Last year, over at Duncan Green's blog, Max Lawson discussed a recent paper by Andrew Dorward and Ephraim Chirwa which analyzed and espoused the benefits of the Malawi fertiliser subsidy programme, a policy which has been championed by many as an example that food security and growth can be maintained using agricultural subsidies. Having worked and lived in Malawi, I've always been keen to both follow and foster the debate on the programme's cost and benefits, so I reached out to several colleagues who have dealt with or studied the policy, and asked them to write about it. This week we'll feature two posts which are largely critical of the Dorward and Chirwa paper, as well as Lawson's interpretation of the results. There may be some overlap in argument, as the authors worked independently, but each piece stands on its on. Some authors will be anonymous for the usual reasons.
📚 This is an archive of Aid Thoughts, a development economics blog
that was active from 2009 to 2017. Posts and comments are preserved in their original form.