
Prof. E Somanathan discusses how to escape the economic dangers of COVID-19.
Any further lockdown risks incurring a loss of over 10% of GDP without stemming the spread of Covid-19. The ideal strategy is to find and isolate the small fraction of infected people through…
Volatility Linkages between Energy and Wine Prices in South Africa 20-07
Although a large number of studies have examined the price spillover in global oil and agricultural commodity markets, very little is known about the volatility of transmission between energy and wine prices in South Africa. The South African wine industry practices a form of industrialised agriculture that relies heavily on energy inputs to not only grow grapes but also process and distribute
A Decision Support Tool for Rural Water Supply Planning 20-06
Over a dozen studies have examined how households who travel to collect water (about one quarter of humanity) make choices about where and how much to collect. There is little evidence, however, that these studies have informed rural water supply planning in anything but a qualitative way. In this note, we describe a new web-based decision support tool that planners or community members can
Social Protection and Vulnerability to Nutrition Security among Male and Female Headed Households in Ethiopia 20-05
Weather at Different Growth Stages, Multiple Climate Smart Practices and Farm Level Risks: Panel Data Evidence from the Nile Basin of Ethiopia 20-04
The present study investigates the effects of combinations of climate smart agricultural practices on risk exposure and cost of risk. We do this by examining the different risk components – mean, variance, skewness, and kurtosis – in a multinomial treatment effects framework by controlling weather variables for key stages of crop growth. We found that adoption of combinations of practices is widely viewed as a risk reducing insurance strategy that can increase farmers’ resilience to production risk.
Transition Patterns of Fishermen and Farmers into Seaweed Small-Scale Aquaculture: The Role of Risk and Time Preferences 20-03
The extensive kelp forests along Chile’s coastline are an important source of income for many small fishing operations in Chile. But harvesting pressure has denuded many areas of the sea floor, threatening the health of the inshore marine environment. Recently, small operators have begun work to repopulate and/or cultivate seaweed. This work aims at studying the role of fishing and agriculture as outside options and their interactions with risk and time preferences in the uptake of seaweed aquaculture technology.
Household fuelwood consumption in western rural China: ethnic minority families versus Han Chinese families
This paper examines ethnic differences in fuelwood consumption in rural households, using an original survey dataset from two western Chinese provinces with large ethnic minority populations. We use a Heckman two-stage selection model to explain the quantity of fuelwood consumed conditional on a decision to use fuelwood. We find that ethnic minority families are more likely than majority Han Chinese families to use fuelwood.