Thesis (Ph. D. in Agricultural and Resource Economics)--University of California, Berkeley, Decem... more Thesis (Ph. D. in Agricultural and Resource Economics)--University of California, Berkeley, December 1995. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 166-173).
This article takes a look at the "enterntainers" in Japan from an originating village&#... more This article takes a look at the "enterntainers" in Japan from an originating village's point of view. The main focus here are: Why and how do they become "entertainers"? What do they do with the money they earn back home? How do the other villages see them? and What is special, if any, about the "entertainers" in Japan compared to other international migrants in other occupations (such as house maids)? We rely on a small number of life histories drawn from a single village in Pangasinan Province.
This paper examines the usefulness and limits of household consumption expenditure data for under... more This paper examines the usefulness and limits of household consumption expenditure data for understanding intrahousehold resource allocation issues. It also examines alternative data collection methods for obtaining household consumption information to be used for addressing such issues. While the high cost involved in the collection of fully individual-level data collection, particularly of food intake data, is generally likely to exceed potential benefit in the context of large-scale and nationally representative household surveys, partially individualized consumption data collection (e. g., education and health), is highly desirable and relatively inexpensive. Furthermore, we explore possible conditions under which collecting individual-level food intake data could be worthwhile. Such conditions are mainly determined in terms of both research foci/policy priorities at hand, and the characteristics of the study areas.
This paper considers a hypothetical scheme of green payments to induce inter-specific agrobiodive... more This paper considers a hypothetical scheme of green payments to induce inter-specific agrobiodiversity in the context of Philippine rice farming. We empirically estimate a model of farmer behavior and then simulate the consequences of alternative (hypothetical) PES schemes under a fixed budget constraint. We find that, under this particular application, there is a clear trade-off between the two policy goals of enhancing biodiversity and poverty reduction. Even the totally untargeted lump-sum subsidy would have a larger poverty reduction impact than would the first-best conservation subsidy payment scheme. Therefore, policymakers would be required to strike a delicate balance between the two competing policy objectives. In addition, there is also a clear trade-off between the efficiency of targeted conservation payment and the information requirement for implementing subsidy schemes.
Based on household panel data that tracked migrant households (with an additional survey cost of ... more Based on household panel data that tracked migrant households (with an additional survey cost of 17 percent), this article describes behavior of household relocation and quantifies the extent of attrition biases in estimating the determinants of percapita household consumption and of its growth rate. Many households relocate for non-economic reasons, and to rural destinations, while the small number of urban migrants improved their wellbeing faster than did others. Such heterogeneity among migrants may be a reason behind the negligible attrition biases caused by the omission of migrants, in the inference on the average behavioral coefficients among the original population.
Payment for Environmental Services in Agricultural Landscapes, 2009
This paper considers a hypothetical scheme of green payments to induce inter-specific agrobiodive... more This paper considers a hypothetical scheme of green payments to induce inter-specific agrobiodiversity in the context of Philippine rice farming. We empirically estimate a model of farmer behavior and then simulate the consequences of alternative (hypothetical) PES schemes under a fixed budget constraint. We find that, under this particular application, there is a clear trade-off between the two policy goals of enhancing biodiversity and poverty reduction. Even the totally untargeted lump-sum subsidy would have a larger poverty reduction impact than would the first-best conservation subsidy payment scheme. Therefore, policymakers would be required to strike a delicate balance between the two competing policy objectives. In addition, there is also a clear trade-off between the efficiency of targeted conservation payment and the information requirement for implementing subsidy schemes.
In this paper, we will attempt to clarify some issues commonly found in recent discussions surrou... more In this paper, we will attempt to clarify some issues commonly found in recent discussions surrounding female headship analysis, in general, and will also discuss recent literature on the relationship between female headship and poverty, in particular. The issues addressed here include: the confusion between female headship analysis and gender analysis of poverty; the existence of alternative definitions of household headship; and the existence of different analytical purposes of using the concept of household headship and the need for using appropriate headship definitions for each purpose.
