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It is often argued that subsidizing fertilizer and other inputs is desirable both to boost agricultural production and to help poor farmers. This analysis of Malawi's huge Farmer Input Subsidy Program highlights a tension between these two objectives: The more FISP increases fertilizer use and thereby raises output, the greater the distortion and hence the lower the welfare gains from the program. Indeed, the empirical results indicate that up to 59% of every Kwacha spent on the FISP is wasted, in the sense that the fertilizer is not sufficiently valued by the beneficiaries. Cashing out the program is shown to have desirable distributional implications.

Agricultural Productivity --- Agricultural Sector Economics --- Agriculture --- Analysis of Economic Growth --- Development Patterns and Poverty --- Economic Management --- Fertilizers --- Income Distribution --- Inequality --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Poverty Reduction --- Public Expenditure, Financial Management and Procurement --- Public Sector Governance --- Rural Development --- Rural Policies and Institutions --- Taxation & Subsidies

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Social problems --- Sociology of education --- Ghana

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School choice --- Middle schools --- Academic achievement --- Education --- School attendance --- Case studies. --- Economic aspects --- Case studies

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This paper considers the welfare and distributional consequences of higher relative food prices in rural India through the lens of a specific-factors, general equilibrium, trade model applied at the district level. The evidence shows that nominal wages for manual labor both within and outside agriculture respond elastically to increases in producer prices; that is, wages rose faster in rural districts growing more of those crops with large price run-ups over 2004-09. Accounting for such wage gains, the analysis finds that rural households across the income spectrum benefit from higher agricultural commodity prices. Indeed, rural wage adjustment appears to play a much greater role in protecting the welfare of the poor than the Public Distribution System, India's giant food-rationing scheme. Moreover, policies, like agricultural export bans, which insulate producers (as well as consumers) from international price increases, are particularly harmful to the poor of rural India. Conventional welfare analyses that assume fixed wages and focus on households' net sales position lead to radically different conclusions.

Agribusiness --- Agriculture --- Economic Theory & Research --- Emerging Markets --- General Equilibrium --- Labor Policies --- Markets and Market Access --- Rural Development --- Specific-factors Model --- Trade

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In a setting where husbands wield considerable coercive power, forms of marriage should adapt to protect the interests of women and their families. The authors study the pervasive marriage custom of watta satta in rural Pakistan, a bride exchange between families coupled with a mutual threat of retaliation. They show that watta satta may be a mechanism to coordinate the actions of two sets of in-laws, each of whom wish to restrain their sons-in-law but who only have the ability to restrain their sons. The authors' empirical results support this view. The likelihood of marital inefficiency, as measured by estrangement, domestic abuse, and wife's mental health, is significantly lower in watta satta arrangements as compared with conventional marriages, but only after properly accounting for selection.

Anthropology --- Child --- Culture & Development --- Divorce --- Domestic Abuse --- Domestic Violence --- Families --- Family --- Female --- Gender --- Gender and Law --- Health, Nutrition and Population --- Home --- Husband --- Husbands --- Law --- Law and Development --- Laws --- Marriage --- Marriages --- Population and Development --- Population Policies --- Residence --- Social Development --- Social Inclusion and Institutions --- Wife --- Will --- Wives --- Woman --- Women