Microeconomic Analysis of Rural Nonfarm Activities in the Kyrgyz Republic: What Determines Participation and Returns?

31 Pages Posted: 26 Oct 2011

See all articles by Aziz Atamanov

Aziz Atamanov

World Bank

Marrit Van den Berg

Wageningen University - Development Economics

Date Written: February 26, 2011

Abstract

This paper uses two representative household budget surveys from the Kyrgyz Republic to analyze factors influencing participation and returns from different types of nonfarm activities in 2005 and 2006. Nonfarm activities are found to be most important for the poor, who are pushed out of agriculture due to limited and poor land resources. We also show that different nonfarm activities have different human capital requirements. Unlike other studies, we use the double hurdle model which allows us to demonstrate that a number of variables have different effects on participation and income from nonfarm activities. For example, residing in remote areas and lack of capital are found to stimulate participation in nonfarm activities, but decrease nonfarm income. Overall, the empirical analysis confirms the importance of rural nonfarm activities and indicates that equipping poor households to enable them to move towards better remunerative nonfarm activities should be a priority for Kyrgyz rural policy makers.

Keywords: nonfarm activities, rural areas, Kyrgyz Republic, household income, nonfarm income, rural policy, public policy

JEL Classification: J18, J38, J43, J48, Q12, Q18, I32

Suggested Citation

Atamanov, Aziz and Van den Berg, Marrit, Microeconomic Analysis of Rural Nonfarm Activities in the Kyrgyz Republic: What Determines Participation and Returns? (February 26, 2011). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1949675 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1949675

Aziz Atamanov (Contact Author)

World Bank ( email )

1818 H Street, NW
Washington, DC 20433
United States

Marrit Van den Berg

Wageningen University - Development Economics

Hollandseweg 1
6706KN
Netherlands

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
98
Abstract Views
918
Rank
485,733
PlumX Metrics