Crop Diversification, Household Welfare and Conflict: Afghanistan 2011–2017
利用阿富汗2011-2017年三轮全国调查数据，研究作物多样化对家庭消费和饮食多样性的影响，发现多样化能提升福利，且在冲突地区也有一定缓解作用。
We use three waves (2011–2012 to 2016–2017) of nationally representative repeated cross section surveys to study the impact of crop diversification (number of crops grown) on household welfare, measured by real adult equivalent consumption and food expenditure and dietary diversity, in Afghanistan. Diversification is very low (almost half grow only one crop and fewer than a fifth grow three or more crops) but increased during the period. A multinomial endogenous switching regression (MESR) addressing selection bias and endogeneity is used to estimate average treatment effects of moving from one crop to two crops and then to three or more crops. The analysis shows that crop diversification increases household consumption and food spending, and, to a modest extent, dietary diversity compared to undiversified households. This holds irrespective of conflict although the effect varies; households experiencing violence tend to divert spending to food from other consumption spending and only the most diversified are able to increase spending compared to undiversified households. The evidence implies that supporting crop diversification can improve food security (through combined effects on spending and food diversity) and mitigate the negative impacts of conflict.