Person: Larson, Donald F.
Development Research Group, World Bank
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Rural Development Policy; Natural Resource Policy; Agricultural Productivity and Growth; Climate Change Policy and Markets; Commodity Markets and Risk
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Development Research Group, World Bank
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Last updated: January 31, 2023
Biography
Donald F. Larson is a Senior Economist with the World Bank’s Development Research Group. He holds a B.A in economics from the College of William and Mary, an M.A. in economics from Virginia Tech, and a Ph.D. in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of Maryland.
With colleagues, he has authored or edited five books, including An African Green Revolution: Finding Ways to Boost Productivity on Small Farms, a forthcoming volume from Springer, and The Clean Development Mechanism: An Early History of Unanticipated Outcomes, a forthcoming volume from World Scientific. He has published numerous book chapters and journal articles, with an emphasis on agricultural productivity and growth; food and rural development policies; natural resource policies; the institutions and markets related to climate change; and the performance of commodity futures and risk markets.
During his time with the World Bank, Don has participated in policy discussion in Africa, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, East Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. He was a member of the team that launched the World Bank’s Prototype Carbon Fund.
44 results
Publication Search Results
Now showing 1 - 10 of 44
Publication Food Security and Storage in the Middle East and North Africa(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-04) Larson, Donald F.; Gouel, Christophe; Cafiero, Carlo; Roberts, JohnIn times of highly volatile commodity markets, governments often try to protect their populations from rapidly-rising food prices, which can be particularly harsh for the poor. A potential solution for food-deficit countries is to hold strategic reserves, which can be called on when international prices spike. But how large should strategic stockpiles be? This paper develops a dynamic storage model for wheat in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, where imported wheat dominates the average diet. The paper uses the model to analyze a strategy that sets aside wheat stockpiles, which can be used when needed to keep domestic prices below a targeted price. This paper shows that if the target is set high and reserves are adequate, the strategy can be effective and robust. Contrary to most interventions, strategic storage policies are counter-cyclical and, when the importing region is sufficiently large, a regional policy can smooth global prices. This paper shows that this is the case for the MENA region. Nevertheless, the policy is more costly than the pro-cyclical policy of a targeted intervention that directly offsets high prices with a subsidy similar to food stamps.Publication Do Farmers Choose to Be Inefficient? Evidence from Bicol(2009) Larson, Donald F.Farming households that differ in their ability or willingness to take on risks are likely to allocate resources and effort among income producing activities differently with consequences for productivity. In this paper we measure voluntary and involuntary departures from efficiency for rice producing households in the Bicol region of the Philippines. We take advantage of a panel of observations on households from 1978, 1983 and 1994. Available monthly weather data and survey information on planting times allows us to create household specific measures of weather shocks, which we use in our analysis. We find evidence that diversification and input choices do affect efficiency outcomes among farmers, although these effects are not dominant; accumulated wealth, past decisions to invest, favorable market conditions, and propitious weather are also important determinants of efficiency outcomes among Bicol rice farmers. Our findings suggest that the costs of incomplete formal and informal insurance markets are higher for poorer farmers.Publication Diffusion of Kyoto's Clean Development Mechanism(2010) Rahman, Shaikh M.; Dinar, Ariel; Larson, Donald F.To date, developed countries can only tap mitigation opportunities in developing countries by investing in projects under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Yet CDM investments have so far failed to reach all of the high-potential sectors identified in IPCC reports. This raises doubts about whether the CDM will be able to generate an adequate supply of credits from the limited areas where it has proved successful. Our paper examines the current trajectory of potential mitigation entering the CDM pipeline and projects it forward under the assumption that the diffusion of the CDM will follow a path similar to other kinds of innovations. Projections are then compared to pre-CDM predictions of the mechanism's potential market size used to assess Kyoto's cost, in order to discem whether limits on the types of project entering the pipeline will also limit the eventual supply of certified emission reductions (CERs). The main finding of the paper is that the mechanism is on track to deliver an average annual flow of roughly 700 million CERs by the close of 2012 and nearly to 1100 million tons by 2020. Parameter tests suggest that currently identified CDM investments will exceed early model predictions of the potential market for CDM projects. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Publication Should African Rural Development Strategies Depend on Smallholder Farms? An Exploration of the Inverse-Productivity Hypothesis(Wiley, 2013-09-03) Larson, Donald F.; Matsumoto, Tomoya; Kilic, TalipIn Africa, most development strategies include efforts to improve the productivity of staple crops grown on smallholder farms. An underlying premise is that small farms are productive in the African context and that smallholders do not forgo economies of scale—a premise supported by the often observed phenomenon that staple cereal yields decline as the scale of production increases. This article explores a research design conundrum that encourages researchers who study the relationship between productivity and scale to use surveys with a narrow geographic reach in order to produce more reliable results, even though results are better suited for policy decisions when they are based on data that are broadly representative. Using a model of endogenous technology choice, we explore the relationship between maize yields and scale using alternative data. Since rich descriptions of the decision environments that farmers face are needed to identify the applied technologies that generate the data, improvements in the location specificity of the data should reduce the likelihood of identification errors and biased estimates. However, our analysis finds that the inverse-productivity hypothesis holds up well across a broad platform of data, despite obvious shortcomings with some components. It also finds surprising