Spatial spillovers and households’ involvement in the non-farm sector: evidence from rural Rwanda.

Abstract

This paper tests for external effects of local economic activity on non-farm income using survey data from Rwanda. The empirical analysis uses a random sample of 8071 households and a multilevel model to mitigate correlations between individual outcomes and geographical variables. Findings show a positive association between a higher initial local diversity of economic activity and non-farm earnings. Results also point to the importance of access to markets and services indicating that an important part of a household's capacity to earn non-farm income is associated with factors that are external to the household.

Keywords

Rwanda; non-farm; spatial spillovers; industry diversity; multilevel

Published in

Regional Studies
2019, volume: 53, number: 5, pages: 731-740

SLU Authors

• Nilsson, Pia

  • Jönköping University

UKÄ Subject classification

Economics

Publication identifier

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2018.1482415

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/114082