Differential livelihood impacts of oil palm expansion in Indonesia
基于印尼苏门答腊农户数据，发现油棕种植平均提高小农福利，但低土地劳动比家庭种橡胶更有利，且正式土地权属和扩张机会加剧收益不均。
In this article, the impacts of oil palm adoption on livelihoods of smallholder farm households are analyzed. The study builds on survey data from Sumatra, Indonesia. Treatment-effects and endogenous switching regression models suggest that smallholder households benefit from oil palm adoption on average. Part of the benefit stems from the fact that oil palm requires less labor than rubber, the main alternative crop. This allows oil palm adopters to allocate more labor to off-farm activities and/or to expand their farmland. For households with a low land-to-labor ratio, rubber is typically a more lucrative crop than oil palm. Depending on various social and institutional factors, households’ access to land, labor, and capital varies, contributing to impact heterogeneity. Welfare gains associated with oil palm are more pronounced among households that have formal land titles and access to additional land to expand their farm size during the process of adoption.