Productivity effects and natural resource management: econometric evidence from POSAF‐II in Nicaragua

Understanding how natural resource management (NRM) technologies impact agricultural productivity is essential in order to ensure that policies designed to reduce environmental degradation and alleviate poverty are successful. In this paper, we analyze the impact of natural resource technologies del...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Natural resources forum 2017-11, Vol.41 (4), p.220-233
Main Authors: De los Santos‐Montero, Luis A., Bravo‐Ureta, Boris E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agricultural management
Agricultural production
Beneficiaries
Critical components
Development programs
Econometrics
Economic models
Empirical analysis
Environmental degradation
Environmental impact
Farmers
Forestry
Households
Impact analysis
meta‐frontier
Natural resource management
Natural resources
Poverty
Productivity
Propensity
propensity score matching
Resource management
sample selection bias
Selection bias
stochastic production frontier
Stochasticity
technical efficiency
Technological change
Two dimensional analysis
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Summary:Understanding how natural resource management (NRM) technologies impact agricultural productivity is essential in order to ensure that policies designed to reduce environmental degradation and alleviate poverty are successful. In this paper, we analyze the impact of natural resource technologies delivered by the Socio‐environmental and Forestry Development Programme‐II (POSAF‐II) in Nicaragua. Using cross‐sectional data for 1,201 farmers (475 beneficiaries, 726 control farmers), we provide empirical evidence concerning the effects of a NRM programme on two critical components of productivity: technological change (TC) and technical efficiency (TE). We use propensity score matching (PSM) to mitigate potential biases from observable variables and a recent stochastic production frontier (SPF) model that addresses sample selection bias arising from unobservable variables. Our results show that POSAF‐II has had a positive impact on the two dimensions of productivity analyzed, i.e., TC and TE. This study contributes to the literature on impact evaluation by showing how an intervention designed to improve NRM can also enhance the income of poor farm households through increases in productivity.
ISSN:0165-0203
1477-8947
DOI:10.1111/1477-8947.12133