The Journal of Developing Areas最新文献

{"title":"Comparing Results from Unobserved Components Model and Hodrick-Prescott Filter of Output-Gap in Barbados","authors":"T. Agbeyegbe","doi":"10.1353/jda.2022.0049","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jda.2022.0049","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:An important macro-economic issue of developed and developing countries is how best to decompose an economic time series into permanent (trend) and transitory (cycle) components. The issue is vital in empirical macroeconomics since, among other things, it relates to how one can estimate the output gap-the deviation of an economy's output from its potential or trend output. This paper considers how well the unobserved components model and the Hodrick Prescott (HP) filter decomposes real gross domestic product (GDP) in a small island developing state, the state of Barbados. The correlated unobserved components model for Barbados studied in the Agbeyegbe (2020) is modified to allow a second-order Markov trend. The effect of this modification is to make it possible to recover the HP trend as a particular case. The paper then compares several methods useful for trend decomposition of real GDP in Barbados. The competing methods are variants of two widely used trend-cycle decompositions of GDP that give markedly different estimates. Namely, methods based on the unobserved components model (UC) and the HP filter. The correlated unobserved components model produces smaller output gaps in amplitude, whereas the HP filter generates significant and persistent cycles. More specifically, the methods are: (i) the HP filter; (ii) an augmented HP filter (HP-AR), that allows for cyclical components to be serially correlated, introduced by Grant and Chan (2017b); (iii) the correlated unobserved components model (UCUR), without a break; (iv) the correlated unobserved components model (UCUR-t), with a break at time t; and (v) a correlated unobserved components model that allows for a second-order Markov trend process UCUR-2M. The result shows that for Barbados, with data covering the period 1967-2017, the correlated unobserved components model that allows for a break in trend fits the data better than the HP specification. These results are significant from a policy perspective. Knowing the correct duration of the business cycle is essential to providing appropriate recommendations; the result argues against the use of HP-filter in analyzing Barbados' business cycle. The result also finds that for Barbados, it is empirically important to correlate permanent and transitory shocks. By ignoring this correlation, researchers risk providing a misleading analysis of how the Barbadian economy works.","PeriodicalId":286315,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Developing Areas","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117157209","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Cyclical Efficiency vis-à-vis Market Conditions: A Case of Casablanca Stock Exchange","authors":"Adefemi A. Obalade, R. Nhlapho, P. Muzindutsi","doi":"10.1353/jda.2022.0040","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jda.2022.0040","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:In the context of the Adaptive Market Hypothesis (AMH), market efficiency is bound to change in relation to market conditions. Current literature on the AMH in the Moroccan stock exchange does not show the linkage between changing efficiency and market conditions. To fill this vacuum, this study investigated whether market efficiency changed in a cyclical version over time; and evaluated the effect of market conditions on return predictability in the Casablanca Stock Exchange. This study applied two definitions of market condition, namely the up and down versus bull, bear and normal conditions. In addition, the 2007 global financial crisis and political atmosphere were examined as fundamental conditions influencing return predictability. To achieve the objectives of the study, we analyzed daily stock returns from January 1998 to February 2018. We tracked time-variation in market efficiency by employing both the linear and nonlinear testing tools ranging from ADF, KPSS, autocorrelation, variance ratio and the Brock, Dechert and Schieinkman (BDS) tests. These tests were implemented by using a rolling window approach to derive monthly measures of return predictability. Subsequently, the dummy regression model was used to evaluate the market condition effect on return predictability. First, we showed that the weak-form efficiency of the Moroccan stock market is adaptive through the descriptive statistics, unit root, stationarity, autocorrelation, variance ratio and BDS tests. In other words, return dependence, particularly the nonlinear dependence, interchanges with independence over time. Secondly, there is high predictability during the 2007/2008 financial crisis and low predictability during the tense political condition. In conclusion, we found that the Casablanca Stock Exchange exhibits time-varying efficiency and that financial crisis and political atmosphere (general election) constitute key conditions that contribute to market inefficiency. These findings conform to the postulation of AMH, and we recommend that the time-varying behavior and effect of market conditions be considered by market participants in their interaction with the stock market. This suggests that investors' trading strategies must be adaptive to suit changing conditions.","PeriodicalId":286315,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Developing Areas","volume":"25 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131173568","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Perceptions