Last spring, an Ethiopian intern joined my team to do some desktop research about informal institutions in Ethiopia. Indeed i had the feeling that we do not know enough about the economic role of these institutions in farmers decision making (
http://catherinepfeifer.blogspot.com/2012/02/informal-institutions-in-rural-ethiopia.html). Kiros looked at seven informal institutions in Ethiopia, namely Iddir, Mahber, Eqqub, Debo/Wenfel/Jigie/oxen sharing/labor sharing, Gadaa system, Elder’s group and Women’s association and tried to understand their role from an institutional economics perspective. Six dimensions of possible issues that can hamper transactions were identified.
Each of the seven institution was analyzed along the axes of these six dimensions, namely risk coping, access to credit, labor and animal power exchange, natural resource management, conflict resolution and information sharing.
Kiros came to the conclusion that there are mainly three categories of informal institutions in Ethiopia :
- risk reduction institutions (Iddr, Mehaber, women's associations)
- market failure institutions (Eqqub, labor and animal power exchange)
- conflict resolution (Gada, elder's group)
you can find Kiros report under :
https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0B_BdeBrudKuyU00xV0tBbzVkekk/edit
Each of the seven institution was analyzed along the axes of these six dimensions, namely risk coping, access to credit, labor and animal power exchange, natural resource management, conflict resolution and information sharing. 
No comments:
Post a Comment