This paper examines the impact of the secondary school stipend program for female students on stu... more This paper examines the impact of the secondary school stipend program for female students on student enrolment in Bangladesh. After a brief description of the stipend program, we examine both nationwide and project-level data on student enrolment. While the former data show little identifiable impact of the stipend program, the project-level data show significant positive impact of the program. We find that, on average, the stipend program increased female student enrolment by 2% above the prevailing trend rate of increase while the program had significantly negative impact on male enrolment. Thus the program had a major effect in closing the gender gap, thereby accelerating the trend that had already existed in Bangladesh before the stipend program was introduced in 1994.
This paper focuses upon the unfolding lives of Overseas Performing Artists (OPAs) and Japanese wi... more This paper focuses upon the unfolding lives of Overseas Performing Artists (OPAs) and Japanese wives. Their detailed and revealing stories of their experiences, each stretching over several years, are based on interviews in Japan and in the Philippines between 1994 and the present. Information on their earlier lives was provided by household census data as well as observations concerning the women and their families conducted during four decades of research in a large migrant-exporting barangay in Pangasinan. Initially, the paper places the migrants within a global context in which they developed. In the past three decades their barangay exported over 250 Overseas Filipino Workers or permanent migrants to 17 countries. The first migrant to Japan arrived in 1983. Others are still leaving for subsequent six month tours. Next, the paper examines the significant changes in recruitment, circumstances of work, Japan's situation, and that of the Philippines which have taken place over the decades. The core of the paper presents portraits of each of the Filipinas and the wider context within which they chose to become OPAs or wives of Japanese. It describes their life stories before, during, and after their stays in Japan. Similarities as well as differences among their personalities and strategies in dealing with the challenges of their work are compared as well as readjustments in their lives and their responses to the duality of cultural demands. This section ends with the present outcomes for each of the women, their marriages and children, and relations with their natal families. Finally, the paper asks, "What can we infer from these stories?" It concludes by arguing that this small but intensively studied sample of Filipina lives may put to question certain long-held and over-generalized beliefs about Filipina OPAs in Japan.
Investigating whether female headed households (FHHs) are particularly disadvantaged requires mor... more Investigating whether female headed households (FHHs) are particularly disadvantaged requires more systematic ways of poverty comparisons than typically found in the past. In Panama, while FHHs as a whole appear to be better-off on average, such results are somewhat sensitive to assumptions about economies of scale in household consumption, and more disaggregated analysis reveals that particular segments of FHHs, particularly selfreported FHHs with common-law partners living in urban areas, are disadvantaged in both consumption and some non-consumption dimensions. Thus less systematic analysis could fail to identify such 'pockets of poverty' that might deserve special policy attention.
This chapter is a brief survey on the changes in poverty over the last four decades in Indonesia,... more This chapter is a brief survey on the changes in poverty over the last four decades in Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand. In the first section, we focus on time trends in rural poverty in the three countries; we will examine the pace of poverty reduction in the three countries between the 1960s and the 1990s drawing upon the existing sources. The main question here is; which counties were more or less successful in reducing poverty? For that purpose, we rely on income(expenditure) based measures of poverty and, in particular, focus on the headcount poverty ratio since it is the most commonly available poverty measure and a long time series is often not available for other poverty measures (such as the poverty gap or other measures in the Foster-Greer-Thorbecke family). In the second section we will focus on the comparison of poverty levels among the three countries using internationally comparable poverty lines. The main question in this section is; which country has higher incidence of poverty, and how such relative positions in terms of poverty levels changed in the recent decade? The third section discusses the comparative relationships between economic growth and poverty reduction as well as the role of agricultural sector growth in poverty reduction based on the experiences of the three countries under study. The final section summarizes our findings and concludes the chapter.
We apply the notion of transition probabilities and multinomial logit models to analyze the patte... more We apply the notion of transition probabilities and multinomial logit models to analyze the patterns of household class mobility in a Philippine village. We find that better access to land facilitates accumulation in agriculture. Schooling has positive effects on upward mobility in both agriculture and non-agricultural sectors. Macroeconomic growth has positive effects on upward mobility in non-agricultural sector, and its quantitative effects are large relative to those of household characteristics. We find little indication of farm households being responsive to prices or non-agricultural opportunities. The life-cycle stages have significant effects. The number of children has ambiguous effects on accumulation.