of Crime and Subjective Well-Being: Urban-Rural Differences in South Africa","authors":"B. Fisher, Frederich Kirsten, M. Biyase, M. Pretorius","doi":"10.1353/jda.2022.0044","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jda.2022.0044","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:Reducing crime is a fundamental goal of all policymakers, because its costs are both pecuniary and non-pecuniary. A number of studies have shown that individuals who are victims of crime report lower levels of life satisfaction or subjective well-being (SWB) as compared to non-victims (Powdthavee, 2005; Cohen, 2008; Davies & Hinks, 2010). But, what is not as clear is how this nexus may differ based on household geo-type, or put differently, whether a household is located in an urban area versus a rural area. The rationale as to why geographical location is likely to play a role is as follows: (a) people migrate from rural to urban areas in hopes of finding a job or better standard of living. Given that urban migration is associated with \"false expectations\" (Mulcahy & Kollamparambil, 2016:1357), it may lead some to turn to crime as a means of coping. Therefore, one expects to see more crime in cities as opposed to farm areas. (b) In rural areas, people share a sense of community or 'Ubuntu'. This means that should someone fall victim to crime, others will ensure that its effects on well-being are minimized, by assisting where they can. (c) Social disorganization theory explains differences in urban and rural crime rates, as it suggests that \"a person's residential location is more significant than the person's characteristics when predicting criminal activity\" (Bond, 2015: para 4). This paper investigates the impact of perceived crime on individual well-being in urban and rural areas of South Africa using a nationally representative panel dataset from 2008 to 2017. By making use of a fixed-effect model, a finding was that perceived crime negatively influences the SWB of individuals living in rural and urban areas in South Africa. Unlike the urban coefficient, the rural coefficient is not statistically significant. These results suggest two patterns: firstly, perceived crime plays a stronger role in predicting SWB in urban areas as compared to rural areas. This is likely because urbanization is linked to a higher rate of crime (Park, Burgess & McKenzie, 1925). Secondly, it provides empirical support that there exists a geographically differentiated relationship between perceived crime and the SWB nexus in South Africa. The estimates are robust to the inclusion of the inequality variable as well as alternative models (specifically random ordered probit model).","PeriodicalId":286315,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Developing Areas","volume":"13 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114238281","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Transport Policy and Agricultural Productivity and Production in Ethiopia","authors":"Z. Shikur","doi":"10.1353/jda.2022.0052","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jda.2022.0052","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:Transport policy boosts agricultural production and productivity in developing countries like Ethiopia. It increases timely mobility of agricultural inputs that result in a better information diffusion and technology transfer from points of origin to points of utilization and high level of adoption of modern agricultural inputs. This paper examines the effect of transport policy, road, and transport and communication infrastructures on agricultural productivity and production using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds test for co-integration during the period of 1991 to 2018. The result indicates that the transport policy has a more significant effect on agricultural productivity and production as compared to the base scenario. The model results reveal the existence of significant and positive impact of transport policy, road, and transport and communication on agricultural production and productivity in the long run, but no such effect in the short-run. The results identify the existence of significant unidirectional causality running from agricultural production and productivity to road construction, and transport and communication development for all lagged years. There is no causality running from expansion of road construction to agricultural output growth with the one-three years time lagged. The long-run impact of infrastructure development on agricultural production and productivity is observed with the four and five years time lagged in this study. The long-run effects of road, and transport and communication on agricultural production and productivity can only be manifested with a time lag of four and five years. The government has some time buffer to put proper transport policies into action, and to invest into the road, transport and communication infrastructure in order to increase agricultural production and productivity. This is important findings that have imperative policy implications for government that transport policies could increase road accesses and connectivity to major road networks, movement of agricultural products and industrial raw materials from production/surplus areas to market places/deficit areas. Finally, implementation of transport policies along with agricultural policies could ensure a more significant effect on agricultural productivity and production since agricultural growth and infrastructural development reinforce each other as evidenced by the results of this study.","PeriodicalId":286315,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Developing