Papers by Christopher Cramer
Journal of pediatric surgery, 2015
Members and Guests of APSA, colleagues and friends. I am deeply grateful for the privilege of ser... more Members and Guests of APSA, colleagues and friends. I am deeply grateful for the privilege of serving as your 45th President. There are probably a hundred others in the audience equally or more deserving of this honor, and I fully understand the role of chance and good fortune in such awards. Again, my profound thanks. In its very generous introduction Dr. Albanese graciously omitted the many missteps, mistakes and flat out screw-ups that do not show up on one's CV; nonetheless they form an equally and perhaps more important component of a career, and the inspiration for this address. I feel very much like the proverbial "turtle on a fence post"; when you see one, you know that the turtle didn't get there on its own. As such, I owe deep debts of gratitude both professionally and personally to many, I will enumerate a few. Over a professional career of 40 years spanning five institutions, I am indebted to the students, residents, fellows and faculty at the Medical College of Wisconsin,
Abstract: This paper suggests that economic inequality is important to explaining civil conflict,... more Abstract: This paper suggests that economic inequality is important to explaining civil conflict, but that the links are not as direct as is often supposed. It is important to focus on the variety of ways in which inequalities are managed by societies, and the significance of varying kinds of inequality. It is also important to understand the transmission mechanisms that enable a relatively peaceable durable inequality to turn into a violent conflict. These considerations, together with the poor quality of the available inequality data, should make us more cautious about the conclusions reached by cross-country empirical studies into the causes of conflict which ascribe a strong predictive power to measures of inequality. Copyright # 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 1
Canadian Journal of Development Studies/Revue canadienne d'études du développement, 2014
Research for the Fair Trade, Employment and Poverty Reduction Project (FTEPR) in Ethiopia and Uga... more Research for the Fair Trade, Employment and Poverty Reduction Project (FTEPR) in Ethiopia and Uganda is gathering new evidence on the consequences of Fair Trade for poor people engaged in wage labour for certified producers. This has broader significance for understanding the mechanisms through which agricultural commodity exports affect the welfare of poor people. This paper discusses the methodological contribution of this research, contrasting the project with standard approaches to rural development economics research and in particular with the shortcomings of the vast majority of research on the impact of Fair Trade. The paper highlights four methodological innovations. First, in marked contrast to virtually all previous evaluations of fair trade schemes, FTEPR methods were designed specifically to collect evidence on wage workers rather than producers. Second, the project adopted a form of contrastive venue-based sampling, aided by the use of GPS devices and handheld computers (PDAs). Third, within the selected research sites, stratified random sampling procedures were based on clearly identifiable 'residential units' as opposed to ill-defined 'households'. And, fourth, when constructing a 'household roster' the research used an economic definition rather than the more common and often misleading residential rules.
Women Working for Wages: Putting Flesh on the Bones of a Rural Labour Market Survey in Mozambique
Journal of Southern African Studies, 2006
The life stories of six women working for wages are analysed together with quantitative data from... more The life stories of six women working for wages are analysed together with quantitative data from the first ever large-scale rural labour market survey undertaken in Mozambique. Quantitative data from three provinces are used to emphasise the heterogeneity of the characteristics of women working for wages as well as to examine hypotheses about dynamic processes suggested by the life stories. It is argued that there are important methodological advantages to be gained if researchers can cross-check their own quantitative survey data with qualitative data they have collected themselves, as well as with a wide range of historical and secondary sources. The policy implications of the findings concerning the extreme deprivation suffered by many rural wage workers, the intergenerational transmission of poverty and the relative success of some rural women are discussed.
Privatisation and the post-Washington consensus
Taylor & Francis eBooks, Feb 16, 2010
Researching Violence in Africa
BRILL eBooks, Apr 26, 2011
This book examines the ethical and methodological issues that researchers working in conflict and... more This book examines the ethical and methodological issues that researchers working in conflict and other insecure environments regularly face. Based on in-depth research carried throughout Africa, the contributors discuss how they adapt to working in volatile and often dangerous fieldsites.
Navigating The Terrain Of Methods And Ethics In Conflict Research
Ethical and Methodological Challenges
Social science research involving fieldwork carries legal and ethical concerns every step of the ... more Social science research involving fieldwork carries legal and ethical concerns every step of the way, even in situations not characterized by violence and/or conflict. Hard questions must be asked of every activity: from selecting a topic, a location and a time, to deciding who to ask for funding and how to obtain access and consent, right down to deciding what and where to publish and how to handle post-publication responsibilities. While social science researchers generally endeavour to avoid undue intrusion, they also know from experience that the fieldwork trajectory is difficult to predict in all its aspects, especially when long-term research is undertaken. Since frontline researchers and journalists face similar challenges, it is useful briefly to consider the emergence of advocacy journalism in the mid-1990s. Researching in conflict zones requires constant consideration of ethical issues. Keywords: advocacy journalism; conflict research; ethical issues
Economía Política del Desarrollo en África
Violent conflict and the very poorest
Abstract: This paper suggests that economic inequality is important to explaining civil conflict,... more Abstract: This paper suggests that economic inequality is important to explaining civil conflict, but that the links are not as direct as is often supposed. It is important to focus on the variety of ways in which inequalities are managed by societies, and the significance of varying kinds of inequality. It is also important to understand the transmission mechanisms that enable a relatively peaceable durable inequality to turn into a violent conflict. These considerations, together with the poor quality of the available inequality data, should make us more cautious about the conclusions reached by cross-country empirical studies into the causes of conflict which ascribe a strong predictive power to measures of inequality. Copyright # 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 1
African Economic Development
The evidence does not support gloomy generalizations about an irreversible African environmental ... more The evidence does not support gloomy generalizations about an irreversible African environmental crisis or pessimistic arguments that barriers to adopting Green Revolution technologies are insuperable. Although evidence on agricultural technology in Africa is often unreliable, food output and grain yields do appear to have risen strongly in some African economies.. Huge variations in crop yields, including within similar agro-ecological zones, suggest massive potential for policies to promote a rapid increase in yields. Agricultural research and development (R&D) within African countries—and production on many large-scale farms—has shown that dramatically higher yields are possible. Crop yield improvements—with the aid of suitable high-yield varieties (HYVs), public agricultural research spending, and especially investment in irrigation—are possible without draconian resettlement schemes, without wasteful extension service spending, and without recourse to micro-finance schemes. The...
