Nonlinear dynamics of livestock assets: Evidence from Ethiopia

Bjorn Van Campenhout and Stefan Dercon

No 1215, IFPRI discussion papers from International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)

Abstract: Recent research on the intertemporal dynamics of poverty using microeconomic data often hints at the existence of poverty traps, where some find themselves trapped at a low-level stable equilibrium while others enjoy a higher stable equilibrium. Without a sizable positive shock to well-being, those trapped at the low equilibrium will not automatically outgrow destitution, but merely fluctuate around that low-level equilibrium. Given the dramatic policy consequences implied by such a theory, knowledge about the location of the different equilibria would be extremely helpful. In this paper, we explore the possibilities of threshold-type models to identify those crucial parameters. We illustrate the method by searching for traps in the dynamics of livestock asset holdings in rural Ethiopia. We find evidence of distribution-dependent dynamics and multiple equilibria for tropical livestock units.

Keywords: microeconomics; data; livestock; assets; poverty; supply balance; rural areas; Ethiopia; Eastern Africa; Sub-Saharan Africa; Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr and nep-dev
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://hdl.handle.net/10568/154020

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1215

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IFPRI discussion papers from International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().