Areas","volume":"75 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130145023","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Estimation of Fruit and Vegetable Demand Elasticity in Bangladesh: The Quaids Model for the City of Dhaka South and Rural Areas of Sylhet Division","authors":"Sadia Mustafa, C. E. Haque, Soham Baksi","doi":"10.1353/jda.2022.0043","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jda.2022.0043","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:The present study seeks to examine consumer demand for fruit and vegetables and potential economic responses to changes in income and price in urban and rural Bangladesh. Despite efforts by the Government of Bangladesh to promote fruit and vegetables to reduce the incidence of noncommunicable disease, per-capita daily intake has remained as low as 211 grams compared to the minimum requirement of 400 grams. Although the existing literature indicates some regional and gender-based variation in vegetable intake, specific knowledge of this variation remains poor. Recognizing the urgency of reducing non-communicable diseases, a primary household expenditure survey was conducted during 2018-19 in selected communities of the City of Dhaka South and rural areas of Sylhet Division. The objective of the study was to determine the demand for fruit and vegetables based on household income and the price elasticity of fruit and vegetables. These estimates were made by using the nonlinear Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System (QUAIDS) model. The results revealed that expenditure on fruit and vegetables was not significantly different between male and female-headed households, while in urban areas a rise in income led to greater spending on fish, meat, fruit, and milk rather than vegetables. Pure price effect also showed that vegetables were not yet an established substitute for fish and meat. The QUAIDS model was used along with the survey data to estimate the expenditure elasticity and price elasticity of seven food groups (vegetables, fruit, rice, wheat and pulses, fish and meat, spices, milk) according to geographical region. Higher income tended to increase consumption of vegetables and rice more in rural areas (vegetables 1.01 and rice 0.81) than in urban areas (vegetables 0.94 and rice 0.15). Female-headed households did not exhibit significantly different fruit and vegetable consumption compared to male-headed households, though it is possible that greater income-generation opportunities in rural areas might increase the decision-making power of women and lead to an improvement in dietary behavior. Further policy attention should be given to public campaigns and social marketing regarding the health benefits of fruit and vegetables consumption accounting for different socio-economic and cultural norms in the rural urban areas.","PeriodicalId":286315,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Developing Areas","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129360959","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Firm Performance and R&D Investment Linkages: Study of India's Top 500 Companies","authors":"Amrinder Singh, T. Soni","doi":"10.1353/jda.2022.0041","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jda.2022.0041","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:The importance of investment in research & development (R&D) has gained significance in India, especially in the last two decades after the Science and Technology Policy of India emphasized devoting 2% of GDP to R&D. In the past, firms have invested in R&D intending to foster innovation and improve global competitiveness. Amid rising market competition rapid technological changes R&D Expenditure of India's top 500 companies has been increasing. With growing R&D expenditure, it is vital to understand the efficiency of R&D spending. The paper empirically investigates the linkages between firm performance and current and past R&D expenditure in the same context. It employs a panel fixed effect model to examine the relationship between firm performance and R&D investments for top 500 listed companies for a period of 18 years i.e., from 2002 till 2019. It considers return on assets and net profit after tax as a proxy of firm performance. Current and past R&D intensity and R&D expenditure are the main independent variables. Corporate governance variables and other firm characteristics variables like size, age, risk, and solvency are taken as control variables. The preliminary analysis of past trends indicates a flattening of the R&D intensity curve, especially in the last five years, i.e., from 2014 onwards. Further, the findings of the empirical analysis provide evidence of a significant positive R&D investment–performance relationship among the sample firms in the medium term. The results are consistent after controlling for sample firms' corporate governance variables, size, risk, and leverage. The findings lead to important implications regarding interlinkages between firm performance, R&D intensity, corporate governance, and other firm characteristics for top Indian listed companies. The results contradict the existing theories, which consider R&D as long-term investments, the benefits of which are reaped by organizations in a very long time. The results have important practical implications for firms and policymakers to further promote R&D investments among firms to improve performance.","PeriodicalId":286315,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Developing Areas","volume":"23 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121505593","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Self-Employment, Gender and Cultural