Leonardo Corral

Rural Nonfarm Incomes in Nicaragua

Abstract This paper examines nonfarm incomes of rural Nicaraguan households using a nationwide survey (LSMS) from 1998. The key findings are as follows. (a) Rural nonfarm income (RNFI) constitutes 41% of rural household incomes. (b) RNFI is much more important than farm wage-labor income. (c) RNFI tends to be relatively concentrated geographically and socioeconomically, toward the rural areas of the Managua zone and the Rest-of-Pacific zone, which are denser in infrastructure and population, and toward the upper income quartile of rural households. This concentration implies high entry barriers and capital requirements for rural nonfarm activity that the poor are simply not equipped to overcome. Equipping the rural poor through training and acquisition of diverse forms of capital to have a chance at the higher return nonfarm jobs would be a major step toward helping them to share the benefits of the rural nonfarm economy. (d) Self-employment (small enterprise) income in manufactures is very minor, probably due to the ease of obtaining manufactured goods from urban industries and imports. Wage employment constitutes the bulk of RNFI (despite it receiving little attention in development programs and debate). (e) Three-quarters of RNFI is in the service sector, and only one-quarter is from manufactures; that can be contrasted with the emphasis on small manufactures enterprises in rural development programs and research. (f) Education, road access, as well as access to electricity and water were found to be important to nonfarm incomes.

Assessing the Role of Tourism in Poverty Alleviation: A Research Agenda

Understanding the tourism‐poverty link is critical if tourism is to be used as a mechanism for reducing poverty. Yet, the available empirical analysis is insufficient for this. This article proposes a research agenda for closing this gap in the literature. It argues that, while analysing the link poses peculiar challenges, models exist to do so. Second, it contends that the key question is not whether the link exists but under what conditions it is strongest. Finally, it maintains that the best way to analyse the link is to incorporate accurate diagnosis and evaluations into tourism projects, using the approaches and concepts of the literature on impact evaluation.

Titling indigenous communities protects forests in the Peruvian Amazon

Significance Developing countries are increasingly granting local communities legal title to forests. Almost a third of forests in the global south are now managed by local communities, more than twice the share currently found in protected areas. However, we know little about the effects of titling on forest clearing and disturbance, which remain urgent problems. We use community-level longitudinal data derived from high-resolution satellite images, along with statistical techniques that control for confounding factors, to measure the effect of titling indigenous communities in the Peruvian Amazon. Results indicate that titling significantly reduces both clearing and disturbance, at least in the short term. The implication is that awarding formal land titles to local communities can protect forests. Developing countries are increasingly decentralizing forest governance by granting indigenous groups and other local communities formal legal title to land. However, the effects of titling on forest cover are unclear. Rigorous analyses of titling campaigns are rare, and related theoretical and empirical research suggests that they could either stem or spur forest damage. We analyze such a campaign in the Peruvian Amazon, where more than 1,200 indigenous communities comprising some 11 million ha have been titled since the mid-1970s. We use community-level longitudinal data derived from high-resolution satellite images to estimate the effect of titling between 2002 and 2005 on contemporaneous forest clearing and disturbance. Our results indicate that titling reduces clearing by more than three-quarters and forest disturbance by roughly two-thirds in a 2-y window spanning the year title is awarded and the year afterward. These results suggest that awarding formal land titles to local communities can advance forest conservation.

Land Accumulation Dynamics in Developing Country Agriculture

Abstract Understanding land accumulation dynamics is relevant for policy-makers interested in the economic effects of land inequality in developing country agriculture. We thus explore and simultaneously test the leading theories of micro-level land accumulation dynamics using unique panel data from Paraguay. The results suggest that farm growth varies systematically with farm size – a formal rejection of stochastic growth theories (that is, Gibrat’s Law) – and that titled land area may have considerable influence on land accumulation. Furthermore, our estimates indicate that a dualistic agrarian structure is the likely product of the unfettered operation of land markets.

The Economic and Ecological Impact of Natural Resource Extraction: The Case of the Camisea Gas Project in Peru

This paper presents the first rigorous empirical evidence of the impact of a large hydrocarbon project in both its economic and environmental dimension. Concentrating on Peru’s largest hydrocarbon project, the Camisea Gas Project, which began operating in the dense Amazonian jungle under strict environmental safeguards in 2004, we assess whether natural resource extraction can have beneficial economic effects without causing negative environmental externalities. The analysis relies on the synthetic control method to systematically choose comparison units (departments), which allows for precise quantitative inference in small-sample studies. Our results indicate that in six of the eight years since the Camisea gas fields began operating, local economic effects, as measured by nighttime lights data, are robustly positive. An examination of remotely-sensed vegetation data suggests that the Camisea Gas Project did not have a significant effect on deforestation, suggesting that the implementation of stringent safeguards can help mitigate environmental risks.

Reply to Robinson et al.: Building the evidence base on the forest cover effects of community titling

We thank Robinson et al. (1) for their thoughtful comments on our article (2). We agree with their main point, which is that our findings about the link between titling and forest cover change are context- and time-specific, and do not necessarily generalize to other countries and other periods. However, it is important to make clear that our article (2): ( i ) does not claim to present generalizable findings, ( ii ) nonetheless significantly advances our understanding of the above-noted link, and ( iii ) includes the four caveats discussed in the Robinson et al. letter (1). Regarding the first point, our article (2) demonstrates that titling indigenous communities in the Peruvian Amazon in the early 2000s … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: allenb{at}iadb.org. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1

Evidence from a Natural Experiment on the Development Impact of Windfall Gains: The Camisea Fund in Peru

This document studies the economic effect of windfall gains by examining a Peruvian natural experiment. The Camisea Fund for Socioeconomic Development (FOCAM) is an inter-governmental fiscal transfer scheme that allocates natural gas royalties generated by the Camisea Gas Project to eligible subnational governments. We exploit the rules governing FOCAM allocation to identify the effect of the transfers on municipal accounts, local infrastructure, and economic development. Using a newly constructed district- level dataset for the years 2005 and 2012, we find evidence of positive impacts on municipal capital expenditures and local infrastructure. However, we also find evidence of a negative impact on municipal current expenditures. More specifically, we find that municipalities with low absorptive capacity coped with the increased administrative burden of FOCAM transfers by reallocating administrative effort toward (away from) executing capital (current) expenditures.