Close Window

Dissertations, Theses and Plan B Papers -- Abstract

Yamano, Takashi. Food Aid's Effects on Household Behavior in Rural Ethiopia. Ph.D. Dissertation, 2000. Major Professor: Thomas Jayne/John Strauss. 

The enormous amount of food aid received by Ethiopia since the 1984/85 famine has raised concerns about the potential adverse effects of food aid on agricultural production. By using a large household survey collected in 1996 from rural Ethiopia, I examine the effects of food aid on two types of household behavior: child labor supply and crop marketing. In Chapter 3, 1 determine the effects of food aid and household composition on child farm labor supply controlling for household fixed effects by using a conditional logit estimator. The results indicate that a child, especially a boy, has a higher probability of working on farm if he or she is living with younger children. The results also indicate that different types of food aid programs - free distribution and food for work - have different effects on the probabilities of boys and girls working on farm. In Chapter 4, 1 determine the effects of food aid on crop sales and purchases by using an instrumental variable model. The results indicate that receiving cereals (mainly wheat) from food for work projects decreases wheat purchases. Thus, using wheat as payments at food for work projects may discourage local wheat production by decreasing wheat purchases and market prices.