Description of Research Program

(click hyperlink above for a (very, very dated) narrative on my research program)

My fundamental research objective is to help reduce unnecessary human suffering, albeit indirectly, by generating useful new knowledge on which people and organizations can act. Most of this work is field-based, empirical research in applied economics, although I collaborate extensively with scholars from a wide range of biophysical and social science disciplines. For a brief overview of my research motives and approaches, visit this Cornell Chronicle article entitled, "Chris Barrett takes a collaborative approach to the world's poorest people," published April 18, 2006.

At a slightly more specific level, there are three basic, interrelated threads to my research program:

• The first concerns poverty, food insecurity, economic policy and the structural transformation of low-income societies.
• The second considers issues of individual and market behavior under risk and uncertainty.
• The third revolves around the interrelationship between poverty, food insecurity and environmental stress in developing areas.

These interests cross the boundaries between development economics, agricultural economics, environmental and natural resource economics, and international economics, and naturally draw me into related subjects in core economic theory and methods. An unrepentant dabbler, my publications and interests range widely.

If you are interested in specific works, please check the appropriate page on this site. My unpublished papers are all downloadable from my working papers site. Links to papers that have appeared in print are on my published journal articles site. Links or downloadable copies of my books are on my books page. And pieces in popular media, and stories covering or quoting my work, can be found on the media coverage page. If you don't find what you are looking for, just email me.

 

Current research projects include:

• A European Commission-funded collaborative research and outreach project with Germany's Global Public Policy Institute on food aid and food assistance policies, aimed at building an evidence-based trans-Atlantic dialogue on effective policy.
• With Alex Travis of Cornell's Vet School and is new Center for Wildlife Conservation, I am co-organizing a workshop February 4-5, 2010, on Biodiversity Conservation and Poverty Traps, drawing together researchers from both the conservation biology and development economics communities to explore the empirical intersections between these two interrelated research areas. We intend to publish the resulting set of papers.
• A three-year interdisciplinary project on Persistent Poverty and Upward Mobility under the auspices of Cornell's Institute for the Social Sciences.
• A multi-year initiative on Stimulating Agricultural and Rural Transformation, under the auspices of the Cornell International Institute for Food, Agriculture and Development, in close collaboration with the NSF IGERT-funded Ph.D. training program on Food Systems and Poverty Reduction and the Cornell Center for a Sustainable Future.
• A multi-year project on idiosyncratic risk, smallholder productivity, and asset building and protection in Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Ghana, in collaboration with IFPRI, the University of Ghana's Institute for Statistical, Social and Economic Research, and Addis Ababa University, funded by the USAID Assets and Market Access (AMA) CRSP , with supplementary funding from the National Science Foundation and the UK DfID-funded International Growth Centre. Household panel data from Ghana will be available on this site.
• A multi-year project on index-based livestock insurance in northern Kenya, in collaboration with the International Livestock Research Institute, the University of California-Davis, Syracuse University, Equity Bank, and UAP Insurance, funded by the USAID Assets and Market Access (AMA) CRSP, UK DfID, and the World Bank.
• Blip.tv: "Development of the World's First Insurance for African Pastoralist Herders" (June 2010)
• Work with the International Livestock Research Institute evaluating the impacts of the World Bank-funded Arid Lands Resources Management Program in Kenya.
• Work within a major new Cornell initiative on computational sustainability, led by my colleague Carla Gomes and funded by the National Science Foundation.
• A multi-year project refining, applying and developing training materials on the Market Information and Food Insecurity Response Analysis (MIFIRA) framework for to help humanitarian agencies identify context-specific best responses to food insecurity. Initial efforts are in Kenya and Uganda in collaboration with Catholic Relief Services, CARE, the International Livestock Research Institute and the University of Nairobi, with funding from the USAID Assets and Market Access (AMA) CRSP.
• Ongoing work on smallholder market access, spatial market integration and the effects of changing food marketing channels on poverty and risk exposure.
• Longstanding work on food insecurity, food aid and food assistance strategies.

 

Past major research projects include:

• A multi-year USAID-funded cooperative agreement on Strategies and Analyses for Growth and Access (SAGA) focused on the constraints to broad-based growth, a bottom-up perspective emphasizing education, health and nutrition, vulnerability and poverty dynamics, and the voices of the poor.  This project was a collaboration with Clark Atlanta University and the Secretariat for Institutional Support for Economic Research in Africa (SISERA).
• A multi-year, research project on poverty traps and natural resource degradation in East Africa, in collaboration with the University of Nairobi, FOFIFA, the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute and the World Agroforestry Centre.
• A multi-year project on the moral and social dimensions of microeconomic behavior in poor communities, including an edited book on The Social Economics of Poverty and special issues of the Journal of Development Economics and the Journal of Economic Inequality, funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts.
• Several interrelated initiatives concerning poverty traps and environmentally sustainable agricultural development strategies in the low-income tropics, with a focus on eastern and southern Africa. Much of this work took place within the context of a major interdisciplinary venture, the Cornell African Food Security and Natural Resource Management program, part of the Cornell International Institute for Food, Agriculture and Development (CIIFAD). We enjoyed generous funding support from the National Science Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and USAID.
• A nearly decade-long research project on risk management among East African pastoralists, funded by the USAID-funded Global Livestock CRSP. Household panel data from our 2000-2 surveys are available on this site.
• Longstanding work on the effects of food aid on food security, sustainable development, and international trade, including an award-winning book entitled Food Aid After Fifty Years: Recasting Its Role and a recent Cornell Adult University CyberTower Study Room on International Food Aid After Fifty Years.
• Empirical work on agricultural productivity and markets in Madagascar through a multi-year, USAID-funded project run by the Cornell Food and Nutrition Policy Program.