The Philippines has long been known for its high inequality in distribution of wealth and income;... more The Philippines has long been known for its high inequality in distribution of wealth and income; unlike many of its Asian neighbors characterized by relatively less inequality by international standards, the Philippine economy has often been compared to Latin American countries which are characterized by high inequality in land distribution. Partly due to its historically high inequality there has long been intermittent incidence of peasant unrest and rural insurgencies in the Philippines. As a result, the issue of land reform (or ‘agrarian reform’ as more commonly called in the Philippines, of which land reform constitutes the major part) has continuously been on political agenda at least since the early part of the 20th century; nevertheless land reform in the Philippines has been, and still is, an unfinished business. Against such a historical background, the main objective of this essay is to synthesize a broad range of existing literature on the various aspects of land reform ...
This article focuses on the unfolding lives of eight Filipinas from a barangay in Pangasinan who ... more This article focuses on the unfolding lives of eight Filipinas from a barangay in Pangasinan who have worked as Overseas Performing Artists (OPAs) or are wives of Japanese men. Their life stories, as told during interviews conducted in the Philippines and in Japan between 1994 and 2004, were enhanced with information on their families collected through four decades of research since 1961. The article describes similarities and differences among the women as individuals and their strategies in dealing with the challenges of work and responses to the duality of cultural demands. These stories put to question some common but overgeneralized descriptions and suppositions about Filipina OPAs.
Exploiting unique household panel data covering a thirty year period, this paper attempts to anal... more Exploiting unique household panel data covering a thirty year period, this paper attempts to analyze the patterns of poverty exits by examining socioeconomic mobility in a Philippines village. Macroeconomic growth was a major factor explaining poverty-exit probabilities until the early 1980s. After the 1980s, poverty exit-paths through 'agricultural ladder' narrowed, schooling and growth became equally important factors due to the increased returns to schooling, and labour endowments also became important for the lower, but not upper, social strata (providing an economic incentive to have more children for the poor). Surprisingly, we find no evidence of state dependence in poverty spells once observable factors are controlled.
Exploiting a unique set of longitudinal household data collected in a Philippine village over a t... more Exploiting a unique set of longitudinal household data collected in a Philippine village over a thirty year period , this paper seeks to identify the pathways of exiting rural poverty and also the determinants of middle class stability. We also test the changes in the returns on assets in exiting poverty after the 1980s. We find that better access to land facilitates accumulation in agriculture while schooling has positive effects on upward mobility in both agricultural and non-agricultural sectors. Macroeconomic growth was, however, the key determinant of poverty-exit probabilities until the early 1980s. After the 1980s, poverty exitpaths through 'agricultural ladder' narrowed, schooling and growth became equally crucial determinants due to the increased returns to schooling (mainly due to the expansion of the international migration opportunities), and labor endowments also became important for the lower, but not upper, social strata (providing an economic incentive to have more children for the poor). Unlike the typical findings from poverty dynamics in the US, we find no evidence of state dependence in the poverty spells. This suggests that the village economy under study is quite dynamic so that policy interventions addressing the observed determinants (especially access to education and economic growth) could well go a long way in pulling the poor out of poverty in the rural Philippines.
Based on household panel data that tracked migrant households (with an additional survey cost of ... more Based on household panel data that tracked migrant households (with an additional survey cost of 17 percent), this article describes behavior of household relocation and quantifies the extent of attrition biases in estimating the determinants of percapita household consumption and of its growth rate. Many households relocate for non-economic reasons, and to rural destinations, while the small number of urban migrants improved their wellbeing faster than did others. Such heterogeneity among migrants may be a reason behind the negligible attrition biases caused by the omission of migrants, in the inference on the average behavioral coefficients among the original population. JEL: C23, C42, O12, O15, J61
The Chhotanagpur Plateau in Eastern India lies on the so-called Tribal belt and is one of the poo... more The Chhotanagpur Plateau in Eastern India lies on the so-called Tribal belt and is one of the poorest regions of India. Beginning in 1998, the Indian Statistical Institute in Kolkata and the International Rice Research Institute began research to examine the biophysical and socioeconomic factors constraining agricultural activity and household income in the region. This report provides an initial descriptive
Thesis (Ph. D. in Agricultural and Resource Economics)--University of California, Berkeley, Decem... more Thesis (Ph. D. in Agricultural and Resource Economics)--University of California, Berkeley, December 1995. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 166-173).
