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Approximately 165 million people, about a fifth of the world’s poor, are known to live in resource-scarce, agrarian households and are called “smallholders,” living in rain-fed, semi-arid, tropical areas (SATs). Uncertainty of livelihoods in SATs is higher than in other areas of intensive farming, with short bursts of intense rainfall, high soil erosion, and cycles of drought. This paper identifies which interventions succeed most in preserving smallholders’ household wealth: (a) livestock intervention, (b) a soil and water conservation intervention and (c) an employment guarantee scheme that allows households a fixed income during droughts. It reports that livestock management and soil and water conservation have a minimal impact on asset holdings, while the employment guarantee scheme provides substantial asset protection throughout the lifetime of these households. However, the livestock intervention is the most cost-effective intervention.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Introduction and Research Questions
Chapter Two
The "Smallholder": A Review
Chapter Three
A Dynamic Model of a Bullock Economy
Chapter Four
Treatment Effects of a Community Intervention
Chapter Five
Conclusions
Appendix A
Dynamic Program
Appendix B
Field Study
Research conducted by
This document was submitted as a dissertation in September 2006 in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the doctoral degree in public policy analysis at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. The faculty committee that supervised and approved the dissertation consisted of James R. Hosek (Chair), Ranjitha Puskur, Greg K. Ridgeway, and Neeraj Sood.
This publication is part of the RAND Corporation Dissertation series. Pardee RAND dissertations are produced by graduate fellows of the Pardee RAND Graduate School, the world's leading producer of Ph.D.'s in policy analysis. The dissertations are supervised, reviewed, and approved by a Pardee RAND faculty committee overseeing each dissertation.
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