Gauging the Welfare Effects of Shocks in Rural Tanzania

Christiaensen, Luc ; Hoffmann, Vivian ; Sarris, Alexander

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ABSENTEEISM;    ACCESS TO CAPITAL;    ACCESS TO CREDIT;    ACCESS TO IRRIGATION;    ACCESSIBILITY;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-4406
RP-ID  :  WPS4406

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Studies of risk and its consequencestend to focus on one risk factor, such as a drought or aneconomic crisis.Yet 2003 household surveys in ruralKilimanjaro and Ruvuma, two cash-crop-growing regions inTanzania that experienced a precipitous coffee price declinearound the turn of the millennium, identified health anddrought shocks as well as commodity price declines as majorrisk factors, suggesting the need for a comprehensiveapproach to analyzing household vulnerability. In fact, mostcoffee growers, except the smaller ones in Kilimanjaro,weathered the coffee price declines rather well, at least tothe point of not being worse off than non-coffee growers.Conversely, improving health conditions and reducing theeffect of droughts emerge as critical to reducevulnerability. One-third of the rural households inKilimanjaro experienced a drought or health shocks,resulting in an estimated 8 percent welfare loss on average,after using savings and aid.Rainfall is more reliable inRuvuma, and drought there did not affect welfare.Surprisingly, neither did health shocks, plausibly becauseof lower medical expenditures given limited health care provisions.