Consumption Smoothing? Livestock, Insurance and Drought in Rural Burkina Faso

By H. Kazianga, Christopher R. Udry. 2006

677 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This paper explores the extent of consumption smoothing between 1981 and 1985 in rural Burkina Faso. In particular, we examine the extent to which livestock, grain storage and interhousehold transfers are used to smooth consumption against income risk. The survey coincided with a period of severe drought, so that the results provide direct evidence on the effectiveness of these various insurance mechanisms when they are the most needed. We find evidence of little consumption smoothing. In particular, there is almost no risk sharing, and households rely almost exclusively on self-insurance in the form of adjustments to grain stocks to smooth out consumption. The outcome, however is far from complete smoothing. Hence the main risk-coping strategies, which are hypothesized in the literature (risk sharing and buffer stock), were not effective during the survey period.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Soil Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/7080742480b8583bfd30d40307c6a0250d2c6852

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Citations in the corpus

Design, Monitoring and Evaluation of Resilience Interventions: Conceptual and Empirical Considerations (2015, background): “…of assets, reduction of expenses or food consumption) can have very detrimental effects on the immediate or long-term wellbeing of households (e.g., nutritional status, food security) (Dercon, Hoddinott and Woldehanna 2005; Hoddinott 2006; Kazianga and Udry 2006; Sinha, Lipton and Yaqub 2002).”
Gender, Weather Shocks and Welfare: Evidence from Malawi (2018, background): “…the linkage between climate and the welfare of individuals employed in the agricultural sector of a developing country (for example Dell, Jones, & Olken, 2014; Dercon, 2004; Dercon, Hoddinott, & Woldehanna, 2005; Fafchamps, Udry, & Czukas, 1998; Kazianga & Udry, 2006; Skoufias & Vinha, 2013).”
Gone with the Storm: Rainfall Shocks and Household Wellbeing in Guatemala (2016, positive): “Excess rainfall and droughts have been found to halve crop income and reduce consumption significantly among affected households (for example, Kazianga and Udry, 2006 for Burkina Faso) or forced them to deplete their productive assets (for instance, Dercon, 2004 for Ethipia).”
Persistent poverty and informal credit (2011, background): “Nevertheless and second, inter-household gifts and loans of cattle are conspicuously limited, as in other societies in semi-arid Africa (Lentz and Barrett, 2004, McPeak, 2004, Kazianga and Udry, 2006, McPeak, 2006).”
Resilience of local food systems and links to food security – A review of some important concepts in the context of COVID-19 and other shocks (2020, background): “For smallholders at the upstream end of the food supply (farmers, small-scale fishers, agro-pastoralists) harmful or unsafe responses generally correspond to what has been long labelled in the literature as negative coping strategies (Corbett 1988; Devereux 1993; Kazianga and Udry 2004; Hoddinott 20”
Health shocks and consumption smoothing in rural households: Does microcredit have a role to play? (2012, background): “Kazianga and Udry (2006) also find little evidence of the use of livestock as buffer stocks for consumption smoothing.”