA
B16 MVR Hall
Ithaca, NY 14853
(607) 255-8931
Fax (607) 255-0178
saga@cornell.edu

SAGA PUBLICATIONS

Included here are Working Papers and Conference Papers.
Publications on this page are organized by author:

RETURN TO MAIN AUTHORS PAGE

Valodia, Imraan

Macro-Micro linkages in trade: Does trade liberalization lead to improved productivity in South African manufacturing firms
October 2004
Imraan Valodia and Myriam Velia
A feature of the post-apartheid economy in South Africa has been its reintegration into the global economy. Trade liberalisation has been a cornerstone of government policy since 1994, indeed prior to 1994 (see Bell, 1993). There has been extensive research analysis of trade issues in post-apartheid South Africa, including evaluation of the impact of trade liberalisation. A set of studies (for example Fedderke and Vaze, 2000) have examined the effect of trade liberalisation on effective protection showing declining levels of effective protection. Others, (for example Roberts, 2000) have studied the impact of liberalisation on the level of exports. A number of studies have explored the impact of liberalisation on the labour market, with Edwards (2001) arguing that technological change, rather than trade liberalisation, is the primary cause of falling employment in South Africa. Bhorat (2000) finds that trade liberalisation has had a positive impact of labour demand in manufactures. A feature of all of these studies is the focus on macroeconomic, or economy- wide, effects of liberalisation. To be sure, there have been a number of microlevel studies examining the competitiveness of the manufacturing economy, or of one or other industry (for example, Barnes 1998 on the automotive industry, Roberts 2001 on the plastics industry). There is, however, no systematic study in South Africa on the relationship between trade liberalisation at the macro level, and its micro or firm- level adjustment effects. It is this gap in the South African trade and industry literature that this paper proposes to address. Specifically, this paper aims to explore how manufacturing firms are adjusting to the liberalization of trade, how firms are adjusting their production in the face of a change in incentive structures, how they are dealing with the currency risks associated with increased international trade, and the linkages between export growth and productivity at the level of the firm.
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
In Journal of African Economies 15(4):688-721, 2006

van de Linde, Tanja

Influencing and Developing Good Policy in Early Childhood Development (ECD) amongst Pastoralist Communities in East Africa: The Case of Samburu in Kenya
June 2006
van de Linde, Tanja
What do we mean by a good ECD policy and are there special elements that are particularly relevant to children from pastoralist societies? Let’s start by a quick deconstruction of ECD: early childhood and development. By early childhood we mean the period of a child’s life, starting at conception and including the first years of primary school usually up to age eight. We look at child development holistically, meaning physical, social, intellectual, language, cultural and emotional development. A working definition of “good” or “quality” ECD is “one that meets the developmental and cultural needs of young children and their families in ways that enable them to thrive”. (Bernard van Leer Foundation). It can also be defined as that program which does not alienate the developing young generation but prepares them to fit into their society.
Presented at the Policy Research Conference on “Pastoralism and Poverty Reduction in East Africa,” held in Nairobi, Kenya, June 27-28, 2006.

van den Boom, G. J. M.

Healthcare Provision and Self Medication in Ghana
October 2004
G. J. M. van den Boom, N. N. N. Nsowah-Nuamah and G. B. Overbosch
Self-medication is predominant in Ghana, where one out of four lives outside a 15 km radius of a doctor. The cost of visiting a doctor is almost $10, one third of monthly per capita expense, as compared to $1.5 for self-medication. Simulated utilization patterns indicate that higher densities (doctors within 15 km) and more insurance (flat rate tax covering half of the health expense) could raise demand for doctors by 15-20%. The poor though continue to rely on self-medication. Medicines that are affordable and of certified quality could thus play a key supplementary role in health sector development.
In Ernest Aryeetey and Ravi Kanbur (editors), The Economy of Ghana: Analytical Perspectives on Stability, Growth and Poverty, James Currey, 2008.
Presented at the ISSER-University of Ghana-Cornell University International Conference on "Ghana at the Half Century," July 18-20, 2004, Accra, Ghana

van der Berg, Servaas

Public Spending and the Poor Since the Transition to Democracy
October 2005
van der Berg, Servaas
Fiscal expenditure analysis, or benefit incidence analysis, as it is often referred to, deals with the distribution of the statutory incidence of public expenditure, usually by income group, although some studies incorporate geographic or even gender dimensions. (Demery n.d.) This is the topic dealt with in this chapter, although the South African situation requires that incidence analysis along racial grounds should also be considered. The chapter addresses a number of interrelated questions, relating to targeting of, and shifts in, public social spending, but also to the capacity to transform social spending into social outcomes.
In Poverty and Policy in Post Apartheid South Africa, edited by Haroon Bhorat and Ravi Kanbur. Cape Town, South Africa: HSRC Press, 2006.

