Browsing by Subject "Haushalt"

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7

A microeconomic analysis of household forest plantation in the northern uplands of Vietnam : contributions to payments for environmental services policy
(2014) Manasboonphempool, Areeya; Zeller, Manfred
It is uncontested that forests are imperative for environmental conservation and economic development. Benefits from forests are immense and multidimensional: Forests can support local livelihoods, assist poverty alleviation, and provide environmental services for local communities and greater society. Over the past 50 years, about half of the worlds original forest cover has been lost. Vietnam is among the countries where forest degradation is a serious issue. Several measures have been implemented to alleviate forest degradation, including forest land allocation and forest plantation programs. The current and growing international interest of civil society and governments in the acknowledgement of forest environmental services has become mainstream: Vietnam is among several countries who appreciate the need for payment or compensation to local communities for forest values through the payment for environmental services (PES) mechanism. Since 2010, Vietnam has officially introduced a payments for forest environmental services (PFES) scheme to pursue conservation and development goals. However, there is still a lack of knowledge for farmers preferences for policy design and implementation. In spite of a number of studies examining the impacts of forest policies in northern Vietnam, there is limited research on incentive and forest management at the household level. Such an analysis would provide insightful information and entail implications for PES policy, especially in terms of effective participation and cost efficiency. This dissertation attempts to fill this research gap by examining farmers behavior on forest management and their experiences with forest policies that are necessary for determining effective incentives that can bring about changes in behavior related to forest conservation practice in a mountainous area. The research is based on two survey rounds of 300 representative households in Da Bac district, located in the upstream area of the Hoa Binh reservoir in the northwestern region of Vietnam. As previous afforestation programs are based on a top-down approach, this dissertation contributes to the limited research on the potential demand for and farmers preferences in forest management. The analysis provides policy implications for a PES scheme where voluntary participation and cost efficiency are crucial for its success. This dissertation also contributes to a small but growing body of literature on choice experiment application to the field of forest conservation schemes in developing countries. In addition, the analysis of Transaction Costs (TCs) borne by households under the forest management scheme can contribute to the limited number of studies that have empirically analyzed private TCs, particularly in developing countries. The results of our research underline the inadequacy of previous forest plantation support and recommend that when land is limited, higher financial incentives are needed to make forest conservation attractive in a PES scheme. Depending on the contract, there exists a potential demand for forest conservation with a small subsidy or even without a subsidy if extra land is allocated. This suggests that policymakers should integrate land allocation into PES policies to obtain better cost efficiency. As the results indicate that households have different degrees of willingness to participate in forest conservation programs, we recommend that policies target PES campaigns to households who have less interest in forest conservation, such as households with livelihoods that depend mainly on agricultural production, who have not previously joined the forest programs either due to their ineligibility or distrust in local government authorities, and who have limited market access due to poor road conditions. In addition, given that the security of forests influences the decision to plant forest, strengthening monitoring mechanism or introducing insurance to reduce the risk of plantation failure is recommended as another option to promote participation. This dissertation reveals that the amount of incentives that farmers are willing to accept to plant and conserve forest instead of engaging in farming activities is higher than previous subsidies. In mountainous areas where ethnic minorities still live in poverty, a higher subsidy is expected to achieve both environmental conservation and poverty alleviation outcomes. Nevertheless, a critical question arises as to whether a higher subsidy can lead to sustainable household forest management. This question should be addressed by future research by examining longitudinal data on household livelihood and forest management under a PES scheme. It has not been possible to empirically measure TCs of farmers engaged in community-based forest management where such information would provide interesting results on this matter. The implications on this study could be developed further by expanding the survey and gathering data from participants of community-based forest management. Further research on the comparison of TCs associated with community and individual management is recommended to provide information to policymakers and researchers.
Biogas production vs. dung combustion as household energy in rural Ethiopia
(2011) Müller, Joachim; Barfuss, Isabel; Gwavuya, Stanley; Abele, Steffen
The objective of the study was to investigate the potential of dung as primary and secondary energy source, i.e. direct combustion of dung and combustion of its secondary products biogas or dried digestate, under consideration of its quality as fertilizer. The results of the analysis show the similarity of dung and digestate regarding combustion characteristics. Fertilizer values proved better for digestate. However, calorific value of dung proved much lower than those of biogas. Thus, biogas represents a good alternative energy source with double benefit. Besides its better combustion characteristics compared to dried dung, it also delivers a superior fertilizer.
