When and why do suboptimal agricultural policies persist despite technical evidence highlighting alternatives? And what explains episodes of reform after prolonged periods of policy inertia? This paper addresses these questions by applying the Kaleidoscope Model for agricultural and food security policy change to the specific case of agricultural input policy in Zambia. Since 2002, the Farmer Input Support Program (formerly the Fertilizer Support Program) has been a cornerstone of Zambia’s agricultural policy. Over the years, however, many researchers have highlighted weaknesses in the program and proposed other options. Based on semistructured interviews with key stakeholders and intensive process tracing using media, donor, parliamentary, and research reports, this paper examines how the program initially began in 2002 and during subsequent periods of reform in 2009 and 2015. Based on the findings here, periods of reform for input support programs are most likely when there is a confluence of multiple factors. These include the emergence of a window of opportunity in the form of either a focusing event (for example, a food crisis) or an institutional shift (for example, a new president or new ruling party) that coincides with broad stakeholder support for empirically grounded alternatives, available material resources, and sustained commitment from politically important policy makers.

This book takes forward our understanding of agricultural input subsidies in low income countries.

In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries price subsidies are common, especially on food and fuels. However, these are neither well targeted nor cost effective as a social protection tool, often benefiting mainly the better off instead of the poor and vulnerable. This paper explores the challenges of replacing generalized price subsidies with more equitable social safety net instruments, including the short-term inflationary effects, and describes the features of successful subsidy reforms.

Energy subsidies are aimed at protecting consumers, however, subsidies aggravate fiscal imbalances, crowd out priority public spending, and depress private investment, including in the energy sector. This book provides the most comprehensive estimates of energy subsidies currently available for 176 countries and an analysis of “how to do” energy subsidy reform, drawing on insights from 22 country case studies undertaken by the IMF staff and analyses carried out by other institutions.

Would households be able to buy more subsidized grains from a food-based safety-net program if the difference between prices in the program and in the open market were to increase? This is an important question for safety-net programs anywhere in the world, but particularly so for the public distribution system (PDS) of grains in India—the largest food-based safety-net program in the world. The standard economic intuition suggests that price controls distort signals and create incentives for unintended transactions. Price difference between the PDS and the open market compromise entitlements and divert grains to open markets—an entitlement-snatching effect. Drèze and Sen (2013), however, posit the opposite—an entitlement-fetching effect, where an increase in arbitrage increases the value of PDS entitlement. This raises the stakes in the PDS for eligible beneficiaries, resulting in a rise in accountability and ultimately an increase in household purchases of grains from the PDS. We test these two competing hypotheses using multiple datasets: consumer expenditure surveys conducted by the National Sample Survey Organization, and panel datasets from the India Human Development Survey and the Village Dynamics in South Asia. Depending on the context, we find both entitlement-snatching and entitlement-fetching effects. In states where welfare programs are better governed, the Drèze and Sen (2013) conjecture holds. Conversely, in states like Bihar and Jharkhand—where welfare programs are poorly run—the opposite pattern holds; that is, households’ purchase of subsidized grains recedes with greater arbitrage.

Much policy interest in sanitation and hygiene promotion focuses on changing behavior and increasing demand for these goods. Yet the effectiveness of large-scale interventions has been mixed, in large part because of the difficulty of changing attitudes on deeply rooted behaviors. This study tests whether an experiential learning exercise structured around an experimental game can be used to shift preferences around sanitation and hygiene. A minimum coordination game is adapted to the sanitation and hygiene setting by linking game choices to real-world investment decisions and payoffs in terms of health and status. Individuals from 20 villages in rural Tamil Nadu were randomly assigned to one of three groups: one that played a game in which communication between rounds was allowed, another that played a game in which communication was prohibited, and a control group that only completed a survey. Based on a comparison of survey responses across treatment arms, the game improved stated preferences in relation to sanitation and hygiene. This effect was larger when communication was allowed, and men responded on average more strongly than women across both versions of the game. These results suggest that experimental games can be a valuable tool not only for the study of decision making but for improving participants’ knowledge and pro-sanitation preferences.

Using Ghana as a case study, this work integrates economic and political analysis to explore the challenges and opportunities of Africa's growth and transformation.

This volume is dedicated to understanding the political economy obstacles to trade reform, especially global agricultural trade reform, and how these obstacles can be surmounted. The focus is on the trade reform under the GATT negotiations. New political-economic methodologies are used to assess and evaluate the obstacles and original scholarly analyses have been designed to explain why agriculture - among so many topics - became such a significant problem in the most recent Uruguay Round of the GATT.

What are the political and institutional prerequisites for pursuing policies that contribute to structural transformation? This paper addresses this question by focusing on Ghana, which has achieved sustained economic growth in recent decades and is broadly lauded for its environment of political pluralism, respect for human rights, free and fair elections, and vocal civil society. Yet, despite these virtues, Ghana remains unable to achieve substantial structural transformation as identified as changes in economic productivity driven by value-added within sectors and shifts in the allocation of labor between sectors. This paper argues that Ghana is strongly democratic but plagued by weak state capacity, and these politico-institutional characteristics have shaped the economic policies pursued, including in the agricultural sector, and the resultant development trajectory. Specifically, three political economy factors have undermined Ghana’s ability to achieve substantive structural transformation since then. First, democracy has enabled a broader range of interest groups to permeate policymaking decisions, often resulting in policy backtracking and volatility as well as fiscal deficits around elections that, among other things, stifle credit access for domestic business through high interest rates. Secondly, public sector reforms were not pursued with the same vigor as macroeconomic reforms, meaning that the state has lacked the capacity typically necessary to identify winning industries or to actively facilitate the transition to higher value-added sectors. Thirdly, successive governments, regardless of party, have failed to actively invest in building strong, productive relationships with the private sector, which is a historical legacy of the strong distrust and alienation of the private sector that characterized previous government administrations.

In this paper we explore the implications of Nepal’s new federal Constitution—passed in September 2015—for governance of the agricultural sector. Agriculture is the backbone of the Nepali economy, providing a livelihood for approximately two-thirds of the population, contributing one-third of the country’s GDP, and constituting more than half of the country’s exports. In transitioning from a unitary to a federal republic—with greater authority and autonomy granted to subnational units of government—it is of paramount importance to ensure that the agricultural sector is guided by coordinated planning, retains sufficient human capacity, and receives adequate fiscal resources. These considerations are particularly important given that the governance of Nepal’s agricultural sector already suffers from poor coordination, low human resources capacity, and inadequate financial resources. Addressing these issues may become more difficult under a federal structure. This paper begins by laying out the main challenges for agricultural governance in Nepal under the current structure. To do so, it relies on an original survey of 100 district agricultural and livestock officers in charge of local agricultural service delivery in Nepal as well as perspectives collected through more than two dozen semi-structured interviews with officials from the Ministry of Agricultural Development, the Ministry of Livestock Development, civil society, the private sector, and donors. Because Nepal is embarking on a pathway to more decentralized governance, which has been well-trodden by a number of other countries, the paper proceeds by examining five case studies, drawing lessons from India, Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia, and South Africa. Based on these analyses, the paper offers policy recommendations on how the sector can be restructured to meet the constitutional provisions, while simultaneously ensuring that the government can deliver on its long-term objectives to develop the agricultural sector.