Geography as Destiny: Considering the spatial dimensions of poverty and deprivation in South Africa
October 2004
Ronelle Burger, Servaas van der Berg, Sarel van der Walt and Derek Yu
This paper’s main contribution to the discussion about the geographical dimensions of poverty traps is a careful description of how the nature and depth of poverty and deprivation differ by geography. Conventionally, much of the analysis of poverty has focused on money-metric poverty lines. However, as Amartya Sen and others have shown, welfare is a rich and complex concept that cannot be adequately captured by income and expenditure. To avoid the arbitrariness of a poverty line and the one-dimensionality of money-metric poverty measure, the paper opts for Totally Fuzzy and Relative indices of poverty – as pioneered by Cheli and Lemmi (1995). It provides a multi-dimensional account of poverty and deprivation without assigning arbitrary weights to the different poverty dimensions. Rather, the method weighs poverty dimensions according to the frequency of deprivation in this dimension among members of the population: the more common deprivation is in a specific dimension, the less weight the specific dimension will receive in the calculation of the index. Instead of a sharp line dividing the rich from the poor, the variable’s bottom category is defined as marking extreme poverty and the top category as representing affluence, with everything in-between assigned a score to indicate the degree to which these individuals or households can be regarded as poor.
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

Credit demand and credit rationing in the informal financial sector in Uganda
October 2004
Nathan Okurut, Andrie Schoombee and Servaas van der Berg
This paper focuses on identifying the factors that influence credit demand and also those that result in the poor being credit rationed by lenders. An understanding of both these sets of determinants could assist policy formulation to enhance the welfare of the poor through improved credit access. In this respect we were fortunate in having a dataset that contains questions not only on actual credit given, but also on loans applied for. This allows us to investigate both credit demand and credit supply, and to model these using observed household and individual characteristics.
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

van der Walt, Sarel

van Seventer, Dirk

Has the New Zealand/Australian Closer Economic Relationship (CER) been trade widening or deepening?
October 2004
Ron Sandrey and Dirk van Seventer
This study finds that export trade widened rather than deepened as a result of the CER trade agreement with Australia. Trade has expanded in those products that were not heavily traded prior to the agreement as opposed to an expansion of “traditional” exports that were traded at the start of the agreement. This finding is therefore consistent with other recent empirical research undertaken on this new aspect of trade expansion, and gives weight to the suggestion that these agreements are beneficial not just in the short or “static” term, but in the longer or “dynamic” term. While often cited as a benefit of bilateral liberalisation, this widening feature of a trade agreement is not generally forecast in traditional computer modelling exercises. Importantly, the analysis of the trade expansion to the ‘rest of the world’ indicated that much of the result may be directly attributable to CER and not a change in worldwide trade patterns. Moreover, this widening was most pronounced in manufacturing lines, reinforcing the value of CER in that it had not merely diverted our traditional (and supply constrained) exports away from third markets. This was underlined by a similar analysis of the “mirror” imports of manufactured products from New Zealand into Australia. This showed an increase post-CER and confirms the trade widening hypothesis. As New Zealand prepares to begin negotiating an FTA with China, this study adds weight to the general conclusion that comprehensive bilateral agreements are likely to produce more welfare benefits than may be forecast by traditional means (ie computer models). It also supports the broad assumption that trade agreements are likely to significantly contribute to a growth and innovation export-oriented drive.
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

South African Trade Reform since Democracy
October 2004
Rashad Cassim and Dirk van Seventer
As part of a wider investigation by the National Institute for Economic Policy, covering a range of economic policy issues, the main aim of this paper is to provide an overview of how trade policy has evolved since democracy. We use standard quantities measures of trade policy analysis as an input into a discussion of the impact of the trade regime on the economy. The paper also undertakes some sensitivity analysis about how we think about some basic welfare concepts.
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

