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Structural adjustment and market imperfections: a stylized village economy-wide model with non-separable farm households

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2001

STEIN T. HOLDEN ,
J. EDWARD TAYLOR  and
STEPHEN HAMPTON
STEIN T. HOLDEN
Affiliation:
Agricultural University of Norway, Department of Economics and Social Sciences, P.O. Box 5033, 1432 Ås, Norway. E-mail: [email protected]
J. EDWARD TAYLOR
Affiliation:
University of California—Davis, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Davis, California, USA
STEPHEN HAMPTON
Affiliation:
University of California—Davis, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Davis, California, USA
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Abstract

Village economies and peasant households represent the main link between the economy and the environment in sub-Saharan Africa. The links from the macro level and down to the household level and further to the natural resource base are complex. It may therefore be difficult to predict the impact of macro policies and external shocks on the environment. This paper presents a typology of village economies and village economy-wide models. The framework is applied to a special case where a model is proposed and estimated to examine the impacts of external shocks, including structural adjustment policies, on cash-crop production and chitemene (shifting cultivation) in a remote Zambian village characterized by a missing (or negligible) labour market, input supply constraints, and credit rationing. Our findings indicate that structural adjustment policies, by decreasing the profitability of maize production, may encourage households to increase their chitemene production, resulting in more rapid deforestation.

Type
Research Article
Information
Environment and Development Economics , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , February 1999 , pp. 69 - 87
Copyright
© 1999 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

We acknowledge financial support for this project from the Ecology and Development Research Project administered by the Agricultural University of Norway and financed by the Research Council of Norway. Taylor is a member of the Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics.