Gerald Shively | Purdue University (original) (raw)

Papers by Gerald Shively

Food Policy, 2014

In the canonical consumer demand problem, an agent makes a decision about quantities to consume, ... more In the canonical consumer demand problem, an agent makes a decision about quantities to consume, under the assumption that all varieties can be accessed at zero cost. In reality, the cost of accessing variety may not be zero. In this paper we study the effect of variety access cost on the consumption of food variety and its role in explaining regional differences in dietary diversity in China. We find that a higher cost of access negatively affects the individual's ability to diversify her diet in terms of both the total counts and the balancing of varieties consumed. The primary policy implication of this research is that attempts to create a healthy food environment in China must be differentiated along rural and urban lines. In rural communities where consumers have been limited in their ability to diversify food baskets by high electricity and transportation costs, infrastructure development and modernization may effectively improve nutritional balance. For more urbanized communities where the cost of consuming additional food variety is relatively low, food policies might instead focus on interventions that promote healthy eating to mitigate the burden of over-nutrition.

The Journal of Development Studies, 2014

Using data from 433 firms operating along Uganda's charcoal and timber supply chains, we investig... more Using data from 433 firms operating along Uganda's charcoal and timber supply chains, we investigate patterns of bribe payment and tax collection between supply chain actors and government officials responsible for collecting taxes and fees. We examine the factors associated with the presence and magnitude of bribe and tax payments using a series of bivariate probit and Tobit regression models. We find empirical support for a number of hypotheses related to payments, highlighting the role of queuing, capital-at-risk, favouritism, networks, and role in the supply chain. We also find that taxes crowd in bribery in the charcoal market.

Health & Place, 2015

Data from the 2011 Nepal Demographic Health Survey are combined with satellite remotely sensed No... more Data from the 2011 Nepal Demographic Health Survey are combined with satellite remotely sensed Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data to evaluate whether interannual variability in weather is associated with child health. For stunting, we focus on children older than 24 months of age. NDVI anomaly averages during cropping months are evaluated during the year before birth, the year of birth, and the second year after birth. For wasting, we assess children under 59 months of age and relate growth to NDVI averages for the current and most recent growing periods. Correlations between short-run indicators of child growth and intensity of green vegetation are generally positive. Regressions that control for a range of child-, mother- and household-specific characteristics produce mixed evidence regarding the role of NDVI anomalies during critical periods in a child&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#39;s early life and the subsequent probability of stunting and wasting. Overall findings suggest that the relationship between environmental conditions and child growth are heterogeneous across the landscape in Nepal and, in many cases, highly non-linear and sensitive to departures from normality.

This paper examines the recent decentralization of governance in Indonesia and its impact on loca... more This paper examines the recent decentralization of governance in Indonesia and its impact on local infrastructure provision. The decentralization of decisionmaking power to local jurisdictions in Indonesia may have improved the matching of public infrastructures provision with local preferences. However, decentralization has made local public infrastructures depend on local resources. Due to differences in initial endowments, this may result in the divergence of local public infrastructures in rich and poor jurisdictions. Using data from village-level panel surveys conducted in 1996, 2000, and 2006, this paper finds that (1) local public infrastructures depend on local resources, (2) decentralization has improved the availability of local public infrastructures, (3) local jurisdictions are converging to a similar level of local public infrastructure, and (4) to some extent, decentralized public infrastructures' provision reflects local preferences.

We study the link between Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) and short-run nutrition... more We study the link between Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) and short-run nutrition outcomes among children age 5 years and younger. We use 2006 and 2010 survey data from Northern Ethiopia to estimate parameters of an exogenous switching regression. This allows us to measure the differential impacts of household characteristics on weight-for-height Z-score of children in member and non-member households in PSNP. We find that the magnitude and significance of household covariates differ in samples of children from PSNP and non-PSNP households. Controlling for a set of observable features of children and households we find that children in member households have weight-for-height Z-scores that are 0.55 points higher than those of children in non-member households. We conclude that the PSNP is providing positive short-term nutritional benefits for children, especially in those households that are able to leverage underemployed female labor.

World Development

This paper examines evidence of gender biases in the decisions of agricultural households, utiliz... more This paper examines evidence of gender biases in the decisions of agricultural households, utilizing data from International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics’s village level studies in India (1975–85). The main empirical finding is that households with a high proportion of boys tend to use some agricultural inputs, including fertilizers and irrigation services more intensively than households with girls. This pattern is more pronounced among wealthier households but does not appear to be driven solely by bequest motives or male child labor productivity.

Most developing countries strive to improve agricultural productivity by relaxing credit constrai... more Most developing countries strive to improve agricultural productivity by relaxing credit constraints, supplying better inputs, improving marketing and distribution. However the efficacy of these reforms needs to be examined in the context of the behavioral responses of farming households. This study examines gender biases within households that affect short-term investments in agriculture. The study utilizes data from ICRISATÂ’s village level studies in India (1975-85) to highlight the effects of child gender on the use of agricultural inputs. The main finding is that households with boys tend to use purchased inputs such as fertilizers and insecticides more intensively compared with households with girls. In general, household with boys also tend to have larger land holdings, and use animal and human labor to a greater extent than household with girls.

Agricultural technologies and tropical deforestation, 2001

Journal of Agricultural Economics, 2014

ABSTRACT Unanticipated events can cause considerable economic hardship for poor rural households.... more ABSTRACT Unanticipated events can cause considerable economic hardship for poor rural households. Some types of negative shocks, for example weather-related agricultural losses and vector-borne diseases, are expected to occur more frequently as a result of climate change. In this paper we measure the role of household- and location-specific characteristics in conditioning behavioural responses to a wide range of idiosyncratic and covariate shocks. We use data from 8,000 rural households in 25 developing countries, compiled in the global database of the Poverty Environment Network. We employ a hierarchical multinomial logit model to identify the importance of characteristics observed at different levels of aggregation on a set of strategies aimed at coping with economic shocks. Results indicate that in response to idiosyncratic shocks, households tend to deplete financial and durable assets, whereas covariate and thus often climate-related shocks predominantly result in reduced consumption. Households in sites characterised by high asset wealth tend to cope with shocks in a more proactive way than those in sites with average or below average asset wealth, but the role of asset types in conditioning shock responses varies across regions. Our findings have implications for rural development and climate change adaptation strategies.

Cross-country data on energy consumption, GDP and vulnerability are used to measure percentage ch... more Cross-country data on energy consumption, GDP and vulnerability are used to measure percentage changes in vulnerability associated with percentage changes in per capita GDP and per capita energy consumption. Energy consumption, through its nonlinear effects on per capita income, have the effect of reducing a country's overall vulnerability to climate change by a greater amount at moderate income levels than at low and high incomes. An implication is that country-specific climate change policies which emphasize carbon reductions through percapita reductions in energy use, especially in developing regions of the globe, are unlikely to reduce vulnerability to climate change, especially at very low incomes.

World Development, 2011