Public Expenditures, Impact Evaluations and Agricultural Productivity: Summary of the Evidence from Latin America and the Caribbean

Date
Jan 2017
The primary objective of this study is to synthesize lessons derived from rigorous impact evaluations (IEs) implemented in rural LAC to shed light on the effects of different types of private subsidies and public goods interventions on agricultural growth and productivity. Following a taxonomy of public expenditures, agricultural interventions were classified according to their economic characteristics and IEs were sub-classified into six categories: land titling, animal and plant health, access to information, technology adoption, government subsidies in the form of direct payments, and rural infrastructure. These studies reported on a range of intermediate and final impact indicators, mechanisms of impact and/or secondary effects' indicators along the causal chain.