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Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1966. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeiÃoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior / Objetiva-se analisar a pobreza nas Ãreas rurais no Estado do Cearà no que se refere Ãs suas causas socioeconÃmicas como educaÃÃo, idade, cor, gÃnero, atividade principal de ocupaÃÃo e transferÃncias governamentais. AlÃm disso, objetiva-se analisar as caracterÃsticas dos domicÃlios rurais relacionadas ao acesso a bens pÃblicos. Estudam-se as causas da pobreza rural cearense com o objetivo de verificar possÃveis alteraÃÃes no nÃvel da pobreza no perÃodo anterior e posterior do Plano Real. A partir dos microdados das PNAD, obtidos junto ao IBGE, determinam-se as variÃveis que apresentam associaÃÃo com a pobreza rural, por meio do modelo de regressÃo Logit e para analisar os determinantes dos indivÃduos, calculam-se as contribuiÃÃes marginais. Ademais, sÃo calculadas as estatÃsticas descritivas das variÃveis relacionadas Ãs causas da pobreza e ao acesso a bens pÃblicos. Conclui-se que as variÃveis sexo, nÃvel de escolaridade, recebimento de aposentadoria, pensÃo e atividade principal de trabalho possuem relaÃÃo significativa com a pobreza da regiÃo, sendo as principais a educaÃÃo e as transferÃncias governamentais. AlÃm disso, aumentou o acesso aos bens pÃblicos, fato este que proporcionou melhor qualidade de vida para a populaÃÃo rural cearense. / The poverty aims to analyse in the rural areas in the State of the Cearà in which it refers to his causes socioeconomics, like education, age, color, type, principal activity of occupation and government transfers. Besides, there aim to analyse the characteristics of the rural residences made a list to the access the public goods. There are studied the causes of the rural poverty of Cearà with the objective to check possible alterations in the level of the poverty in the previous and subsequent period of the Real Plan. From the microdata of the PNAD, obtained near the IBGE, there are determined the variables that present association with the rural poverty, through the model of regression logit and to analyse the determinants of the individuals, the marginal contributions are calculated. Besides, the public goods are calculated the descriptive statistics of the variables made a list to the causes of the poverty and to the access. It is ended that the variables sex, level of schooling, receiving of retirement, boarding house and principal activity of work have significant relation with the poverty of the region, being the principals to education and the government transfers. Besides, it increased the access to the public goods, this fact that provided better quality of life for the rural population of CearÃ.

My dissertation consists of three empirical essays where I analyze animal products consumption and marketing. First using cross-sectional household data, I investigate the importance of consumption from home produce (self-provisioning) and conclude that studying food consumption decisions in isolation from production is not warranted for Turkey. I develop a testing procedure incorporated into linear approximation of the almost ideal demand system (LA/AIDS) model to formally test the relevance of food self-provisioning. Studying consumption in isolation from production leads significant overestimation of rural households' responsiveness to price and income signals especially for the dairy and egg products. Second I investigate the contribution of consumption from home produce to alleviate vulnerability to undernutrition in rural areas. I find that the level, depth and severity of food poverty to be least among rural households who engage in food self-provisioning and food self-provisioning reduce vulnerability to undernutrition. Moreover, food self-provisioning is concentrated in expensive calories from vegetables and dairy so self-provisioning rural households also have a more balanced diet. Finally I investigate whether milk processing firms abuse their oligopsony power to excessively profit themselves to the expense of milk farmers and final consumers. I look for evidence whether the speed of adjustment of processed milk price is same when farm-gate milk prices increase and decrease. I find no evidence that will point out any price gauging on the part of milk processors to benefit themselves. Actually I detect a long-term downward trend in processed milk prices coinciding with new major entries to milk processing industry.

