Steven A. Block

The dynamics of livelihood diversification in post-famine Ethiopia

Abstract Based on data for almost 300 households this paper explores associations among income diversification, household perceptions of livelihood risks, and changes in consumption outcomes across two points in time in post-famine Ethiopia. Four key questions are addressed: i) To what extent did households emerging from the famine period with relatively higher income and calorie consumption levels also have a more diversified income base?; ii) Was higher income diversification in 1989 associated with higher income and consumption levels by 1994?; iii) Which households increased their share of income from non-cropping activities most during the inter-survey years?; and iv) Did household heads perceive a lack of non-farm income activities to be an important risk factor in famine vulnerability? We find that wealthier households tended to have more diversified income streams; those initially more diversified subsequently experienced a relatively greater increase in both income and calorie intake; households with a greater concentration of assets were more likely to fall in their relative outcome ranking (as were female-headed households); and, initially less diversified households subsequently realized greater gains in income diversification. We also find suggestive evidence that personal perceptions of risk factors guided subsequent diversification decisions.

Political business cycles, democratization, and economic reform: the case of Africa

Abstract This paper presents cross-country evidence that political business cycles are alive and well in the nascent democracies of the developing world. Africa provides fertile ground for the study of political business cycles. This paper uncovers systematic electorally timed interventions in five monetary and four fiscal policy variables in a panel of African countries. These findings are consistent with the predictions of rational opportunistic political business cycle theory. If Africas increasingly frequent elections are associated with reversals of fiscal and monetary policy reform, there is a potential conflict between political and economic reform.

HIV/AIDS, Undernutrition, and Food Insecurity

Despite tremendous advances in care for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection and increased funding for treatment, morbidity and mortality due to HIV/AIDS in developing countries remains unacceptably high. A major contributing factor is that >800 million people remain chronically undernourished globally, and the HIV epidemic largely overlaps with populations already experiencing low diet quality and quantity. Here, we present an updated review of the relationship between HIV infection, nutritional deficiencies, and food insecurity and consider efforts to interrupt this cycle at a programmatic level. As HIV infection progresses, it causes a catabolic state and increased susceptibility to other infections, which are compounded by a lack of caloric and other nutrient intake, leading to progressive worsening of malnutrition. Despite calls from national and international organizations to integrate HIV and nutritional programs, data are lacking on how such programs can be effectively implemented in resource-poor settings, on the optimum content and duration of nutritional support, and on ideal target recipients.

Does Africa grow differently

This paper argues that understanding the mechanisms of growth requires going beyond the reduced form, and demonstrates important differences in the mechanisms of growth in Africa. Certain policy distortions and exogenous factors are more costly to growth in Africa than elsewhere, while the growth benefits of other reforms and exogenous factors are more limited in Africa than elsewhere. These differences are most apparent in equations which separately explain the explanatory variables common in reduced form growth equations. An expanded growth accounting framework shows that many of the differences in Africas growth mechanisms are also quantitatively significant in explaining Africas slow growth.

Nutrition Information and Formal Schooling as Inputs to Child Nutrition

Few studies have explored whether or how nutrition knowledge interacts with education--do they act as substitutes or complements? Exceptions include research in Nicaragua (Lamontagne Engle and Zeitlin 1998) which found that maternal education and certain types of nutrition knowledge are significantly but independently associated with child outcomes. Another study in Brazil (Thomas Strauss and Henriques 1990) found that most of the correlation between maternal knowledge and child height could be explained by mothers’ access to media messages (on TV and radio) and that formal schooling and messages gained through community health services acted as substitutes. Similarly Glewwe (1999) found that maternal knowledge (rather than schooling) in Morocco strongly influences child height-for-age (a measure of longer-term child nutritional well-being) and that such knowledge is obtained mainly outside the classroom through the media from relatives and via public service messages. Variyam et al (1999 p. 381) also report that maternal schooling in the United States has a strong impact on children’s diets “wholly through its positive effect on maternal . . . nutrition knowledge.” Thus some of the contribution of schooling to child nutrition appears to come through its interaction with nutrition knowledge--possibly by enhancing women’s ability to acquire knowledge or by enabling them to put such knowledge into practice. However since nutrition knowledge has been shown to generate nutritional improvements even among illiterate populations and since formal education remains severely limited in most poor developing countries the potential for targeted transfers of nutrition information to assist in nutritional improvements may be large. This article offers preliminary support for such an argument. The article is organized as follows. Section II describes the survey data used in the analysis as well as the construction of our proxy for nutrition knowledge. Section III presents nonparametric evidence of the effects of nutrition knowledge maternal education and per capita expenditures on nutritional outcomes. Section IV presents supporting parametric results and Section V concludes with programmatic and research implications. (excerpt)

A New View of Agricultural Productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa

and economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa. Despite this recognition, little is known about the issue. A few studies have presented rudimentary analyses of agricultural productivity in Africa, but the more analytically sophisticated studies of cross-country productivity have essentially ignored Africa. Part of the problem has been the lack of an appropriate output aggregate for African agriculture. In the present paper, I develop such an aggregate and present a new view of cross-country agricultural productivity in Africa. Contrary to previous findings, I find evidence of a notable recovery of African agricultural productivity during the 1980s, although the sustainability of that recovery is in question.

