Asset transfers | Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Markets, Risk and Resilience

Paper: Coping with COVID-19 shocks in rural Nepal

This study examined shocks experienced by rural Nepali households during the COVID-19 pandemic and the results include that households mostly relied on credit, asset sales and savings to protect consumption, and that beneficiaries of a livestock livelihood program were 6 percentage points less likely to take out new loans as a means to cope.

Paper: Pay it forward: Impacts of a rural livelihoods program with built-in spillovers

This paper presents results of a RCT evaluating the 2.5-3.5-year impacts of a livelihoods program in Nepal that targets women and employs self-help groups, livestock transfers, and trainings.

Paper: Short-Term Impacts of a Pay-it-Forward Livestock Transfer and Training Program in Nepal

This study evaluates the short-term (1.5 year) impacts of a multifaceted livestock transfer and training program in rural Nepal using a randomized control trial (RCT). Findings show that the program significantly increased financial inclusion and women’s empowerment after 1.5 years.

Paper: Aspirations Failure and Formation in Rural Nepal

The lack and drive of aspiration has gained the attention of economists as a behavioral constraint to future-oriented behavior and investment. The research team explores the empirical evidence relating to aspirations and determine if the social phenomenon can stimulate development or reinforce poverty.

Paper: Endogenous Time and Behavioral Poverty Trap: Theory and Evidence from Mozambique

Behavioral poverty traps and shortsightedness reinforce each other. By using a model with long-term planning horizon, this tool can help improve economic decisions and prospects based on a randomized controlled trial in Mozambique providing agro-input subsidies.

Paper: How Sustainable are Benefits from Extension for Smallholder Farmers? Evidence from a Randomized Phase-Out of the BRAC Program in Uganda

This study provides experimental tests of the effects of program phase-out in the context of a large-scale agricultural input subsidy and extension program operated by the NGO BRAC to increase the use of improved seed varieties and basic farming practices among women smallholders in Uganda.

Presentation: Mind the Gap: Exploring the Disparities between Smallholder Farmer Practice and Potential

This presentation is based on the AMA Innovation Lab project, Savings, Subsidies and Sustainable Food Security: A Field Experiment in Mozambique. This research seeks to shed light on using a field fertilizer experiment among farmers in rural Mozambique.

Paper: Targeted Social Protection in a Pastoralist Economy: Case Study from Kenya

Social protection programs are designed to help vulnerable populations—including pastoralists—maintain a basic level of wellbeing, manage risk, and cope with negative shocks. The research team uses evidence-based to understand the poverty dynamics in the pastoralist-based economy of northern Kenya’s arid and semi arid lands as a case study to discuss and compare the observed impacts of two different social protection schemes on heterogeneous pastoralist households.

Presentation: Labor Markets and Poverty in Village Economies

About 1 billion people still live in extreme poverty. With labor being their only outlet, understanding the link between labor market choices and poverty is key to poverty reduction. This presentation took place in Washington DC, United States on June 29, 2016 by BRAC.

Presentation: Social Drivers of Aspirations Formation and Failure in Rural Nepal

Why do the poor households under-invest in the future? This presentation took place at the University of Minnesota on April 15, 2016.