This article takes a look at the "enterntainers" in Japan from an originating village&#... more This article takes a look at the "enterntainers" in Japan from an originating village's point of view. The main focus here are: Why and how do they become "entertainers"? What do they do with the money they earn back home? How do the other villages see them? and What is special, if any, about the "entertainers" in Japan compared to other international migrants in other occupations (such as house maids)? We rely on a small number of life histories drawn from a single village in Pangasinan Province.
This paper examines the usefulness and limits of household consumption expenditure data for under... more This paper examines the usefulness and limits of household consumption expenditure data for understanding intrahousehold resource allocation issues. It also examines alternative data collection methods for obtaining household consumption information to be used for addressing such issues. While the high cost involved in the collection of fully individual-level data collection, particularly of food intake data, is generally likely to exceed potential benefit in the context of large-scale and nationally representative household surveys, partially individualized consumption data collection (e. g., education and health), is highly desirable and relatively inexpensive. Furthermore, we explore possible conditions under which collecting individual-level food intake data could be worthwhile. Such conditions are mainly determined in terms of both research foci/policy priorities at hand, and the characteristics of the study areas.
This paper considers a hypothetical scheme of green payments to induce inter-specific agrobiodive... more This paper considers a hypothetical scheme of green payments to induce inter-specific agrobiodiversity in the context of Philippine rice farming. We empirically estimate a model of farmer behavior and then simulate the consequences of alternative (hypothetical) PES schemes under a fixed budget constraint. We find that, under this particular application, there is a clear trade-off between the two policy goals of enhancing biodiversity and poverty reduction. Even the totally untargeted lump-sum subsidy would have a larger poverty reduction impact than would the first-best conservation subsidy payment scheme. Therefore, policymakers would be required to strike a delicate balance between the two competing policy objectives. In addition, there is also a clear trade-off between the efficiency of targeted conservation payment and the information requirement for implementing subsidy schemes.
Based on household panel data that tracked migrant households (with an additional survey cost of ... more Based on household panel data that tracked migrant households (with an additional survey cost of 17 percent), this article describes behavior of household relocation and quantifies the extent of attrition biases in estimating the determinants of percapita household consumption and of its growth rate. Many households relocate for non-economic reasons, and to rural destinations, while the small number of urban migrants improved their wellbeing faster than did others. Such heterogeneity among migrants may be a reason behind the negligible attrition biases caused by the omission of migrants, in the inference on the average behavioral coefficients among the original population.
Payment for Environmental Services in Agricultural Landscapes, 2009
This paper considers a hypothetical scheme of green payments to induce inter-specific agrobiodive... more This paper considers a hypothetical scheme of green payments to induce inter-specific agrobiodiversity in the context of Philippine rice farming. We empirically estimate a model of farmer behavior and then simulate the consequences of alternative (hypothetical) PES schemes under a fixed budget constraint. We find that, under this particular application, there is a clear trade-off between the two policy goals of enhancing biodiversity and poverty reduction. Even the totally untargeted lump-sum subsidy would have a larger poverty reduction impact than would the first-best conservation subsidy payment scheme. Therefore, policymakers would be required to strike a delicate balance between the two competing policy objectives. In addition, there is also a clear trade-off between the efficiency of targeted conservation payment and the information requirement for implementing subsidy schemes.
In this paper, we will attempt to clarify some issues commonly found in recent discussions surrou... more In this paper, we will attempt to clarify some issues commonly found in recent discussions surrounding female headship analysis, in general, and will also discuss recent literature on the relationship between female headship and poverty, in particular. The issues addressed here include: the confusion between female headship analysis and gender analysis of poverty; the existence of alternative definitions of household headship; and the existence of different analytical purposes of using the concept of household headship and the need for using appropriate headship definitions for each purpose.