The economy-wide impacts of the labour intensification of infrastructure expenditure
October 2004
Anna McCord and Dirk van Seventer
This paper examines the performance of public works in addressing both micro and macroeconomic policy objectives relating to growth, employment and poverty reduction in South Africa. Survey data on the micro-economic impact of public works programme participation is used alongside a social accounting matrix (SAM) for the South African economy which models the impact of a demand stimulus to the South African economy reflecting a hypothetical annual public works programme of R3 billion, using data from a labour based road rehabilitation programme. Drawing on recent survey data from two public works programmes in South Africa, the microeconomic impacts of public works programme participation in terms of income poverty, non income poverty and labour market performance are reviewed. These microeconomic findings are then linked to recent research examining the macro-economic impacts of public works programmes and the two are considered together in order to assess the micro-macro linkage of public works programmes and theircontribution to development and poverty reduction. This analysis is particularly relevant given the popularity of public works as an instrument for labour market and social protection intervention throughout the continent. The microeconomic analysis suggests that while participation in a public works programme may contribute to a reduction in the depth of poverty, with improvements in participation in education and nutrition, and have positive psychosocial benefits, the impact of a short term programme may not be significant in terms of a reduction in headcount poverty or improvements in asset ownership (material or financial). In this case the public works programme income may function essentially as a temporary wage shock, since the insurance function of the transfer is limited by the short duration of the employment period. If targeted to poorer groups, with lower levels of school participation and poorer nutrition, impact may be greater per unit of wage transferred, interms of contributing to human capital, but is still not likely to move participants out of poverty, but rather reduce the depth of their 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

Vanderpuye-Orgle, Jacqueline

Risk Management and Social Visibility in Ghana
April 2009
Vanderpuye-Orgle, Jacqueline and Christopher B. Barrett
In this paper we test for risk pooling within and among social networks to see if the extent of informal insurance available to individuals in rural Ghana varies with their social visibility. We identify a distinct subpopulation of socially invisible individuals who tend to be younger, poorer, engaged in farming, recent arrivals into the village who have been fostered and are not members of a major clan. While we cannot reject the null hypothesis that individual shocks do not affect individual consumption and that individual consumption tracks network and village consumption one-for-one among the socially visible, risk pooling fails for the socially invisible subpopulation. These results have important implications for the design of social protection policy.
In African Development Review 21(1):5-35, April, 2009

The North-South Divide and the Disappearing Middle Class: An Analysis of Spacial Inequality and Polarization in Ghana
May 2004
Jacqueline Vanderpuye-Orgle
This paper assesses trends in spatial inequality and polarization in Ghana over the period of economic reform. It contributes to the existing literature in three ways. First, it focuses on the spatial dynamics of inequality in Ghana. Secondly, it introduces the concept of polarization to the income distribution-welfare dialogue in Ghana. Finally, it proposes an index for measuring the share of spatial variation in changes in total inequality, as well as determining which spatial dimension primarily affects the variation in total inequality. The results establish that the Ghanaian population is clustered and that polarization is increasing in Ghana. The differences within-group specific means are considerably larger than the between-group components in explaining static levels of interpersonal inequality. However, changes in the levels of inequality are principally driven by changes in the between-group, i.e. the spatial, component of inequality. This suggests that inequality in Ghana may be assuaged by formulating regional policies directed at reducing down-side fluctuations in spatial inequality.
Presented at the ISSER-University of Ghana-Cornell University International Conference on "Ghana at the Half Century," July 18-20, 2004, Accra, Ghana

Vazquez-Alvarez, Rosalia

Can Information Campaigns Eradicate AIDS? The Effect of HIV Knowledge and Risk Behavior on HIV Status: The Case of Three Sub-Saharan Countries
February 2007
Frölich, Markus and Rosalia Vazquez-Alvarez
AIDS continues to have a devastating effect on many developing economies, par- ticularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. Given the lack of a vaccine to stop HIV transmission and the very expensive medical treatment, most public policy emphasis has been placed on edu- cation and particular information campaigns. In this paper, we examine the impact of AIDS education from two sides. First, we examine to what extent information campaigns have been successful in reducing HIV prevalence and incidence. Second, we examine the impact of actual AIDS knowledge on HIV rates. The basic policy issue can be expressed as follows: Suppose that everyone knew and understood the basic facts about AIDS, would this reduce HIV rates to (almost) zero? If so, public policy should target groups with incomplete knowledge. If not, information campaigns alone are bound to fail and much stronger interventions are required to eradicate AIDS. Using rich data sets from three Sub-Saharan economies (Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia) we investigate the effect of observed HIV related knowledge on the probability of catching the virus using data on individuals. Our analysis controls for detailed individual specific characteristics including variables reflecting innate risk behaviour that may drive the risk of becoming HIV positive irrespective of HIV related health knowledge. We examine fur- ther how these effects differ between different groups, thereby identifying target groups that public information campaigns should direct more attention to. Results so far are preliminary.
Prepared for the AERC-Cornell Conference on “Bottom-Up Interventions and Economic Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa,” May 31-June 1, 2007, Nairobi, Kenya

