Livelihoods and farm efficiency in rural Georgia

Dirk Bezemer (), Kelvin Balcombe, Junior Davis and Iain Fraser

Applied Economics, 2005, vol. 37, issue 15, 1737-1745

Abstract: This study contributes to the literature on the role of livelihood strategies in rural growth and poverty reduction. It distinguishes between livelihood diversity strategies that contribute to sustainable growth in household incomes, and those that mainly have a 'coping' function. It suggests that typically, the contribution of livelihood diversity to growing household income is through relaxing dependence on credit for access to capital. In this scenario, livelihood diversity would lead to higher technical efficiency in agriculture via investment and thereby to higher household incomes. Survey data from Georgia are introduced and used to test these hypotheses using a Bayesian stochastic frontier approach. The findings are relevant to defining more clearly the scope and aims of policies to stimulate the rural non-farm economy in developing and transition countries.

Date: 2005
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00036840500215253 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:taf:applec:v:37:y:2005:i:15:p:1737-1745

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RAEC20

DOI: 10.1080/00036840500215253

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Economics is currently edited by Anita Phillips

More articles in Applied Economics from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().