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How can foreign aid to agriculture support economic growth in Africa? This paper constructs a geographically-indexed applied general equilibrium model that considers pathways through which aid might affect growth and structural transformation of labor markets in the context of soil nutrient variation, minimum subsistence consumption requirements, domestic transport costs, labor mobility and constraints to self-financing of agricultural inputs. Using plausible parameters, the model is presented for Uganda as an illustrative case. Three stylized scenarios demonstrate the potential economy-wide impacts of both soil nutrient loss and replenishment, and how foreign aid can be targeted to support agricultural inputs that boost rural productivity and shift labor to boost real wages. One simulation shows how a temporary program of targeted official development assistance (ODA) for agriculture could generate, contrary to traditional Dutch disease concerns, an expansion in the primary tradable sector and positive permanent productivity and welfare effects, leading to a steady decline in the need for complementary ODA for budget support.

Agricultural Inputs --- Agriculture --- Armed Conflict --- Climate Change and Agriculture --- Conflict and Development --- Crops and Crop Management Systems --- Farm Productivity --- Food Security --- Foreign Aid --- Growth --- Inequality --- Poverty Reduction --- Transport

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December 1999 - Nonfarm economic growth in India had very different effects on poverty in different states. Nonfarm growth was least effective at reducing poverty in states where initial conditions were poor in terms of rural development and human resources. Among initial conditions conducive to pro-poor growth, literacy plays a notably positive role. Ravallion and Datt use 20 household surveys for India's 15 major states, spanning 1960-94, to study how initial conditions and the sectoral composition of economic growth interact to influence how much economic growth reduced poverty. The elasticities of measured poverty to farm yields and development spending did not differ significantly across states. But the elasticities of poverty to (urban and rural) nonfarm output varied appreciably, and the differences were quantitatively important to the overall rate of poverty reduction. States with initially lower farm productivity, lower rural living standards relative to those in urban areas, and lower literacy experienced a less pro-poor growth process. This paper - a joint product of Poverty and Human Resources, Development Research Group, and the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Sector Unit, South Asia Region - is part of a larger effort in the Bank to better understand the conditions required for pro-poor growth. The authors may be contacted at mravallion@worldbank.org or gdatt@worldbank.org.

Absolute Poverty --- Economic Growth --- Farm Growth --- Farm Output --- Farm Productivity --- Food Policy --- Health, Nutrition and Population --- Household Income --- Household Surveys --- Human Development --- Inequality --- Measures --- Poor --- Population Policies --- Poverty --- Poverty Alleviation --- Poverty Measurement --- Poverty Reducing --- Poverty Reduction --- Pro-Poor Growth --- Rural --- Rural Development --- Rural Living Standards --- Rural Poverty Reduction

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Cox uses date from the 1992-93 and 1997-98 Vietnam Living Standards Survey (VLSS) to describe patterns of money transfers between households. Rapid economic growth during the 1990s did little to diminish the importance of private transfers in Vietnam. Private transfers are large and widespread in both surveys, and are much larger than public transfers. Private transfers appear to function like means-tested public transfers, flowing from better-off to worse-off households and providing old age support in retirement. Panel evidence suggests some hysteresis in private transfer patterns, but many households also changed from recipients to givers and vice versa between surveys. Changes in private transfers appear responsive to changes in household pre-transfer income, demographic changes, and life-course events. Transfer inflows rise upon retirement and widowhood, for example, and are positively associated with increases in health expenditures. It also appears that private transfer inflows increased for households affected by Typhoon Linda, which devastated Vietnam's southernmost provinces in late 1997. This paper is a product of Macroeconomics and Growth, Development Research Group. The study was funded by the Bank's Research Support Budget under the research project Economic Growth and Household Welfare: Policy Lessons from Vietnam. The author may be contacted at donald.cox@bc.edu.

Communities & Human Settlements --- Crowding Out --- Economic Growth --- Farm Productivity --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Financial Literacy --- Household Head --- Household Income --- Household Welfare --- Human Capital --- Human Capital Investment --- Income --- Income Redistribution --- Income Transfers --- Labor Policies --- Land and Real Estate Development --- Measures --- Money Transfers --- Municipal Housing and Land --- Poor --- Poverty --- Poverty Impact Evaluation --- Poverty Reduction --- Private Interhousehold Transfers --- Private Safety Nets --- Private Sector Development --- Private Transfers --- Public Safety Nets --- Real Estate Development --- Rural Development --- Rural Poverty Reduction --- Services and Transfers to Poor --- Social Protections and Labor --- Social Security