Economic Organization, Efficiency and Market Failure in Households and Local Economies in Sub-Saharan Africa

9422886项关于消费者需求、劳动力供应和家庭生产的实证研究通常基于这样一个前提，即家庭的行为就像是单身的个人一样。然而，越来越多的研究得出结论，家庭应该被建模为具有不同偏好和资源的家庭成员之间互动的结果。该项目推导并测试了几乎所有家庭模型所作的关于家庭内部分配是有效的这一假设的含义。该项目包括三个部分，分别涉及家庭的经济组织、非洲家庭所处的市场环境以及撒哈拉以南非洲可能存在的将当地环境和学习外部性内在化的社区机制。在许多非洲家庭中，农业生产同时在由家庭不同成员控制的许多地块上进行。这是检查家庭内部组织的理想环境，因为效率意味着可变因素应该在这些地块上有效地分配。根据布基纳法索的数据，初步结果表明，与同年种植相同作物但由男性控制的家庭内的类似土地相比，由妇女控制的土地的耕作强度要低得多。这些结果如果得到证实，将与家庭资源配置的效率相矛盾。该项目将这一方法推广到非洲的其他各种情况，并审查了违反效率的原因。需要进行理论研究，以建立符合经验违反效率模式的家庭类别模型。该项目还研究了社区机制的存在，这些机制鼓励个人从事农业试验，并将当地的环境外部性内在化。目前的项目是在加纳进行短期初步实地工作，以便设计调查，用于在加纳进行广泛的以调查为基础的实地研究。

9422886 Empirical studies of consumer demand, labor supply and household production are commonly based on the premise that families behave as though they are single individuals. However, a growing number of studies have concluded that families should be modeled as the outcome of the interaction between household members with diverse preferences and resources. This project derives and tests the implications of the assumption made by virtually all models of the household that intra-family allocation is efficient. The project contains three components, concerned respectively with the economic organization of families, the market environment within which African households live, and the possible existence of community mechanisms which internalize local environmental and learning externalities in sub-Saharan Africa. Within many African households, agricultural production is carried out simultaneously on many plots controlled by different members of the household. This is an ideal environment for examining the internal organization of families, because efficiency implies that variable factors should be allocated efficiently across these plots. Preliminary results base don Burkina Faso data indicate that plots controlled by women are farmed much less intensively than similar plots within the household planted with the same crop in the same year, but controlled by men. These results, if confirmed, contradict the efficiency of resource allocation of the household. This project extends this methodology to a variety of other African contexts and examines the causes of the violation of efficiency. Theoretical research is required to establish the classes of models of the household consistent with the pattern of empirical violations of efficiency. This project also studies the existence of community mechanisms which provide incentives for individuals to engage in agricultural experimentation and internalize local environmental externalities. The current project is for short-term preliminary fieldwork in Ghana that will permit the design of the survey that will be used for extensive survey-based field research in Ghana.