Life stories were constructed for three young women from Appalachia to explore their mathematics experiences as students in public schools of the region. Data sources included interviews, school records, and a self-drawn chart of estimated mathematics ability for each year, from kindergarten through twelfth grade. A cross-case analysis revealed similar characteristics among the three women including shyness, difficulty with middle school mathematics and with high school geometry, the choice not to take a mathematics course in the last year of high school, and an awareness of a negative Appalachian stereotype. The mathematics education received by all the women was inadequate as demonstrated by their self-created graphs, their life story accounts, and their initial difficulties in making the minimum required score on the Praxis I Mathematics test. Their subsequent successes in graduating from college can be attributed to their own motivation and tenacity in addition to the encouragement of their families and some teachers. Connections to Standards-based reform in mathematics education include questions about the teaching and learning of geometry and about opportunities for students, especially females, to participate in mathematical discourse throughout their school mathematics experiences, a situation impacted by their expressed shyness and by overt and subtle incidences of gender and racial biases. Appalachian cultural connections seem to be an aspect of fatalism which influences attribution of natural ability versus effort and, in some instances, a climate of male dominance. Connections to the problems of education in rural poverty included a number of ineffective teachers, a situation exacerbated by a sense of social stratification within the Appalachian culture and a reluctance to challenge school or teacher practices. As for learning preferences, the women tended to favor teachers who offered good explanations and who demonstrated caring, which highlights an emphasis placed on relationships within the Appalachia culture. Determining the degree of influence of the Appalachian culture on the education, especially in mathematics, of these three young women was difficult to ascertain. The factors of culture, socioeconomic levels, and rural isolation combined with the effects of race, gender and ethnicity in the individual to impact the opportunities to a quality education. / Ph. D.

DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2413-3221/2016/v44n1a371 / Rural poverty is a major challenge in most developing countries especially in Africa where the majority of people are still living below the poverty datum line. In Zimbabwe, poverty is made more severe by occasional droughts associated with climate change, climate variability and failed socio-economic-political governance. One of the ways to mitigate the impact of drought and prevent deepening poverty is the introduction of small irrigation schemes. However, there is a raging debate on the social and economic viability of these schemes on household livelihood security and income. This paper aims at investigating the socio-economic impacts of Lower Gweru Irrigation project in Zimbabwe. A case study approach was used in this study. Primary data was gathered using self-administered questionnaire and complemented by secondary data. Results demonstrated that rural irrigation has a critical role in ensuring sustainable household and community income. Irrigators fared well regarding wealth accumulation, household food security and quality of life as measured through the use of standardised HDI. In light of the above, there is a need to fund and develop more rural irrigation schemes so as to ensure livelihood security and rural development in Zimbabwe. Keywords: Rural livelihood, Poverty, Climate change, Irrigation, Lower

O objetivo desta tese é avaliar empiricamente como as famílias pobres tomam decisões em relação à poupança. Mais especificamente, busca-se estudar a vida econômica das famílias pobres de assentamentos rurais, no norte do estado do Tocantins. Para atingir esse propósito, quatro objetivos específicos da pesquisa foram concebidos como eixos de investigação. O primeiro considera a abordagem do desenvolvimento como liberdade e expansão das capacitações dos indivíduos como aspecto fundamental para análise e estudo da pobreza. O segundo objetivo aborda o estudo da vida econômica dos pobres em várias dimensões. O terceiro objetivo considera os principais estudos na área da economia comportamental acerca das influências das barreiras cognitivas, em especial o viés do presente, sobre a tomada de decisão financeira. Por fim, o quarto objetivo analisa o desenvolvimento histórico e o contexto socioeconômico da região onde se realizou a pesquisa de campo. No que tange à estratégia de coleta de dados, foi realizada uma pesquisa de campo por meio de entrevistas semiestruturadas com responsáveis e corresponsáveis pela unidade familiar. As principais evidências da tese são: (a) não predomina nesses assentamentos a figura do agricultor tradicional; (b) as famílias adotam estratégias para obter diferentes fontes de renda; (c) a privação de liberdade dos assentados entrevistados vincula-se, entre outras coisas, ao não acesso aos serviços públicos essenciais; (d) a conversão de terras públicas em ativos financeiros negociáveis no mercado é uma prática comum entre as famílias; (e) emergências de saúde e necessidades financeiras somam-se aos eventos decorrentes dos conflitos agrários da região; (f) a maioria dos atos financeiros das famílias se processa em mercados imperfeitos com elevados custos de transação; (g) como forma de sobrevivência, as famílias adotam estratégias baseadas nas relações de confiança e reciprocidade para consolidação dos ativos sociais; (h) grande parte das famílias é excluída do sistema financeiro formal e depende de credores informais e de poupança não monetária para atender as necessidades de curto prazo. Conclui-se que a baixa capacidade a aspirar e o viés do presente, potencializados pela condição de pobreza, comprometem severamente a capacidade de poupança e tomada de decisão em relação ao futuro dessas famílias. As escolhas que fazem perpetuam sua condição de pobreza. Desse modo, algumas lições e sugestões são extraídas do estudo para o aprofundamento de pesquisas futuras e aprimoramento do desenho de políticas. / The purpose of this thesis is to empirically evaluate how poor households make decisions regarding savings. More specifically, it seeks to study the economic life of the poor families of rural settlements, in the north of the state of Tocantins. To achieve this purpose, four specific research objectives were designed as research axes. The first considers the development approach as freedom and expansion of the capacities of individuals as a fundamental aspect for analysis and study of poverty. The second objective addresses the study of the economic life of the poor in various dimensions. The third objective considers the main studies in the area of behavioral economics on the influences of cognitive barriers, especially the present bias, on financial decision making. Finally, the fourth objective analyzes the historical development and the socioeconomic context of the region where the field research was carried out. With regard to the data collection strategy, a field survey was carried out through semi-structured interviews with those responsible and co-responsible for the family unit. The main evidences of the thesis are: (a) the traditional farmer does not predominate in these settlements; (b) families adopt strategies to obtain different sources of income; (c) the deprivation of liberty of the settlers is linked, among other things, to the lack of access to essential public services; (d) the conversion of public lands into marketable financial assets in the market is a common practice among households; (e) health emergencies and financial needs add to the events resulting from the agrarian conflicts in the region; (f) the majority of households\' financial transactions take place in imperfect markets with high transaction costs; (g) as a way of survival, families adopt strategies based on relationships of trust and reciprocity to consolidate social assets; (h) most households are excluded from the formal financial system and rely on informal creditors and non-monetary savings to meet short-term needs. It is concluded that the low capacity to aspire and the bias of the present, potentialized by the poverty condition, severely compromises the capacity of savings and decision making regarding the future of these families. The choices they make perpetuate their poverty condition. Thus, some lessons and suggestions are drawn from the study to deepen future research and improve policy design.