Considering household size in contingent valuation studies
(2013) Schneider, Friedrich; Ahlheim, Michael
In many empirical Contingent Valuation studies one finds that household size, i. e. the number auf household members, is negatively correlated with stated household willingness to pay for the realization of environmental projects. This observation is rather puzzling because in larger households more people can benefit from an environmental improvement than in small households. Therefore, the overall benefit should be greater for larger households. A plausible explanation could be that household budgets are tighter for large families than for smaller families with the same overall family income. The fact that larger families can afford only smaller willingness to pay statements in Contingent Valuation surveys than smaller families with the same income and the same preferences might have consequences for the allocation of public funds whenever the realization of an environmental project is made dependent on the outcome of a Contingent Valuation study. In this paper we show how the use of household equivalence scales for the assessment of environmental projects with the Contingent Valuation Method can serve to reduce the discrimination of members of large families.
Does size matter? Implications of household size for economic growth and convergence
(2018) Prettner, Klaus; Geloso, Vincent; Kufenko, Vadim
We assess the effects of changes in household size on the long-run evolution of living standards and on cross-country convergence. When the observed changes in average household size across countries are taken into consideration, growth in living standards is slower throughout the 20th century as compared to a measure based on per capita GDP. Furthermore, the speed of divergence between different countries be- fore 1950 is faster and the speed of convergence after 1950 is slower after adjusting for the evolution in household size.
Operational poverty targeting by proxy means tests : models and policy simulations for Malawi
(2010) Houssou, Nazaire S. I.; Zeller, Manfred
There is a long standing belief that accurate targeting of public policy can play a major role in alleviating poverty and fostering pro-poor economic growth. Many development programs fail to reach the poor in that a sizeable amount of program benefits leak to higher-income groups and a substantial proportion of poor are excluded. This is also the case in Malawi, one of the poorest countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. In response to widespread poverty and endemic food insecurity, the country decision makers enacted various programs, including free food, food-for-work, cash-for-work, subsidized agricultural inputs, etc. To target these programs at the poor and smallholder farmers in the country, policy makers rely mainly on community-based targeting systems in which local authorities, village development committees, and other community representatives identify program beneficiaries based on their assessment of the household living conditions. However, most of these programs have been characterized by poor targeting and significant leakage of benefits to the non-poor due to a number of factors, including various local perceptions, favoritism, abuse, lack of understanding of targeting criteria, political interests, etc. Almost all interventions are poorly targeted in the country. Therefore, this research explores potential methods and models that might improve the targeting efficiency of agricultural and development policies in the country. Using the Malawi Second Integrated Household (IHS2) survey data and a variety of estimation methods along with stepwise selection of variables, we propose empirical models for improving the poverty outreach of agricultural and development policies in rural and urban Malawi. Moreover, the research analyzes the out-of-sample performances of different estimation methods in identifying the poor and smallholder farmers. In addition, the model robustness was assessed by estimating the prediction intervals out-of-sample using bootstrapped simulation methods. Furthermore, we estimate the cost-effectiveness and impacts of targeting the poor and smallholder farmers. It is often argued that targeting is cost-ineffective and once all targeting costs have been considered, a finely targeted program may not be any more cost-efficient and may not have any more impact on poverty than a universal program. We assess whether this is the case using household-level data from Malawi. More importantly, we evaluate whether administering development programs using the newly developed models is more target- and cost-efficient than past agricultural subsidy programs namely the 2000/2001 Starter Pack and the 2006/2007 Agricultural Input Support Program (AISP). Estimation results suggest that under the newly designed system, mis-targeting is considerably reduced and the targeting efficiency of development policies improves compared to the currently used mechanisms in the country. Findings indicate that the estimation methods applied achieve the same level of targeting performance. The rural model achieves an average poverty accuracy of about 72% and a leakage of 27% when calibrated to the national poverty line of 44.29 Malawi Kwacha (MK). On the other hand, the urban model yields on average a poverty accuracy of about 62% and a leakage of 39% when calibrated to the same poverty line. The results are also confirmed by the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curves of the models which show that there is no sizeable difference in aggregate predictive accuracy between the estimation methods. The ROC curve is a powerful tool that can be used by policy makers and project managers to decide on the number of poor a program or development policy should reach and ponder on the number of non-poor that would also be wrongly targeted. Calibrating the models to a higher poverty line improves its targeting performances, while calibrating the models to a lower line does the opposite. For example, under the international poverty line of US$1.25 (i.e. MK59.18 in Purchasing Power Parity), the rural model covers about 82% of the poor and wrongly targets only 16% of the non-poor, whereas the urban model covers about 74% of the poor and wrongly identifies 26% of the non-poor. On the other hand, using an extreme poverty line of MK29.81 disappointingly reduces the model?s poverty accuracy and leakage: the rural model yields a poverty accuracy of 51% and a leakage of 39% while the urban model yields a poverty accuracy of about 48% and a leakage of 68%. Furthermore, a breakdown of targeting errors by poverty deciles indicates that the models perform well in terms of those who are mistargeted; covering most of the poorest deciles and excluding most of the richest ones. These results have obvious desirable welfare implications for the poor and smallholder farmers. It is all important to mention that the models selected cannot explain but predict poverty. A causal relationship should not be inferred from the results. There is compelling evidence in favor of targeting since considering all costs does not make targeting cost- and impact-ineffective. Findings suggest that the new system is considerably more accurate