Traits","authors":"Taylor Franklin, Nabamita Dutta","doi":"10.1353/jda.2022.0029","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jda.2022.0029","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:Though the gap between female and male entrepreneurship has been narrowing globally, it is still evident with female rates lagging behind those of males. While existing literature has identified several obstacles to female entrepreneurship, the role of cultural traits has not yet been adequately explored. More importantly, lacking from the literature is a close investigation of female entrepreneurial choices using individual level data across countries. Employing World Values Survey data, an extensive longitudinal panel study of countries over time with over 300,000 individual level observations, we look at how cultural indicators impact female entrepreneurship. Using probit limited dependent variable models, we analyze specifically how cultural indicators impact female entrepreneurship, using measures of independence, obedience, and control over one's own life as our cultural indicators. In our analysis, we control for age, marital status, social class, town size, and level of education, as these factors have an effect on the decision to be self-employed. We also conducted robustness analysis using alternate cultural indicator variables to look for any change when compared to our benchmark findings. Our findings show that being a female lowers the probability of being self-employed. This supports the existing literature that shows a gap, albeit narrowing, between male and female entrepreneurship. Our main set of results also show that the cultural traits of independence and sense of control over one's life both help alleviate the negative impact of gender (being a female) on entrepreneurial choices. As a society, valuing obedience has the opposite impact – it magnifies the negative effect of being female on the probability of being self-employed. These findings were shown to be robust when we incorporated alternate cultural indicator variables. Our findings suggest that consideration should be given to cultural traits in the context of development outcomes. Because cultural traits can be difficult to change, our results suggest that as policy makers implement interventions to promote self-employment among females, they should be aware of the relevant cultural factors of the area and how these interact with female entrepreneurship. Policy can then be tailored to the cultural environment to maximize the intended effect on female entrepreneurship rates.","PeriodicalId":286315,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Developing Areas","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127802028","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Corporate Governance and Sustainability Reporting in Nigeria","authors":"O. Olayinka","doi":"10.1353/jda.2022.0036","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jda.2022.0036","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:Sustainability reporting enhances the quality of financial reporting by meeting the needs of diverse users of corporate information. Traditional financial reporting is deficient in total reporting and this underscores the need for sustainability reporting. Most studies have focused on the impact of corporate governance on financial performance of listed firms. This study explored the effect of corporate governance dimensions on sustainability reporting. The study adopted ex-post facto research design. The population of the study comprised 169 quoted companies on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) as at December 31, 2019. A sample of 42 quoted companies that had complete and relevant data for the period of study (2010-2019) was selected through stratified and purposive sampling techniques. Data were extracted from published audited annual reports of firms and Global Reporting Initiative (GRI-4) performance indicators. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistic (multiple regression). The hypotheses were tested at 0.05 significance level. The findings revealed that corporate governance (CG) had positive and significant relationship with sustainability reporting of selected quoted companies in Nigeria (Adj.R2 = 0.316, Wald-Stat = 333.68, p < 0.05). Furthermore, evidence reveals that board size, board independence, female director and board ownership have significant effect on SR (BS= 0.349, t-test= 3.283, p < 0.05, BI= 0.336, t-test= 2.087, p < 0.05, FD= 1.208, t-test= 12.411, p < 0.05, BO= 0.004, t-test= 7.837, p < 0.05). However, CEO duality do not have significant effect on SR (CD = 0.113, t-test= 1.668, p > 0.05). This implies that, BS, BI, FD and BO are significant factors influencing changes in SR. However, CD does not significantly influence changes in SR. The study concluded that CG affects SR. The study recommends that shareholders at their annual general meeting should establish a large and gender diverse board, with a greater proportion of qualified and experienced independent directors, with separation of roles of chairman from that of CEO and greater directors share ownership as this will enhance sustainability reporting in all its dimensions. Specifically, shareholders should include greater proportion of female and independent directors on board as they have higher tendency of promoting sustainability reporting.","PeriodicalId":286315,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Developing Areas","volume":"28 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125955672","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Heterogeneity, Transient and Persistent Production Efficiencies of Major Crops in Southern