Hard Science or Waffly Crap?
The Political Economy of Development
We examine how investment in high-value agriculture can help to address the balance of payments c... more We examine how investment in high-value agriculture can help to address the balance of payments constraint on growth and the wage employment challenge in Ethiopia while accelerating structural change. The industrialization of freshness has significant implications for policy priorities.Development cannot be sustainable without structural change, in Arthur Lewis’s sense of a shift of people out of low and into progressively higher productivity economic activities. This process has often been (mis)understood as a rural to urban shift, or as only a departure from agriculture and into those sectors classified as manufacturing or industrial. However, our research, which draws on fieldwork in Ethiopia, shows that simple sectoral classifications have become increasingly unfit for purpose. Besides the process of ‘servicification’, i.e. the greater share of final value of manufactured goods derived from service activities like logistics, marketing and branding, we argue that there is a paral...
Recent literature has highlighted the role of political instability in the relationship between g... more Recent literature has highlighted the role of political instability in the relationship between growth and inequality. This literature ranges from warnings of rural uprisings in work on agrarian relations and economic performance (Binswanger et al, 1995) to econometric analysis of cross-country data for variables including inequality, democracy and growth (Alesina and Perotti, 1993, 1994). Indeed, the inclusion of a broader range of variables appears to be one reason why recent econometric contributions produce different "results" from earlier attempts to find empirical evidence of regular patterns connecting growth and distribution. The extent to which this literature, which is now reaching the proportions of a new received wisdom, has yet provided an adequate explanatory foundation for the alleged results of statistical analysis is debatable. But some commentators with an interest in conflict, or civil war, in developing countries have seized eagerly on these arguments s...
The Journal of Development Studies, 2016
Drawing on four years of fieldwork in Ethiopia and Uganda, this paper addresses gaps in knowledge... more Drawing on four years of fieldwork in Ethiopia and Uganda, this paper addresses gaps in knowledge about the mechanisms linking agricultural exports with poverty reduction, the functioning of rural labour markets, and the relevance to the lives of the poorest people of Fairtrade. Statistical analysis of survey evidence, complemented by qualitative research, highlights the relatively poor payment and non-pay working conditions of those employed in research sites dominated by Fairtrade producer organizations. We conclude that Fairtrade is not an effective way to improve the welfare of the poorest rural people.
Privatisation and the post-Washington consensus
Beyond the post-Washington consensus
Copyright © UNRISD. Short extracts from this publication may be reproduced unaltered without auth... more Copyright © UNRISD. Short extracts from this publication may be reproduced unaltered without authorization on condition that the source is indicated. For rights of reproduction or translation, application should be made to UNRISD, Palais des Nations, 1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland. UNRISD welcomes such applications. The designations employed in UNRISD publications, which are in conformity with United Nations practice, and the presentation of material therein do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of UNRISD concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. The responsibility for opinions expressed rests solely with the author(s), and publication does not constitute endorsement by UNRISD. ISSN 1020-8178 Contents Acronyms ii Summary/Résumé/Resumen iii Summary iii Résumé iv
African Economic Development, 2020
Policy officials are often influenced by two broad varieties of conventional wisdom: the set of i... more Policy officials are often influenced by two broad varieties of conventional wisdom: the set of ideas broadly associated with neoclassical economics; and those ideas flowing from third worldist, anti-imperialist, and structuralist development economics. We show how these apparently opposing perspectives often have a surprising amount in common. Reflexes of ‘impossibilism’ and ‘naive optimism’ are often shared across an ideological divide. Thus, pessimism in orthodox trade theory suggests no African economy can hope to accelerate structural change by defying the signals of comparative advantage; and pessimism in structuralist trade arguments claims limited gains from exporting, especially from exporting primary commodities while the terms of trade are declining. Both forms of pessimism can easily switch to naive optimism when they imagine the ease of rapid and ‘inclusive’ development. But the switch requires that unrealistic conditions are put in place: perfectly competitive markets ...
Journal of Eastern African Studies, 2018
The Extreme Deprivation Index uses easily verifiable answers to ten questions about the ownership... more The Extreme Deprivation Index uses easily verifiable answers to ten questions about the ownership of the most basic non-food wage goods-things that poor people in a variety of rural contexts want to have because they make a real difference to the quality of their lives. Using this Index, we define rural Ethiopians and Ugandans who lack access to a few basic consumer goods as 'most deprived': they are at risk of failing to achieve adequate education and nutrition; becoming pregnant as a teenager; remaining dependent on manual agricultural wage labour and failing to find to a decent job. As in other African countries, they have derived relatively little benefit from donor and government policies claiming to reduce poverty. They may continue to be ignored if the impact of policy on the bottom 10 per cent can be obscured by fashionably complex indices of poverty. We emphasize the practical and political relevance of the simple un-weighted Deprivation Index: if interventions currently promoted by political leaders and aid officials can easily be shown to offer few or no benefits to the poorest rural people, then pressures to introduce new policies may intensify, or at least become less easy to ignore.
African Studies Centre Leiden
Unequal prospects: Disparities in the quantity and quality of labour supply in sub-Saharan Africa
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Papers by Christopher Cramer