IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/11048.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Does Food Aid Harm the Poor? Household Evidence from Ethiopia

Author

Listed:
  • James Levinsohn
  • Margaret McMillan

Abstract

This paper uses household-level data from Ethiopia to investigate the impact of food aid on the poor. We find that food aid in Ethiopia is "pro-poor." Our results indicate that (i) net buyers of wheat are poorer than net sellers of wheat, (ii) there are more buyers of wheat than sellers of wheat at all levels of income, (iii) the proportion of net sellers is increasing in living standards and (iv) net benefit ratios are higher for poorer households indicating that poorer households benefit proportionately more from a drop in the price of wheat. In light of this evidence, it appears that households at all levels of income benefit from food aid and that - somewhat surprisingly - the benefits go disproportionately to the poorest households.

Suggested Citation

  • James Levinsohn & Margaret McMillan, 2005. "Does Food Aid Harm the Poor? Household Evidence from Ethiopia," NBER Working Papers 11048, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11048
    Note: ITI
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w11048.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christopher B. Barrett, 1998. "Food Aid: Is It Development Assistance, Trade Promotion, Both, or Neither?," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 80(3), pages 566-571.
    2. Christopher B. Barrett & Paul A. Dorosh, 1996. "Farmers' Welfare and Changing Food Prices: Nonparametric Evidence from Rice in Madagascar," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 78(3), pages 656-669.
    3. Clay, Daniel C. & Molla, Daniel & Habtewold, Debebe, 1999. "Food aid targeting in Ethiopia: A study of who needs it and who gets it," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 391-409, August.
    4. Theodore W. Schultz, 1960. "Value of U.S. Farm Surpluses to Underdeveloped Countries," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 42(5), pages 1019-1030.
    5. Coate, Stephen, 1989. "Cash versus direct food relief," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 199-224, April.
    6. Jayne, Thomas S. & Strauss, John & Yamano, Takashi & Molla, Daniel, 2002. "Targeting of food aid in rural Ethiopia: chronic need or inertia?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 247-288, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Christopher B. Barrett & Stein T. Holden & Daniel C. Clay, 2002. "Can Food-for-Work Programmes Reduce Vulnerability?," WIDER Working Paper Series DP2002-24, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    2. Ferrière, Nathalie & Suwa-Eisenmann, Akiko, 2015. "Does Food Aid Disrupt Local Food Market? Evidence from Rural Ethiopia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 114-131.
    3. Lentz, Erin C. & Barrett, Christopher B., 2008. "Improving Food Aid: What Reforms Would Yield the Highest Payoff?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(7), pages 1152-1172, July.
    4. Barrett, C. B. & Heisey, K. C., 2002. "How effectively does multilateral food aid respond to fluctuating needs?," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 27(5-6), pages 477-491.
    5. James Levinsohn & Margaret McMillan, 2004. "Computational Analysis of the U.S FTAs with Central America, Australia, And Morocco," Working Papers 526, Research Seminar in International Economics, University of Michigan.
    6. Abdulai, Awudu & Barrett, Christopher B. & Hoddinott, John, 2005. "Does food aid Really have disincentive effects? New evidence from sub-Saharan Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(10), pages 1689-1704, October.
    7. Zant, Wouter, 2012. "The economics of food aid under subsistence farming with an application to Malawi," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 124-141.
    8. Barrett, Christopher B., 2002. "Food Aid And Commercial International Food Trade," Working Papers 14742, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    9. Christopher Barrett & Daniel Clay, 2003. "How Accurate is Food-for-Work Self-Targeting in the Presence of Imperfect Factor Markets? Evidence from Ethiopia," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(5), pages 152-180.
    10. Quisumbing, Agnes R., 2003. "Food Aid and Child Nutrition in Rural Ethiopia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(7), pages 1309-1324, July.
    11. Gelan, Ayele Ulfata, 2007. "Does food aid have disincentive effects on local production? A general equilibrium perspective on food aid in Ethiopia," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 436-458, August.
    12. Koppenberg, Maximilian & Mishra, Ashok K. & Hirsch, Stefan, 2023. "Food Aid and Violent Conflict: A Review of Literature," IZA Discussion Papers 16574, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Titus O. Awokuse, 2006. "Assessing the Impact of Food Aid on Recipient Countries: A Survey," Working Papers 06-11, Agricultural and Development Economics Division of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO - ESA).
    14. Stefan Dercon & Pramila Krishnan, 2003. "Food aid and informal insurance," CSAE Working Paper Series 2003-01, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    15. Barrett, Christopher B & Mohapatra, Sandeep & Snyder, Donald L, 1999. "The Dynamic Effects of U.S. Food Aid," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 37(4), pages 647-656, October.
    16. Takashi Yamano & Harold Alderman & Luc Christiaensen, 2005. "Child Growth, Shocks, and Food Aid in Rural Ethiopia," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 87(2), pages 273-288.
    17. Quisumbing, Agnes R. & Yohannes, Yisehac, 2005. "How fair is workfare? gender, public works, and employment in rural Ethiopia," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3492, The World Bank.
    18. Broussard, Nzinga H. & Dercon, Stefan & Somanathan, Rohini, 2014. "Aid and agency in Africa: Explaining food disbursements across Ethiopian households, 1994–2004," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 128-137.
    19. Jayne, T. S. & Strauss, John & Yamano, Takashi & Molla, Daniel, 2001. "Giving to the Poor? Targeting of Food Aid in Rural Ethiopia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 29(5), pages 887-910, May.
    20. Bet Caeyers & Stefan Dercon, 2012. "Political Connections and Social Networks in Targeted Transfer Programs: Evidence from Rural Ethiopia," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 60(4), pages 639-675.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F1 - International Economics - - Trade
    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11048. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.