Support for agriculture during economic transformation: Impacts on poverty and undernutrition

This paper explores trends in poverty and nutrition during economic transformation and especially the impacts linked to government support for agriculture during the process. Analysis of multiyear data for 29 developing countries confirms that structural transformation raises total income and that poverty falls faster with strong support for agriculture. In turn, poverty reduction supports improved nutrition, especially in rural areas. However, transformation brings problems through health risks associated with rising obesity in rural as well as urban areas. Thus, the transition process must be managed better, through targeted support for smallholder agriculture and health interventions, if the negative consequences of obesity and chronic disease are to be mitigated.

Elections, Opportunism, Partisanship and Sovereign Ratings in Developing Countries

We empirically examine whether and how opportunistic and partisan political business cycle (“PBC”) considerations explain election-period decisions by credit rating agencies (“agencies”) publishing developing country sovereign risk-ratings (“ratings”). Analyses of 391 agency ratings for 19 countries holding 39 presidential elections from 1987‐2000, initially suggest that elections themselves prompt rating downgrades consistent with opportunistic PBC considerations, that incumbents are all likely to implement electionperiod policies detrimental to post-election creditworthiness. But more refined analyses, integrating both opportunistic and partisan PBC considerations in a unified framework, suggest that election-period agency downgrades (upgrades) are more likely as right-wing (left-wing) incumbents, become more vulnerable to ouster by challengers. Together, these results underscore the importance of integrating both opportunistic and partisan PBC considerations into any explanation of election-period risk assessments of agencies and, perhaps, other private, foreign-based financial actors important to the pricing and allocation of capital for lending and investment in the developing world. This study investigates the impact of developing country electoral politics on private, often foreign-based financial actors making decisions about risks associated with lending and investment. We ground our approach in the theory of political business cycles (“PBCs”), which, following from the seminal papers of Nordhaus (1975) and Hibbs (1977), models interactions between domestic political incumbents and voters. We extend the empirical domain of both opportunistic and partisan PBC theories to consider the election-period reactions of international credit rating agencies (“agencies”) to potential PBC-style behavior by incumbents. Sovereign risk ratings (“ratings”) published by agencies play a critical role in conditioning the cost and availability of capital for lending and investment in developing countries. Agencies facilitate credit transactions for developing country borrowers by publishing lettergrade ratings, commonly relied on by capital market participants to assess both the specific capability and willingness of governments to honor their debts, and more general risks associated with lending and investment in the locale. Our study investigates whether these agencies also “vote” during election periods based on opportunistic or partisan PBC considerations. Their votes are in the form of election-year ratings. Opportunistic PBC considerations suggest that agencies are more likely to downgrade developing country sovereign ratings in election years, due to general concern that incumbents will implement spending sprees beneficial to garner

Agriculture and economic growth in Ethiopia: growth multipliers from a four-sector simulation model

Agriculture accounts for over half of Ethiopian GDP, yet the case for agriculture as a focus of economic growth strategies must rely on identifying a set of intersectoral linkages through which agricultural growth contributes to the growth of nonagriculture in the Ethiopian economy. This article develops a four-sector numerical simulation model of economic growth in Ethiopia which permits the calculation of macroeconomic growth multipliers resulting from income shocks to agriculture, services, modern industry, and traditional industry. The resulting growth multipliers are 1.54 for agriculture, 1.80 for services, 1.34 for modern industry, and 1.22 for traditional industry. These results depict an economy in which intersectoral linkages operate on a highly uneven basis. These limits are reflected in the wide disparity between sectoral growth multipliers and by substantial differences in the patterns of their decomposition. The policy relevance of these findings relate, in part, to the distributional implications of growth in particular sectors. Poverty in Ethiopia is disproportionately rural. An income shock to agriculture is clearly the most progressive choice, indicating the need to highlight agricultural development in growth strategies for Ethiopia. Yet, the simulation results further indicate that doing so imposes relatively little trade off against total benefit. While a

Revisiting African Agriculture: Institutional Change and Productivity Growth

1 service sector income shock generates