Improving Food Aid: What Reforms Would Yield the Highest Payoff?

53 Pages Posted: 28 Jun 2007

See all articles by Erin Lentz

Erin Lentz

University of Texas at Austin - Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs

Christopher B. Barrett

Cornell University - Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics & Management

Abstract

This paper develops an integrated model of the food aid distribution chain, from donor appropriations through operational agency programming decisions to household consumption choices. We use this model to simulate alternative policies and to perform sensitivity analysis to establish how varying underlying conditions - e.g., delivery costs, the political additionality of food, targeting efficacy - affect optimal food aid policy for improving the well-being of food insecure households. We find that improved targeting by operational agencies is crucial to advancing food security objectives. At the donor level, the key policy variable under most model parameterizations is ocean freight costs associated with cargo preference restrictions on US food aid.

Keywords: cargo preference, local and regional purchases, monetization, targeting, tying

JEL Classification: 011, 021, Q18

Suggested Citation

Lentz, Erin and Barrett, Christopher B., Improving Food Aid: What Reforms Would Yield the Highest Payoff?. World Development, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=997072

Erin Lentz (Contact Author)

University of Texas at Austin - Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs ( email )

2300 Red River St., Stop E2700
PO Box Y
Austin, TX 78713
United States

Christopher B. Barrett

Cornell University - Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics & Management ( email )

315 Warren Hall
Ithaca, NY 14853-7801
United States
607-255-4489 (Phone)
607-255-9984 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://aem.cornell.edu/faculty_sites/cbb2/

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