consistency in the estimated scale elasticities.Publication Will Markets Direct Investments under the Kyoto Protocol? Lessons from the Activities Implemented Jointly Pilots(2009) Larson, Donald F.Under the Kyoto Protocol, countries can meet treaty obligations by investing in projects that reduce or sequester greenhouse gases elsewhere. Prior to ratification, treaty participants agreed to launch country-based pilot projects, referred to collectively as Activities Implemented Jointly (AIJ), to test novel aspects of the project-related provisions. Relying on a ten-year history of projects, we investigate the determinants of AIJ investment. Our findings suggest that review-agency preferences related to national political objectives and possibly deeper cultural ties influenced project selection and limited the number of AIJ projects. Bilateral ties also appear to have affected investment decisions directly, possibly because of related transaction costs. The results suggest an investment process different from the assumptions that underlie well-known estimates of cost-savings related to the Protocol's flexibility mechanisms. We conclude that if approaches developed under the AIJ programs to approve projects are retained, the scale of investment under Kyoto's flexibility provisions and their cost-savings will be less than what is generally anticipated and the pattern of investment less driven by abatement costs.Publication A Review of Carbon Market Policies and Research(2008) Larson, Donald F.; Dinar, Ariel; Rahman, Shaikh Mahfuzur; Entler, RebeccaWe describe important institutions that shape climate change policies together with a set of key market-reliant instruments. We selectively review the related economic literature, emphasizing empirical studies that assess the efficacy of current policies and the workings of policy-dependent markets. Special attention is given to new carbon finance markets tied to the Kyoto Protocol's flexibility mechanisms. Promising areas for future research are identified.Publication Food Security and Storage in the Middle East and North Africa(Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2014-01-23) Larson, Donald F.; Gouel, Christophe; Cafiero, Carlo; Roberts, JohnIn times of highly volatile commodity markets, governments often try to protect their populations from rapidly rising food prices, which can be particularly harmful for the poor. A potential solution for food-deficit countries is to hold strategic reserves that can be called on when international prices spike. But how large should strategic stockpiles be, and what rules should govern their release? In this paper, we develop a dynamic competitive storage model for wheat in the Middle East and North Africa region, where imported wheat is the most significant component of the average diet. We analyze a strategy that sets aside wheat stockpiles, which can be used to keep domestic prices below a targeted price. Our analysis shows that if the target price is set high and reserves are adequate, the strategy can be effective and robust. Contrary to most interventions, strategic storage policies are counter-cyclical, and when the importing region is sufficiently large, a regional policy can smooth global prices. Simulations indicate that this is the case for the Middle East and North Africa region. Nevertheless, the policy is more costly than a procyclical policy similar to food stamps that uses targeted transfers to directly offset high prices with a subsidy.Publication On the Central Role of Small Farms in African Rural Development Strategies(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-06) Muraoka, Rie; Larson, Donald F.; Otsuka, KeijiroImproving the productivity of smallholder farms in Sub-Saharan Africa offers the best chance to reduce poverty among this generation of rural poor, by building on the limited resources farming households already possess. It is also the best and shortest path to meet rising food needs. Using examples from farmers' maize and rice fields, and comparisons with Asia, this paper examines why the set of technologies promoted to date have produced localized successes rather than transformational change. The paper explains the limitations of alternative policies that are not centered on small farms. It provides indicative examples of how resource-management technologies can supplement seed-fertilizer technologies to speed an African Green Revolution.Publication Long-Term Impacts of an Unanticipated Risk Event: The 2007/08 Food Price Crisis and Child Growth in Indonesia(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-04) Yamauchi, Futoshi; Larson, Donald F.Unanticipated spikes in food prices can increase malnutrition among the poor, with lasting consequences; however, livelihood strategies that include producing food for home consumption are expected to offer a measure of protection. Using anthropometric and consumption data from Indonesia collected before and after the 2007/08 food price crisis, this paper finds evidence of both effects. Based on standardized height and weight measures, the results indicate that soaring food prices had a significant and negative impact on child growth among non-farming households. A corresponding effect was undetectable for food-producing households. The results remain robust when income effects from increased commercial sales and possible attritions through migration and fostering are considered. Further, local food price changes were uncorrelated with the share of non-farming village households and the initial average child nutrition status in the village, suggesting that the observed outcomes are directly attributable to market events and livelihood strategies. Interestingly, gender differences were not detected. The findings imply that the food price crises can have negative impacts on children, potentially leading to lifelong income inequality among those affected at a vulnerable stage of life.Publication Are Women Less Productive Farmers?: How Markets and Risk Affect Fertilizer Use, Productivity, and Measured Gender Effects in Uganda(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-04) Savastano, Sara; Larson, Donald F.; Murray, Siobhan; Palacios-Lopez, AmparoAfrican governments and international development groups see boosting productivity on smallholder farms as key to reducing rural poverty and safeguarding the food security of farming and non-farming households. Prompting smallholder farmers to use more fertilizer has been a key tactic. Closing the productivity gap between male and female farmers has been another avenue toward achieving the same goal. The results in this paper suggest the two are related. Fertilizer use and maize yields among smallholder farmers in Uganda are increased by improved access to markets and extension services, and reduced by ex ante risk-mitigating production decisions. Standard ordinary least squares regression results indicate that gender matters as well; however, the measured productivity gap between male and female farmers disappears when gender is included in a list of determinants meant to capture the indirect effects of market and extension access.