Using micro level data from Cameroon this paper applies the theories of intrahousehold bargaining to models in which female farmers decide whether to take up cocoa marketing on their own or to rely on others to sell the product. We analyze the effect of marketing on control over the proceeds. We find that controlling both production and marketing provides higher bargaining power over proceeds compared to a situation in which the farmer participates only in production and delegate the task of marketing to another family member. Our data also indicate that in the cocoa sector of Cameroon, female farmers' market participation is hindered by existing price discrimination, which in turn reduces their intrahousehold bargaining power. In other words, participating female farmers receive much lower prices for their produce than participating males. To generate higher revenue, female farmers hand over the marketing responsibility to a male in the family. Such non-participation results in lower control over the proceeds by the female farmer, as the individual doing the marketing can now claim a higher share in the revenue. Additionally we find that collective marketing contributes to eliminating price discrimination and promoting female market participation and thus their control over proceeds.
In the debate on inequality and growth there is a tendency to treat all differences as inequalities. This is despite the possibility of making conflicting arguments about the effect of inequality on growth. It could be argued that inequality, by increasing the savings of the rich, can improve the possibility of greater investment and growth, even as inequality, by reducing access of sections of the population to education, can reduce productivity and growth. These contradictory effects can offset each other thereby distorting estimates of the effects of inequality and growth. This paper makes a case for a more disaggregated approach to the issue. It distinguishes between inequality and aspirational difference, before going on to use the case of savings and consumption patterns in India to explore the very different questions involved in each of their influences on growth.
The author draws an analogy between mechanics of social strifes and the well-known scientific theories of thermodynamics and entropy. The. phenomenon of social conflict may appear to be simple yet it has complex and at times irreversible process behin
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