Purpose The purpose of this paper is to determine the impact of microcredit on smallholder poultry production and its subsequent role on domestic protein and food supply. Design/methodology/approach Cross-sectional farm-level data from 61 farmers with at least two years of microcredit access and 39 farmers without microcredit access in the Dormaa Municipality of Ghana collected in 2016 via semi-structured questionnaire were used. Using the propensity score matching, PSM, and data envelopment analyses approaches, the authors analysed the propensity of farmers’ taking microcredit and its effect on beneficiaries’ technical efficiency, productivity, profitability and domestic production of chicken and eggs, farm performance. The authors addressed selection biases with the PSM and answered the research question of whether farmers with microcredit access perform better than non-microcredit farmers. Findings Farmers with high years of education, farming experience, technology and machinery as well as micro-savings and female farmers are more likely to take microcredit whereas large farm size reduces farmers’ propensity to take microcredit. Furthermore, farms with microcredit access were more technically efficient, productive and profitable than they would have been in the absence of microcredit. Practical implications The paper can be useful to policymakers and microcredit institutions since it provides evidence of microeconomic impacts of microcredit on agricultural production and the determinants of farmers’ participation in microcredit. Originality/value The study helps to understand how access to credit can improve smallholders’ technology adoption, production efficiency and productivity and output thereby enhancing domestic food supply.

Evaluation of the economic impact of public research and development (R&D) support has become an integral part of the policymaking process. The paper examines the economic effects of the Czech programme TIP supporting R&D in private companies in the recent decade and aspires to contribute to the debate on quantitative methods for assessing outputs additionality of public R&D programmes. The analysis is based on the counter-factual econometric approach, because an appropriate control group could not be found among the unsupported companies, a so-called generalized propensity score matching (GPSM) was used. Two data sources were used: monitoring data of the programme TIP and economic data from the database Bisnode-MagnusWeb. The impact of R&D support on the firms' performance was measured by output indicators: gross value added, profit and productivity. Treatment effects are diverse depending on firm sizes. Generally, the R&D support effects are positive and more substantial in small and medium firms (SMEs) while there are no such effects confirmed for large firms. The support could only impact positively on the output (profit, productivity and gross value added) of small firms only after reaching a certain minimum threshold of the support whereas output diminishes for medium firms after a point of saturation. Implications for Central European audience: This paper results could be useful for policymakers and R&D funding providers because it provides evidence about the microeconomic impacts of programmes, namely it shows the differentiated effects of public interventions toby the size categories of beneficiaries. The analysis confirms that GPSM approach provides deliver logical outcomes and if the investigation is situated to the right period after the programme is accomplished, it has a potential to bring more insight in the effects than the standard dichotomous model.

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Two data sources were used: monitoring data of the support programme TIP and economic data from the database Bisnode-MagnusWeb. Ø The impact is measured at two hierarchical levels-the firm (micro) and the economy (macro) levels. At the micro level, the impact of R&D support on the firms' performance are measured by 5 indicators: 2 measuring net and gross R&D expenditure effects and 3 indicators relating to output-gross value added, profit and labour productivity. The macro level impact of R&D support is represented only by a fiscal indicator-average tax paid by the firms. Ø The assessment of the R&D expenditure effects relates to the period of 2010 to 2016 while the impact of the support on the output indicators relates to 2013-2015 (the period after the economic recession 2009-2012). In the both cases, the year of 2009 was used as the base year for the analyses. For each of the output indicator, the difference-indifference approach is adopted in order to remove the time invariant "fixed effects" è the difference between the average figure for the "impact period" (2013 to 2015) and the base year (2009) is computed.

In various countries of the global south, school feeding programs are implemented in order to alleviate short-time hunger in children, improved their nutrition and provide employment for food vendors. The impact of these programs is important not only in terms of pupils’ nutrition but also in improving farmers’ livelihoods productivity and food security. This study analyzes the impact of the school feeding program on smallholder farmers’ household food security based on data collected in 2021 from 240 farmers surveyed in northeast Nigeria. Differently from other studies, several econometric methods are used to analyze the data, namely, binary probit regression, propensity score matching, inverse probability weighted adjusted regression, and endogenous switching regression. The results show that about 40% of the beneficial smallholder farmers are food secure compared to 20% of the nonbeneficiary households. Findings revealed that the Homegrown school feeding program (HGSF) positively improved smallholder farmers household food security status across all the models. Results provide evidence for the need to expand school feeding programs vis-a-vis interventions in facilitating farmers’ access to capital and capacity building for better integration in the supply chain.