and more target-efficient than the currently used mechanisms for targeting agricultural inputs in the country. Likewise, simulation results indicate that targeting the poor and smallholder farmers is more cost- and impact-effective than universal coverage of the population. Better targeting not only reduces the Malawian Government?s direct costs for providing benefits, but also reduces the total costs of a targeted program. Though administrative costs increase with finer targeting, the results indicate that the overall benefits outweigh the costs of targeting. Likewise, finer targeting reduces the costs of leakage by a sizable margin and produces the highest impacts on poverty compared to universal regimes. However, the finest redistribution does not consistently yield the best transfer efficiency, nor does it consistently improve post-transfer poverty. Furthermore, the newly designed system appears to be more cost-efficient than the 2000/2001 Starter Pack and the 2006/2007 Agricultural Input Support Program (AISP). While the Starter Pack and the AISP transferred about 50% of total transfer, under the new system about 73% of transfer is delivered to the poor and smallholder farmers. Likewise, under the new proxy system the costs of leakage are cut down by 55% and 57% for the Starter Pack and AISP, respectively. Thus, under the new system it is possible to reduce leakage and undercoverage rates and improve the cost and transfer efficiency of development programs in the country. The proxy indicators selected reflect the local communities? understandings of poverty and include variables from different dimensions, such as demography, education, housing, and asset ownership. These indicators are objective and most can be easily verified. However, the collection of information on those indicators might entail an effective verification process. Likewise, the emphasis put on proxy means tests in this research does not imply that other potential targeting methods should be disregarded. Indeed, proxy means tests are not perfect at targeting; the system developed can be combined with other methods in a multi-stage targeting process. Furthermore, targeting can be a politically sensitive issue; the system developed does not take into account the reality that policy makers, program managers, or development practitioners may adjust eligibility criteria due to political, administrative, budgetary, or other reasons. The models developed can be used in a wide range of applications, such as identifying the poor and smallholder farmers, improving the existing targeting mechanisms of agricultural input subsidies, assessing household eligibility to welfare programs and safety net benefits, producing estimates of poverty rates and monitoring changes in poverty over time as the country and donors cannot afford the costs of frequent household expenditure surveys, estimating the impacts of development policies targeted to those living below the poverty line, and assessing the poverty outreach of microfinance institutions operating in the country. This broad range of applications makes the models potentially interesting policy tools for the country. However, the models developed are not sufficient. They must also be coupled with investments in education, rural infrastructure, economic growth related sectors, and strong political will to impact on the welfare of Malawian people. The research also provides a framework for developing and evaluating a simple and reasonably accurate system for reaching the poor and smallholder farmers in Malawi, but the methodology can be useful in other areas of applied research and replicated in other developing countries with similar targeting problems.
Sharing forest resources in the Northern Uplands of Vietnam : an institutional analysis
(2016) Tran, Thi Thu Huong; Zeller, Manfred
After decades of policies favoring centralization, Vietnam has been moving toward decentralization in the forestry sector since the 1990s. This shift began with the provision of incentives for allocating and/or leasing forest and forest land to state- and non-state stakeholders for long-term management. Along with forest land allocation, the government has implemented various nationwide reforestation, afforestation, and forest protection programs. These programs are the Greening the Barren Hills Program (known as Program 327) from 1992 to 1998, the Five Million Hectare Reforestation Program (known as Program 661) from 1998 to 2010, the Program 661’s successor - the Plan for Forest Protection and Development from 2011 to 2020, and the Payments for Forest Environmental Services Program (PFES) from 2011 to today. The goal of these programs is to provide incentives to encourage farmers to participate in forest conservation activities. To date, there is limited research using the institutional approach on incentives and on the implementation of decentralization programs. There is also a lack of research on innovative ways to improve administrative and transaction cost aspects of these programs. A greater understanding of how these programs have been implemented at local levels, how they affect local forest management efforts, and the role of stakeholders is crucial to provide insights and policy recommendations for future forest conservation policies. This dissertation aims to fill this research gap by analyzing the implementation of current national forestry policies through an institutional approach and by proposing the acknowledgment of the role of state bodies, namely, state forest enterprises (SFEs), as implementing agencies at local levels under the Payments for Forest Environmental Services Program. This research is based on data collected from individual in-depth interviews and focus group discussions in 2012 and 2014 in Da Bac district, Hoa Binh province in northwestern Vietnam. Despite the important role of the transaction cost analysis for assessing the effectiveness of institutional arrangements within natural resource management, this type of analysis is often neglected in policy analysis. Therefore, this study’s analysis of transaction costs borne by participating farmers in Program 661 contributes to the small handful of empirical studies on private TCs associated with natural resource management activities. Moreover, proposing SFEs to function as intermediaries in the implementation of the PFES Program contributes to the limited number of studies on innovative ways to reduce transaction costs of managing this program. In addition, the dissertation contributes empirical evidence on the institutional analysis of the PFES scheme. This topic has rarely been studied and the inclusion of institutional interplay is the least researched area in the literature. As Vietnam is the first country in the region to initiate the PFES scheme nationwide, the lessons learned from the design of the PFES scheme and from its implementation in the field are valuable to other developing countries with similar conditions. Future research should evaluate national forestry policies by examining public transaction costs faced by implementing agencies. This will allow for a more comprehensive understanding of the effectiveness of forestry policies and programs and thus help the development of future policies and programs.