This paper examines the impact of the secondary school stipend program for female students on stu... more This paper examines the impact of the secondary school stipend program for female students on student enrolment in Bangladesh. After a brief description of the stipend program, we examine both nationwide and project-level data on student enrolment. While the former data show little identifiable impact of the stipend program, the project-level data show significant positive impact of the program. We find that, on average, the stipend program increased female student enrolment by 2% above the prevailing trend rate of increase while the program had significantly negative impact on male enrolment. Thus the program had a major effect in closing the gender gap, thereby accelerating the trend that had already existed in Bangladesh before the stipend program was introduced in 1994.
This paper focuses upon the unfolding lives of Overseas Performing Artists (OPAs) and Japanese wi... more This paper focuses upon the unfolding lives of Overseas Performing Artists (OPAs) and Japanese wives. Their detailed and revealing stories of their experiences, each stretching over several years, are based on interviews in Japan and in the Philippines between 1994 and the present. Information on their earlier lives was provided by household census data as well as observations concerning the women and their families conducted during four decades of research in a large migrant-exporting barangay in Pangasinan. Initially, the paper places the migrants within a global context in which they developed. In the past three decades their barangay exported over 250 Overseas Filipino Workers or permanent migrants to 17 countries. The first migrant to Japan arrived in 1983. Others are still leaving for subsequent six month tours. Next, the paper examines the significant changes in recruitment, circumstances of work, Japan's situation, and that of the Philippines which have taken place over the decades. The core of the paper presents portraits of each of the Filipinas and the wider context within which they chose to become OPAs or wives of Japanese. It describes their life stories before, during, and after their stays in Japan. Similarities as well as differences among their personalities and strategies in dealing with the challenges of their work are compared as well as readjustments in their lives and their responses to the duality of cultural demands. This section ends with the present outcomes for each of the women, their marriages and children, and relations with their natal families. Finally, the paper asks, "What can we infer from these stories?" It concludes by arguing that this small but intensively studied sample of Filipina lives may put to question certain long-held and over-generalized beliefs about Filipina OPAs in Japan.
Investigating whether female headed households (FHHs) are particularly disadvantaged requires mor... more Investigating whether female headed households (FHHs) are particularly disadvantaged requires more systematic ways of poverty comparisons than typically found in the past. In Panama, while FHHs as a whole appear to be better-off on average, such results are somewhat sensitive to assumptions about economies of scale in household consumption, and more disaggregated analysis reveals that particular segments of FHHs, particularly selfreported FHHs with common-law partners living in urban areas, are disadvantaged in both consumption and some non-consumption dimensions. Thus less systematic analysis could fail to identify such 'pockets of poverty' that might deserve special policy attention.
This chapter is a brief survey on the changes in poverty over the last four decades in Indonesia,... more This chapter is a brief survey on the changes in poverty over the last four decades in Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand. In the first section, we focus on time trends in rural poverty in the three countries; we will examine the pace of poverty reduction in the three countries between the 1960s and the 1990s drawing upon the existing sources. The main question here is; which counties were more or less successful in reducing poverty? For that purpose, we rely on income(expenditure) based measures of poverty and, in particular, focus on the headcount poverty ratio since it is the most commonly available poverty measure and a long time series is often not available for other poverty measures (such as the poverty gap or other measures in the Foster-Greer-Thorbecke family). In the second section we will focus on the comparison of poverty levels among the three countries using internationally comparable poverty lines. The main question in this section is; which country has higher incidence of poverty, and how such relative positions in terms of poverty levels changed in the recent decade? The third section discusses the comparative relationships between economic growth and poverty reduction as well as the role of agricultural sector growth in poverty reduction based on the experiences of the three countries under study. The final section summarizes our findings and concludes the chapter.
We apply the notion of transition probabilities and multinomial logit models to analyze the patte... more We apply the notion of transition probabilities and multinomial logit models to analyze the patterns of household class mobility in a Philippine village. We find that better access to land facilitates accumulation in agriculture. Schooling has positive effects on upward mobility in both agriculture and non-agricultural sectors. Macroeconomic growth has positive effects on upward mobility in non-agricultural sector, and its quantitative effects are large relative to those of household characteristics. We find little indication of farm households being responsive to prices or non-agricultural opportunities. The life-cycle stages have significant effects. The number of children has ambiguous effects on accumulation.
