The Bang for the Birr: Public Expenditures and Rural Welfare in Ethiopia

Abstract

This article explores the impact of different types of public spending on rural household welfare in Ethiopia. The analysis reveals that public spending on road infrastructure is characterised by relatively high, but regionally strongly concentrated, returns in terms of rural household welfare. This is quite in contrast to the returns to public expenditures in education, which have attributes of much wider reach but less intensity. Public investments in agriculture show results that are low in magnitude and in statistical significance, mostly due to a poor link between public expenditures in agriculture and productivity in the sector.

Impact evaluation of rural road projects

“…There is also a literature on the impacts of differences in the stock of roads or other infrastructure, which can be thought of as impacts of a great many past projects (Binswanger et al 1993, Fan et al 2000, Fan and Chan-Kang 2005, Mogues et al 2007). While such studies can provide useful insights into the impact of a new project (for example Gibson and Rozelle 2003), this paper focuses on methods for evaluating a specific new rural roads project.…”

Estimating the impact of rural investments in Nepal

“…A large set of economic literature exists on measuring the impact of rural investments including Jimenez (1995), Jacoby (2000), Fan et al (2002), Mogues et al (2008), and Dercon et al (2009). One major challenge in evaluating impact is to isolate the effects that are solely attributable to rural investments and not other unrelated effects that may simply be correlated with household or district characteristics.…”

Are There Myths on Road Impact and Transport in Sub‐Saharan Africa?

“…Various studies report that road connectivity has a positive and significant impact on poverty. Evidence notably includes Jacoby (2000); Bigman et al (2000); Jalan and Ravallion (2002); Deininger and Okidi (2003); Mogues et al (2008); Nuru and Seebens (2008); Dercon et al (2009;.…”