Ethiopia","authors":"M. Meja, B. Alemu, M. Shete","doi":"10.1353/jda.2022.0033","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jda.2022.0033","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:Agricultural productivity is a cornerstone for the economy of Ethiopia to ensure rural transformation. However, the increment of productivity of crops has slow progress. Hence, this study undertook to separate farm heterogeneity, short-run and long-run inefficiencies of productivity in southern Ethiopia. The study used the models of decomposing technical efficiency through various techniques like 4-random error components of stochastic frontier panel data models to distinguish between time-invariant farm-heterogeneity, persistence, and short-run inefficiencies. Thus, models used for the analysis have shown different estimates of overall efficiency levels. Fixed-effect and Kumbhakar-Heshmati models did not separate unobserved persistent efficiency from farm-heterogeneity efficiency. The estimated efficiency by the Kumbhakar-Lien-Hardaker model (0.4449) is significantly higher than the mean of the fixed-effect model with much lower variations. Mean transient efficiencies gleaned from true-fixed-effect, consistent true-fixed-effect, and Kumbhakar-Lien-Hardaker models become nearly equal except, the Kumbhakar-Heshmati model indicated that farmers faced severe persistent productivity inefficiency problems. Average technical change in 2011/12 was 20.67% and declined much more to 9.44% and 5.82% in 2013/14 and 2015/16, sequentially. According to the estimation of overall technical efficiency, it is possible to capture about 39% to 99% of the untapped production in the crop subsector of Southern Ethiopia. Therefore, there was a decline in the growth rate of fertilizer used and land size covered by considered crops in the area. Land covered was declined by 3.06% for the considered crops from 2013/14 to 2015/16 production period. In the mean summary of technical efficiency at the zonal level, the aggregate persistent efficiency is lower than the transient one for all the zones. It confirmed that inefficiency varies from zone to zone between zones and household to household within the zone during the survey years. Thus, the policymaker should pinpoint the causes of inefficiencies separated in the time factors to improve the productivity of considered crops in the study area. A policy point that treats the persistent, transient, and farm-specific inefficiency enhancing conditions has to be set separately in each zona of Southern Ethiopia. Moreover, the greater focus of the policy is to alleviate the persistent inefficiency increasing factors in the study area.","PeriodicalId":286315,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Developing Areas","volume":"56 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129276229","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Women's Empowerment and Food Security in Cameroon","authors":"Bougema Theodore Ntenkeh, D. Fonchamnyo, D. Yuni","doi":"10.1353/jda.2022.0020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jda.2022.0020","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:The zero-hunger objective of the Sustainable Development Goals is still far from reach as food insecurity continues to be a problem. Literature largely associates women empowerment with food security but its empirical evidence is still sparse, especially in Cameroon. To fill this gap, the study investigates the effect of women empowerment on food security in Cameroon. The methodology employed eight indicators of women empowerment drawn from the Cameroon Consumption Household Survey IV to construct an index of women empowerment using the Multiple Correspondence Analysis. Likewise, Household Food Insecurity Access Scale is used in combination with other food security measures to construct a composite index of food security. The study then employs two stage least square instrumental variable model for analysis. Pre-estimation and post-estimation tests were employed for robustness; such as the Anderson canon LR Statistics to test for the strength of the instruments used and the endogeneity test to validate the need for the instrumental variable regression. The key result posits that women empowerment has a positive and significant effect on food security. A unit increase in women empowerment increases food security by 0.474 and it is significant at 5% significant level. This aligns with apriori expectation. Furthermore, household size, the square of household size, age and the square of age are all not significant. Though, household size and age are negative while their squares are positive. Also, the results show that households located in urban areas are significantly more food secure than those in rural areas at a 1% level of significance. Respondents who were married had significantly lower food security than the unmarried and Christian women had significantly lower food security than their counterparts. The study recommends that there is need to set up programs and institutions that empower women in all aspects so as to ensure food security consequently. Furthermore, the empowerment of women should be incorporated in food poverty reduction strategies that touches the household directly. Conclusively, the study insinuates a positive relationship between women empowerment and food security, therefore all women empowerment measures must be promoted and institutionalized if food security must be improved.","PeriodicalId":286315,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Developing Areas","volume":"117 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121603929","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}