The Philippines has long been known for its high inequality in distribution of wealth and income;... more The Philippines has long been known for its high inequality in distribution of wealth and income; unlike many of its Asian neighbors characterized by relatively less inequality by international standards, the Philippine economy has often been compared to Latin American countries which are characterized by high inequality in land distribution. Partly due to its historically high inequality there has long been intermittent incidence of peasant unrest and rural insurgencies in the Philippines. As a result, the issue of land reform (or ‘agrarian reform’ as more commonly called in the Philippines, of which land reform constitutes the major part) has continuously been on political agenda at least since the early part of the 20th century; nevertheless land reform in the Philippines has been, and still is, an unfinished business. Against such a historical background, the main objective of this essay is to synthesize a broad range of existing literature on the various aspects of land reform ...
This article focuses on the unfolding lives of eight Filipinas from a barangay in Pangasinan who ... more This article focuses on the unfolding lives of eight Filipinas from a barangay in Pangasinan who have worked as Overseas Performing Artists (OPAs) or are wives of Japanese men. Their life stories, as told during interviews conducted in the Philippines and in Japan between 1994 and 2004, were enhanced with information on their families collected through four decades of research since 1961. The article describes similarities and differences among the women as individuals and their strategies in dealing with the challenges of work and responses to the duality of cultural demands. These stories put to question some common but overgeneralized descriptions and suppositions about Filipina OPAs.
Exploiting unique household panel data covering a thirty year period, this paper attempts to anal... more Exploiting unique household panel data covering a thirty year period, this paper attempts to analyze the patterns of poverty exits by examining socioeconomic mobility in a Philippines village. Macroeconomic growth was a major factor explaining poverty-exit probabilities until the early 1980s. After the 1980s, poverty exit-paths through 'agricultural ladder' narrowed, schooling and growth became equally important factors due to the increased returns to schooling, and labour endowments also became important for the lower, but not upper, social strata (providing an economic incentive to have more children for the poor). Surprisingly, we find no evidence of state dependence in poverty spells once observable factors are controlled.
Exploiting a unique set of longitudinal household data collected in a Philippine village over a t... more Exploiting a unique set of longitudinal household data collected in a Philippine village over a thirty year period , this paper seeks to identify the pathways of exiting rural poverty and also the determinants of middle class stability. We also test the changes in the returns on assets in exiting poverty after the 1980s. We find that better access to land facilitates accumulation in agriculture while schooling has positive effects on upward mobility in both agricultural and non-agricultural sectors. Macroeconomic growth was, however, the key determinant of poverty-exit probabilities until the early 1980s. After the 1980s, poverty exitpaths through 'agricultural ladder' narrowed, schooling and growth became equally crucial determinants due to the increased returns to schooling (mainly due to the expansion of the international migration opportunities), and labor endowments also became important for the lower, but not upper, social strata (providing an economic incentive to have more children for the poor). Unlike the typical findings from poverty dynamics in the US, we find no evidence of state dependence in the poverty spells. This suggests that the village economy under study is quite dynamic so that policy interventions addressing the observed determinants (especially access to education and economic growth) could well go a long way in pulling the poor out of poverty in the rural Philippines.
Based on household panel data that tracked migrant households (with an additional survey cost of ... more Based on household panel data that tracked migrant households (with an additional survey cost of 17 percent), this article describes behavior of household relocation and quantifies the extent of attrition biases in estimating the determinants of percapita household consumption and of its growth rate. Many households relocate for non-economic reasons, and to rural destinations, while the small number of urban migrants improved their wellbeing faster than did others. Such heterogeneity among migrants may be a reason behind the negligible attrition biases caused by the omission of migrants, in the inference on the average behavioral coefficients among the original population. JEL: C23, C42, O12, O15, J61
The Chhotanagpur Plateau in Eastern India lies on the so-called Tribal belt and is one of the poo... more The Chhotanagpur Plateau in Eastern India lies on the so-called Tribal belt and is one of the poorest regions of India. Beginning in 1998, the Indian Statistical Institute in Kolkata and the International Rice Research Institute began research to examine the biophysical and socioeconomic factors constraining agricultural activity and household income in the region. This report provides an initial descriptive
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