Velia, Myriam

Verner, Dorte

Shared Sectoral Growth: Evidence from Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Zimbabwe
June 2005
Niels-Hugo Blunch and Dorte Verner
This paper examines agriculture, industry and service sector growth in Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Zimbabwe over more than three decades. The analyses find at least one long-run sectoral relationship in each country. This indicates the existence of a large degree of interdependence in long-run sectoral growth, implying that the sectors “grow together” or, similarly, that there are externalities or spillovers between sectors. This also provides evidence against the basic dual economy model, which implies that a long-run relation cannot exist between agricultural and industrial output. The impulse response and short-run sectoral growth analyses support these results, as both imply the existence of a positive link between growth in industry and growth in agriculture. Policy implications are also discussed; these include directing more attention towards the interdependencies in sectoral growth broadly defined. In particular, our findings have implications for the design of education and health programs, as well. This improved understanding of intersectoral dynamics at all levels may facilitate policy implementation aimed at increasing economic growth—and thereby ultimately improving peoples’ livelihoods—in Africa.
Presented at the International Conference on "Shared Growth in Africa," July 21-22, 2005, Accra, Ghana

Verpoorten, Marijke

Genocide and land scarcity: Can Rwandan rural households manage?
October 2004
Marijke Verpoorten and Lode Berlage
During the nineties Rwandan households faced severe shocks of war and genocide. In addition, the structural problem of land scarcity remains unsolved. How did Rwandan households manage? This is an important question from a development perspective, but also from a security perspective, because uneven development raises the risk of renewed conflict. To find an answer, we study welfare gains and losses in a sample of 189 rural households in two Rwandan provinces over the period 1990-2002. In our sample, many households were severely affected by the genocide. In addition, poverty and inequality increased. Moreover, we observe a lot of income mobility. Only one quarter of the households remained in the same income quintile over time. Especially the households headed by widows and prisoner’s wives moved downward in the income distribution. Households who reduced their dependence on subsistence agriculture moved upward.
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

Vigneri, Marcella

Production Changes in Ghana Cocoa Farming Households Under Market Reforms
October 2003
Francis Teal and Marcella Vigneri
The Ghana cocoa market has been extensively liberalised over the period since the mid 1980s. Three issues have been prominent in research on agricultural supply response to liberalisation. The first has been the size of the supply elasticity, the second the response to reduced subsidies on inputs, the third whether innovation will occur. In this paper we investigate these three issues by estimating a production function for cocoa in Ghana drawing on two household surveys covering the period from 1991 to 1998. The estimated production function allows identifying the factors underlying the change in output. It is shown that for most regions the whole rise in cocoa production occurring over the period, of about 6 per cent per household, was accounted for by a rise in land and non-labour inputs. The data is consistent with a constant returns to scale technology in which total factor productivity was unchanged in almost all regions. There were offsetting changes in factor use: the labour to land ratio fell while the non-labour to land ratio rose. Thus the analysis of the micro data shows that, contrary to much of the discussion of the effects of trade reform, the contribution of non-labour inputs to cocoa production has increased both relative to land and, very substantially, relative to labour. The reform period has seen a rise in the ratio of both land to labour and of non-labour input to labour which have increased labour productivity. Reform has not led to innovation in techniques which raise total factor productivity.
Presented at the ISSER-University of Ghana-Cornell University International Conference on "Ghana at the Half Century," July 18-20, 2004, Accra, Ghana

