Measuring exploitation in smallholder agriculture based on household survey data
- Beschreibung
Rural poverty is a pressing topic. Globally, around 16% of the rural population live in absolute poverty, struggling daily to meet basic needs. About 80% of the extreme poor live in rural areas and many of them are agricultural wage labourers.
Marxian economists consider exploitative production relations the root cause of poverty and inequality. Marx's labour theory of value states that only labour creates value in production. If someone receives less value through wages than the value they produce, they are exploited. The difference between the value a person produces and the value a person receives is called ‘surplus’. Although surplus is a key concept of Marxian economics, there has so far been no attempt to quantify surplus transfers in agriculture.
In the project you will test a novel approach to quantify surplus, based on existing household survey data. The focus of the analysis can be shaped by students' interests and may explore questions such as:
- assess which crops or agricultural tasks are more exploitative than others
- compare the level of exploitation of male and female wage labourers
- compare exploitation of labourers with extraction of rents by landlords or extraction of interests by moneylenders
The analysis will be based on existing household level data collected through the World Bank's Living Standards Measurement Study. You can choose a country in Africa, that you want to analyse!
The project will be in English, but you don't need perfect language skills! Instead this is an opportunity to practice and improve your language skills. Support in German is available, if needed.
- Projektzeitraum
- Wintersemester 2025/2026
- Bewerbungszeitraum
- 13. bis 27.10.2025
- Durchführung
- semesterbegleitend
- Details zu Projektzeitraum und Durchführung
The project will take place during the lecture period. We will wrap up before the start of the examination period on 02.02.2025.
During the project we will have a meeting every two weeks, with independent assigments in between. During the meetings the group reflects on last week’s task, presents results, and get’s some input for the next week’s task. In some weeks there will be also an open tutorial, where students can come with questions/difficulties.
Each student will analyse data from the World Bank Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) of a case study country of their choice. Through the project students will learn to manage and analyse household survey data. Each week, the students write a section of the joined research report, or their case study country profile. For each task there is an instruction sheet that outlines how to achieve the fortnightly goals.
For the analysis will use STATA, a statistical software package widely used in Economics. You don't need any prior experiences with STATA to participate.
- Studienfach
- offen für alle Studienfächer
- Betreuende
- Sarah Graf
- Institut
- Institut für Agrarpolitik und Landwirtschaftliche Marktlehre (420) (Fachgebiets Agrarmärkte / Agricultural Markets (420b))
- Sprache
- deutsch/englisch
- Teilnehmendenanzahl
- min. 1, max. 8
- Arbeitsaufwand
-
ca. 180 Stunden pro Teilnehmende:r
| 6
ECTS-Punkte
Arbeitsaufwand (Stunden und ggf. ECTS) sind ungefähre Angaben. Die tatsächlich vergebenen ECTS-Punkte ergeben sich aus der tatsächlich geleisteten Arbeit.
- Für dieses Projekt ist kein Motivationsschreiben des Studierenden erforderlich
- Projektart
- empirisch
- Lernziele
-
Die Teilnehmende lernen in diesem Projekt:
After the project students:
- Know key sources for data and statistics on agricultural development
- Understand the labour theory of value and are able to operationalize it
- Proficiently use STATA to compile, manage and calculate from household survey data in STATA
- Understand key statistical tests and perform them using STATA
- Communicate research findings effectively
- Anmerkungen für Studierende
The project is open to anyone passionate about quantitative data analysis and inequality!
The project will be in English, but you don't need perfect language skills! Instead this is an opportunity to practice and improve your language skills. Support in German is available, if needed.
If you have any questions regarding the project, don't hesitatie to contact me: sarah.graf@uni-hohenheim.de
- Schlagworte
- Development Economics, Inequality, smallholder farmers, International Agriculture, Quantitative Research, Stata, Karl Marx