A Test of the Household Separation Hypothesis in Rwanda

<p>How does a farm household in rural Africa react when the government decides crop selection? In developing countries, agricultural households strive to optimize a risk mitigating utility function rather than a traditional agricultural production function. These households are termed “non-separated” as their farming efforts are directed towards family food security rather than maximizing agricultural profits. The lack of integration with labor and commodity markets makes these non-separated households difficult to influence with policy initiatives. Various tests for household separation have been developed.</p> <p>We use a unique dataset from Rwanda to evaluate these separation tests. The data include households forced into a separated economic model by government policy, as well as, those partially separated and others that remained non-separated. We create a modified test for separation using a measure of the alignment of the production and consumption functions.</p> <p>Last, we hypothesize that farm households forced into partial separation will alter their crop selection on their other plots to mitigate the perceived risk to family food security. We find a weak association between crop selection on these plots and the consumption profile of the household.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science in International and Development Economics (MSIDEC)

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Economics

Year dc:date.available

2015

Author dc:creator

• Anderson, James E

Contributors dc:contributor

• Elizabeth Katz
• Yaniv Stopnitzky

• Rwanda Household Agriculture Policy Economics
• Behavioral Economics
• Econometrics
• Economic Theory
• Growth and Development
• International Economics

Repository record dc:identifier

https://repository.usfca.edu/thes/146

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.usfca.edu:thes-1164