Smallholder milk production in the Punjab of Pakistan and the evaluation of potential interventions
(2007) Teufel, Nils; Gall, Christian
The potential offered by milk production and marketing to increase rural income has long been recognised. Yet, milk production by smallholder households, the great majority of the 4.1 million households with dairy animals in the Punjab of Pakistan, has remained practically unchanged. In order to facilitate improved decisions on the allocation of limited development resources, this study analyses smallholder milk production, determines the effects of a variety of technical improvements and evaluates these by their household effects. For this, a linear programming model simulates household decisions based on identified objectives, recorded resources and technical characteristics. Multiple objectives are considered through compromise programming. Ten improvement scenarios are formulated. These include the introduction of new feeds (maize grain, commercial concentrates, molasses and hybrid sorghum), improved reproductive performance (reduced age at first calving and reduced inter-calving period), improved veterinary health (reduced mortality of calves and of adult females) and the introduction of genetically improved animals, through selective breeding (buffalo and cattle) or crossbreeding (cattle). Model data were collected during a cross-sectional survey of 322 randomly selected households and a 13-month longitudinal survey of 64 specifically selected smallholders in the central region of the irrigated Punjab of Pakistan. Cluster analysis identifies seven household classes in the cross-sectional sample. The three largest are considered in the model, characterised as "smallholders with marginal land resources" (class 1), "smallholders with subsistence orientated milk production" (class 2) and "smallholders with market orientated milk production" (class 3). The classification is applied to the longitudinal survey sample by discriminant analysis, identifying 9, 23, and 31 households in classes 1 to 3, respectively. Herd sizes are similar in household classes 1 and 2, with 2.1 and 2.3 adult female buffaloes respectively, while 3.6 are kept in class 3. Only 0.5 adult female cattle are kept in all classes. Land availability is similar for classes 2 and 3 (2.4 ha), but only 1.0 ha in class 1. Cropping patterns are dominated by wheat and rice. Berseem (Egyptian clover) and sorghum plus maize are important fodder crops. The nutrient supply calculated from feeding records corresponds well to estimated livestock nutrient requirements. Nevertheless, feed shortage periods in spring and early winter demand attention. Feed energy constrains livestock nutrition throughout the year in all classes. In addition to maximising family income, households also aim at maintaining their welfare against negative shocks. Also, opportunity costs of family labour are difficult to determine. Thus, maximising farm income and livestock assets (for insurance) as well as minimising loan requirements and family labour use are defined as model objectives in this order of importance. Food requirements are formulated as constraints. The activity levels produced by the base household model correspond well to longitudinal survey data. However, milk marketing is not only determined by the milk price but also by the reliability of marketing systems. Therefore, the milk price within the model is reduced to simulate recorded milk marketing levels. The price reduction is interpreted as the ?perceived? risk associated with milk marketing at village level. Model results of the ten improvement scenarios show positive effects for most interventions. Cheap high-energy feeds ("molasses", "hybrid sorghum") provide the greatest benefits for all classes. Increasing annual milk output ("inter-calving period", "selective breeding") is mainly effective in households selling substantial amounts of milk. Reducing replacement requirements ("adult mortality", "age at first calving") does not considerably improve the attractiveness of milk production. High-value concentrates (?maize grain?, ?commercial concentrates?) are unattractive as long as alternatives (e.g. wheat grain) are self-produced at current opportunity costs of land and labour. Finally, reducing calf mortality has practically no effect and crossbred cattle are only attractive under good marketing conditions with effective institutions. Including only income as objective indicates rising incomes when herd sizes are reduced in favour of cash crops. In a third model version, the effects of higher "perceived" milk prices simulate reactions to improved milk marketing. Despite considerable improvements in the adjusted base model, low-cost feeds still manage to produce considerable benefits. The study shows that introducing targeted interventions, such as providing cheap high-energy feeds, to smallholder milk production and improving market access are effective approaches for decreasing rural poverty.