The Economics of Food Aid and Food Security in Sub-Saharan Africa — Presentation Detail — Celebration of Scholars

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Jun Wang
Kim Instenes
John Kirk
Nora Nickels
Andrew Pustina
James Ripley

The Economics of Food Aid and Food Security in Sub-Saharan Africa

Name: Katie Niemeyer
Major: Economics and International Political Economy
Hometown: Chatfield, Minnesota
Faculty Sponsor:
Other Sponsors:
Type of research: Senior thesis

Abstract

Recent empirical research on food aid has been inconclusive in determining food aid’s relative performance and effectiveness in improving food security and reducing hunger throughout the world. This thesis research first considers the importance of identifying the main factors which create food security, and then uses regression analysis to identify how, and to what extent, food aid affects two of these determinants: food availability and food utilization. Country-level panel data was used in a fixed-effects regression to assess the impact of food aid on food security in Sub-Saharan Africa. The results show little support to confirm the hypothesis that food aid has a perverse effect on food security. However, further empirical analysis with these definitions of food security should be conducted as more detailed food security and food aid data become available. This thesis research is currently being developed further in order to place these empirical results in the context of both international and domestic political economy.

Poster file