Bolivia is one of the poorest countries in Latin America. This study analyzes whether rural poverty increases the incidence of food insecurity and whether food insecurity perpetuates the condition of poverty among the rural poor in Bolivia. In order to achieve this aim, the risks that households face and the capacity of households to implement coping strategies in order to mitigate vulnerability shocks are identified. We suggest that efforts by households to become food secure may be difficult in rural areas because of poverty and the vulnerability associated with a lack of physical assets, low levels of human capital, poor infrastructure, and poor health; as well as the precarious regional environment aggravating the severity of vulnerability to food insecurity.

The main objective of this study is to explore the credit and savings behaviour of small farmers in rural areas of Indonesia, with particular reference to informal systems of credit. It examines the relationship between credit and rural poverty and on identifying small farmers' credit and savings behaviour as well as problems they encounter in accessing credit programmes at the grassroots level. In this study, the extent of informal credit programmes in rural areas is identified and an assessment is made of how important these schemes are to rural people, especially small farmers, from economic, social and cultural points of view. The influence of local culture and values on informal rural credit systems is also examined. Fieldwork was conducted in three villages of Solok district, West Sumatra, Indonesia. This study reveals that credit programmes, whether from the formal or informal sectors, have not had a positive impact on poverty alleviation. The majority of formal credit programmes in the three case study villages failed to give service to the rural poor, especially small farmers. It is likely that the reason for the failure was the unmet demand between the formal financial institutions as the credit providers and the small farmers as the credit recipients. The informal credit programmes were also unsuccessful in helping the poor to increase their income because the loans were small in size and were mainly used for fulfilling basic and emergency needs. Credit from informal sources is used for survival rather than for development. However, informal credit schemes were favoured by the majority of the rural population due to their flexibility and adaptation to local cultures and values. This study finds that informal credit schemes in these three case study villages have potential to empower local people and to strengthen traditional rural credit systems in the era of decentralisation. Arisan Suku, Julo-julo and 'friendly moneylenders' are examples of these informal credit schemes, and they figured significantly in the credit and savings activities of the poor in the study area. Therefore, this study rejects the conventional assumptions that informal finance is exploitative, insignificant and unorganised. The positive impact of local culture and values on the informal credit systems in the study area mainly focuses on the influence of local culture of Minangkabau and the value of Islamic religion in shaping rural informal credit systems. In this case Minangkabau people have been practicing credit and savings activities for a long time, and this reinforces the informal credit system in the area. Regarding the influence of Islamic values, this is in line with the current growing attention paid to the Islamic finance system, both at national and international levels. The positive impacts of local culture and values are important for developing a more participatory rural financial system. This study recommends that the future rural financial systems can be developed by combining positive features of both formal and informal credit systems.