Villanger, Espen

Multilateral Organisations: Instruments for Donors’ Foreign Policy?
October 2004
Espen Villanger
The empirical literature on foreign aid emphasizes that foreign policy objectives are important motivations for giving multilateral aid (Cassen 1994, Alesina and Dollar 2000). Some of the recipients that receive the most aid per capita do so because they are favored in bilateral aid relationships due to their strategic importance. However, the opportunity for a donor country to use a multilateral organization strategically to promote its own policy goals has received far less attention. The gain to a donor that is able to make the World Bank or other multilaterals adapt to this donor’s view on an issue can be substantial. In that case, all the contributions from the other member nations will also stand behind the multilateral organizations’ stance in the particular issue, and recipients may feel compelled to comply with this massive counterpart. Thus, influencing the multilaterals may give much more leverage to a donor’s foreign assistance on the foreign policy arena compared to pursuing the same goals bilaterally with the same amount of aid. The U.S. General Accounting Office indicates the potential for increased influence when they state that about $2 billion in U.S. paid capital had supported World Bank loans of nearly $286 billion through cofinancing with other donors and the private sector. So, if the GOA is right in asserting that U.S. with its 22% of the total donor support to the World Bank is able to take the leadership in setting the bank’s agenda, then there is little doubt that this strategic behavior can be effective in achieving U.S. foreign policy goals... However, even if the principal-agent framework is the work-horse of the theoretical literature on foreign aid, this literature does not address how some donors’ can be able to influence the objectives of the multilaterals in order to achieve their aims for the recipient. This gap in the literature is unfortunate since this type of strategic behavior rise several important questions. First, which mechanisms allows for this type of interactions? Second, how will this type of influence change the aid allocation of the other donors? Third, what implications can we draw with regards to improving the efficiency of the multilateral infrastructure in general?
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

Visser, Martine

Trade liberalisation and regional integration in SADC: policy synergies assessed in an industrial organisation framework
October 2004
Martine Visser and Trudi Hartzenberg
Trade liberalisation has a significant impact on firm-market dynamics in a regional context. The purpose of this paper is to use an industrial organisation framework, focusing on the analytical units, the firm and the market, to assess the impact of trade liberalisation within the Southern African region, SADC. It is specifically the firm-level responses to various policies that will provide insight into changes in national industrial configurations, regional patterns of industrialisation and the potential for sustainable supplychain development in Southern Africa. The purpose of intra-regional trade liberalisation is to facilitate trade within a regional economic space, and through enhanced trade opportunities to elicit firm-level decisions to expand productive capacity. Such expansion of productive capacity, through various modalities of investment, can have important implications for the development of markets and market processes, resulting in robust, sustainable regional development.
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

von Rohr, Peter

Cattle Breeding Strategies using Genetic Markers as a Pathway for Improving Competitiveness of Pastoral Systems in Kenya
June 2006
Janssen-Tapken, Ulrike, Haja N. Kadarmideen and Peter von Rohr
Pastoralists in Kenya have increasingly become less food secure and vulnerable to poverty over the last two decades. This is due to increasing human population and changes in land tenure system as well as the harsh agro-climatic conditions associated with their environments. (Rushton, et al., 2002, Wollny, 2003) Livestock keeping is the mainstay of the pastoral systems and 15 million livestock keepers in rangeland-based systems in Sub-Saharan Africa are poor according to the national poverty rate (Thornton, et al., 2003). The enterprise is beset by several constraints, one of the most important of which is livestock diseases, particularly endemic diseases transmitted by vectors such as ticks and tsetse flies (Rushton, et al., 2002). Resistance against trypanocides for controlling tsetse-transmitted trypanosomiasis becomes increasingly a problem (Geerts, et al., 2001, Sinyangwe, et al., 2004). Owing to the strong attachment to livestock by the pastoral communities, any poverty alleviation goal targeted at pastoral communities will have to focus on strategies to improve livestock productivity by minimizing some of the livestock enterprise constraints. One of the issues that this paper focuses on is the breeding strategies as a pathway to minimize cattle disease constraints, especially trypanosomosis, which is ranked among the top ten global cattle diseases impacting on the poor in pastoral systems (Thornton, et al., 2002) As will be shown, our strategy is to develop cattle breeding schemes to ensure genetic gain through selection programs that utilize identified trypanotolerant genotypes, using conventional genetic evaluation techniques with or without the use of genetic (DNA) markers for trypanotolerance.
Presented at the Policy Research Conference on “Pastoralism and Poverty Reduction in East Africa,” held in Nairobi, Kenya, June 27-28, 2006.

Return to MAIN AUTHORS PAGE

Return to TOP OF PAGE