The CENTER FOR DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH (ZEF) was established in 1995 as an international, interdisciplinary research institute at the University of Bonn. Research and teaching at ZEF addresses political, economic and ecological development problems. ZEF closely cooperates with national and international partners in research and development organizations. For information, see: www.zef.de. ZEF-Discussion Papers on Development Policy are intended to stimulate discussion among researchers, practitioners and policy makers on current and emerging development issues. Each paper has been exposed to an internal discussion within the Center for Development Research (ZEF) and an external review. The papers mostly reflect work in progress. The Editorial Committee of the ZEF-DISCUSSION PAPERS ON DEVELOPMENT POLICY include Joachim von Braun (Chair), Solvey Gerke, and Manfred Denich. Tobias Wünscher is Managing Editor of the series.

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This study investigates the impact of food price changes on food security in urban and rural Ethiopia. Using a quarterly household survey panel dataset and price data collected directly at markets, a negative effect of high cereal prices on some, but not all considered indicators of food security was found, controlling for unobserved heterogeneity across households. The results indicate that increases in cereal prices are generally, but not always, associated with households having a lower number of meals and switching to less preferred foods. Diet diversity and calorie consumption, however, show no clear response to grain price changes. Only partly in line with existing notions, our results suggest that the aggregate effect is negative for both the urban and rural populations (with the strongest among the urban poor) but that even poor households are able to maintain their basic food consumption through periods of moderate price changes. Keywords Food price inflation · Food and nutrition security · EthiopiaElectronic supplementary material The online version of this article

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in AbstractThis paper describes the participation of smallholders in commercial horticultural farming in Kenya and identifies constraints and critical factors that influence their decision to participate in this industry by selling their produce. The study employs panel survey data on smallholder producers of both international (export) and domestic market vegetables and controls for unobserved heterogeneity across farmers. We find that participation of smallholders in both the domestic and export vegetable markets declined and that this trend is associated with weather risks, high costs of inputs and unskilled labour, and erratic vegetable prices, especially in the international market. Different factors are at play in determining a household's market choice for the commercialisation of vegetables: credit is important only when vegetables are (also) exported, livestock ownership is negatively related to production for the domestic market, and distance to the nearest market town positively related to all pathways of commercialisation, for example.

This study sheds light on the development of family structures in a polygamous context with a particular emphasis on wife order, and offers an explanation for the association between outcomes of children and the status of their mothers among wives based on observable maternal characteristics. In a simple framework, I propose that selection into rank among wives with respect to female productivity takes place: highly productive women are more strongly demanded in the marriage market than less productive women, giving them a higher chance of becoming first wives. Furthermore, productivity is positively associated with a wife's bargained share of family income to be spent on consumption and investment for herself and her offspring because of greater contributions to family income and larger outside options. The findings are empirically supported by a positive relationship between indicators of female productivity and women's levels of seniority among wives, and by a concise replication of existing evidence relating wife order to children's educational outcomes in household survey data from rural Ethiopia.