Publication: Patterns of Rural Development: A Cross-Country Comparison Using Microeconomic Data
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2010
ISSN
0021857X
Published
2010
Editor(s)
Abstract
This article proposes a general pattern of rural development in which increases in per capita income are associated with a decline in the importance of agricultural production and a rise in the importance of non-agricultural income sources. Following the approach to examining Engel's Law, we use data from 15 developing countries and a merged dataset to test whether such a pattern emerges. The analysis shows a strong, positive relationship between per capita income and the share of income earned from rural non-agricultural wage employment and a negative relationship between per capita income and agricultural production.
Link to Data Set
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Citations
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Rural Household Access to Assets and Agrarian Institutions : A Cross Country Comparison(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2008)Access to assets and agrarian institutions is of critical importance to the economic viability of rural households. Understanding the extent of this access and how it links to the ability of rural households to employ different pathways out of poverty is thus vital for designing rural development policies. This paper characterizes household access to assets and agrarian institutions through the comparative analysis of datasets from 15 nationally representative household surveys from four regions of the developing world. It finds that the access of rural households to a range of assets (including education, land and livestock) and institutions is in general low, though highly heterogeneous across countries, and by categories of households within countries. A large share of rural agricultural households do not use or have access to basic productive inputs, agricultural support services or output markets, and in general it is the landless and the smallest landowners who suffer significantly more from this lack of access.Publication Rural Income Generating Activities : A Cross Country Comparison(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2008)Cross country comparisons of rural income generating activities are analyzed to identify ways to design more effective and better targeted rural development policies. The full range of rural income generating activities carried out by rural households are examined, including: 1) the relative importance of the gamut of income generating activities in general and across wealth categories, both at the level of the rural economy and the rural household; 2), the relative importance of diversification versus specialization in rural income generation; 3) the relationship between key household assets and the participation in and income earned from these activities; and 4) the influence of rural income generating activities on poverty and inequality. For most countries the largest share of income stems from off farm activities, and the largest share of households have diversified sources of income. Diversification, not specialization, is the norm, although most countries show significant levels of household specialization in non-agricultural activities as well.Publication Rural Income Generating Activities: Whatever Happened to the Institutional Vacuum? Evidence from Ghana, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Vietnam(2009)This paper assesses the current rural development practice against the main trends in recent rural development thinking, based on evidence from four country case studies. While much progress has been made in understanding the need to look beyond only agriculture for the promotion of productive activities in rural areas, and the "institutional vacuum" consistently identified in the rural non-farm (RNF) literature is gradually being filled, much remains to be done. One aspect on which more research is particularly needed is the development of better mechanisms to promote productive investment rather than just social investment and to assess the appropriate level--community, regional, and national--at which to do this.Publication Assessing the Impact of Migration on Food and Nutrition Security(2011)Migration has become a key component in the livelihood strategies of an increasing number of households across the developing world and remittances have expanded dramatically in the last decade. This has come at a time when an increased emphasis has been placed on reducing malnutrition to achieve Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets. While this is the case, there has been little attention on the interface between migration and nutrition even though migration can influence nutrition through a number of channels. The objective of this special issue is to present state-of-the-art analyses of the link between migration and nutrition in developing countries. In this paper, an overview of the conceptual and empirical issues in identifying the link between migration and nutrition are considered. Further, the results from seven country case studies are synthesized and policy implications are drawn.Publication Globalization and Smallholders : The Adoption, Diffusion, and Welfare Impact of Non-traditional Export Crops in Guatemala(2010)This paper uses a duration analysis based on adoption data spanning 25 years from six communities in the Central Highlands of Guatemala to explore how household characteristics and external trends play into both the adoption and diffusion processes of non-traditional exports (NTX) among smallholders. Based on the analysis, NTX production appeared to have delivered less prosperity to adopters than initially promised. Smallholders may lack capacity to overcome difficulties that inevitably arise in complex types of cultivations and in highly variable global agricultural markets. Governmental and non-governmental organizations can attempt to mitigate these difficulties, but market forces may overwhelm these efforts.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
No results found.