[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/jic/wpaper/110.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Is Seasonal Hunger a Distant Memory in Bangladesh? Revisiting Earlier Evidences

Author

Listed:
  • Khandker, Shahidur R
  • Samad, Hussain A
Abstract
While seasonality of income, consumption and poverty is not uncommon in rural Bangladesh, it is more pronounced in the Rangpur region, where it is exacerbated by the region’s agroecology and adverse economic geography. This paper, using three rounds of nationally representative data from household income and expenditure surveys from 2000-2010, follows up on earlier findings based on two rounds of data from 2000 and 2005 (Khandker 2012) to determine the extent and causes of seasonality and the factors that helped to combat the severity of such seasonality. This paper adds value to the earlier study in two ways. First, it examines whether the earlier findings still hold over a longer timeframe. Second, having the benefit of three data points allows us to examine the trends in outcomes and underlying factors. The paper finds that seasonal hunger, often known as ‘monga’ in the North-West region of Bangladesh, is caused by both yearly aggregate of income and its seasonal variation. The paper recommends that structural integration of labor, food, and credit markets is necessary to alleviate endemic poverty as well as mitigate the adverse impacts of agricultural seasonality. Combating seasonal hunger therefore calls for diversifying agricultural and rural incomes as well as enhancing poor households’ capacity to insure against seasonality.

Suggested Citation

  • Khandker, Shahidur R & Samad, Hussain A, 2016. "Is Seasonal Hunger a Distant Memory in Bangladesh? Revisiting Earlier Evidences," Working Papers 110, JICA Research Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:jic:wpaper:110
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10685/177
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://jicari.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=repository_uri&item_id=762&file_id=9&file_no=1
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Khandker, Shahidur R., 2012. "Seasonality of income and poverty in Bangladesh," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 244-256.
    2. Binswanger, Hans P. & Khandker, Shahidur R. & Rosenzweig, Mark R., 1993. "How infrastructure and financial institutions affect agricultural output and investment in India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 337-366, August.
    3. Jalan, Jyotsna & Ravallion, Martin, 1999. "Are the poor less well insured? Evidence on vulnerability to income risk in rural China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 61-81, February.
    4. Strauss, John, 1986. "Does Better Nutrition Raise Farm Productivity?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(2), pages 297-320, April.
    5. Shahidur R. Khandker & Wahiduddin Mahmud, 2012. "Seasonal Hunger and Public Policies : Evidence from Northwest Bangladesh," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 9373.
    6. Hanan G. Jacoby & Emmanuel Skoufias, 1998. "Testing Theories of Consumption Behavior Using Information on Aggregate Shocks: Income Seasonality and Rainfall in Rural India," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 80(1), pages 1-14.
    7. Paxson, Christina H, 1993. "Consumption and Income Seasonality in Thailand," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(1), pages 39-72, February.
    8. Martin Ravallion & Shubham Chaudhuri, 1997. "Risk and Insurance in Village India: Comment," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(1), pages 171-184, January.
    9. Stefan Dercon & Pramila Krishnan, 2000. "Vulnerability, seasonality and poverty in Ethiopia," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(6), pages 25-53.
    10. Siegfried, Nikolaus & Schiopu, Ioana, 2006. "Determinants of workers' remittances: evidence from the European Neighbouring Region," Working Paper Series 688, European Central Bank.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Md. Fuad Hassan & Lukas Kornher, 2022. "Farm wage and Rice Price dynamics in Bangladesh," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 14(1), pages 127-146, February.
    2. Isaac Bonuedi & Lukas Kornher & Nicolas Gerber, 2022. "Agricultural seasonality, market access, and food security in Sierra Leone," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 14(2), pages 471-494, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Günther Fink & B. Kelsey Jack & Felix Masiye, 2020. "Seasonal Liquidity, Rural Labor Markets, and Agricultural Production," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(11), pages 3351-3392, November.
    2. Gaurav, Sarthak, 2015. "Are Rainfed Agricultural Households Insured? Evidence from Five Villages in Vidarbha, India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 719-736.
    3. Skoufias, Emmanuel, 2004. "Consumption smoothing during the economic transition in Bulgaria," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 328-347, June.
    4. Kitsuki, Akinori & Sakurai, Takeshi, 2016. "Seasonal Hunger: Heterogenous Impacts of Seasonal Price Changes on Seasonal Consumption in Rural Zambia," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 235524, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    5. Gharad Bryan & Shyamal Chowdhury & Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak, 2014. "Underinvestment in a Profitable Technology: The Case of Seasonal Migration in Bangladesh," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82(5), pages 1671-1748, September.
    6. Fink, Günther & Jack, Kelsey & Masiye, Felix, 2014. "Seasonal Credit Constraints and Agricultural Labor Supply: Evidence from Zambia," IZA Discussion Papers 8657, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Khandker, Shahidur R., 2012. "Seasonality of income and poverty in Bangladesh," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 244-256.
    8. Dubois, Pierre, 2002. "Consommation, partage de risque et assurance informelle : développements théoriques et tests empiriques récents," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 78(1), pages 115-149, Mars.
    9. Asadul Islam & Debayan Pakrashi, 2014. "The Microcredit Puzzle: Labour Supply Behaviour of Rural Households in Bangladesh," Monash Economics Working Papers 24-14, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    10. Basu, Karna & Wong, Maisy, 2015. "Evaluating seasonal food storage and credit programs in east Indonesia," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 200-216.
    11. Bartoš, Vojtěch, 2021. "Seasonal scarcity and sharing norms," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 303-316.
    12. Miura, Ken & Sakurai, Takeshi, 2021. "News from the Sky: An Empirical Test of Forward-Looking Behavior Among Zambian Farmers," 2021 Conference, August 17-31, 2021, Virtual 315161, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    13. Kazianga, Harounan & Udry, Christopher, 2006. "Consumption smoothing? Livestock, insurance and drought in rural Burkina Faso," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(2), pages 413-446, April.
    14. Agha Ali Akram & Shyamal Chowdhury & Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak, 2017. "Effects of Emigration on Rural Labor Markets," NBER Working Papers 23929, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Demont, Timothée, 2022. "Coping with shocks: How Self-Help Groups impact food security and seasonal migration," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    16. Kurosaki, Takashi & 黒崎, 卓, 2010. "Targeting the Vulnerable and the Choice of Vulnerability Measures: Review and Application to Pakistan," PRIMCED Discussion Paper Series 1, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    17. Delphine M. Irac & Camelia Minoiu, 2007. "Risk insurance in a transition economy," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 15(1), pages 153-173, January.
    18. Kayenat Kabir, 2023. "What Do We Know About Drought, Household Consumption and Seasonality: Evidence Review from Sub-Saharan Africa," Economics of Disasters and Climate Change, Springer, vol. 7(3), pages 303-317, November.
    19. Tran, Van Q., 2015. "Household's coping strategies and recoveries from shocks in Vietnam," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 15-29.
    20. Anderson, Jock R., 2003. "Risk in rural development: challenges for managers and policy makers," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 75(2-3), pages 161-197.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    seasonality of income ; seasonality of consumption ; rural poverty ; crop cycle ; Bangladesh;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:jic:wpaper:110. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Japan International Cooperation Agency Library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/jicgvjp.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.