Joachim De Weerdt
Biographic Data
| ID | 1632272 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Joachim De Weerdt |
| GIVEN NAMES | Joachim |
| FAMILY NAME | De Weerdt |
| SIGNATURE | DE WEERDT J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Antwerp |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5572-3332 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 28 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 298 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 28 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Distance, prospects, and migration to towns and cities
Changing rural labor markets and welfare in Malawi
What do urban consumers want? Findings from a discrete choice experiment on the preference for locally produced staple food in Central Africa
A discrete choice experiment in Kinshasa (DRC) investigated urban consumers' preferences between imports and local options for five staple foods – cassava, rice, maize, sugar and cooking oil – under a random utility model. We also examined how distance, packaging and price influenced consumer choice. To assess whether preferences could be manipulated, we introduced two treatment groups – local, import – and a control group. We did not find suppor…
When Distance Drives Destination, Towns Can Stimulate Development
While city migrants see their welfare increase much more than those moving to towns, many more rural-urban migrants end up in towns. This phenomenon, documented in detail in Kagera, Tanzania, begs the question why migrants move to seemingly suboptimal destinations. Using an 18-year panel of individuals from this region and information on the possible destinations from the census, this study documents, through dyadic regressions and controlling fo…
Measuring macro- and micronutrient consumption in multi-purpose surveys
Child health across the rural–urban spectrum
Decomposing the Contribution of Migration to Poverty Reduction
In an economy with migration, poverty changes are composed of a number of forces, including the income gains and losses realized by the various migration streams. We present a simple but powerful decomposition methodology that uses panel data to measure the contributions of different migration streams to overall poverty change. An application to Tanzania shows the new insights that are provided – in particular on the role of migration to secondar…
Where to create jobs to reduce poverty
Why secondary towns can be important for poverty reduction – A migrant perspective
From corn to popcorn? Urbanization and dietary change
Why Secondary Towns Can Be Important for Poverty Reduction – A Migrant's Perspective
This paper develops the concept of "action space" as the range of possible destinations to which a migrant can realistically move at a given point in time and, intimately linked to this, the set of possible livelihoods at destination. It shows how this space expands and contracts over time through "cumulative causation." Such a dynamic framework allows for appreciating the role of secondary towns in rural-urban migration and poverty reduction. Se…
Decomposing response error in food consumption measurement
Not your average job
Risk Sharing and Internal Migration
Over the past 2 decades, more than half the population in our sample of rural Tanzanians has migrated out of their home communities. We hypothesize that this powerful current of internal migrants is changing the nature of traditional institutions such as informal risk sharing. Mass internal migration has created geographically disperse networks, on which we collected detailed panel data. By quantifying how shocks and consumption covary across lin…
The Challenge of Measuring Hunger through Survey
There is widespread interest in estimating the number of hungry people in the world as well as trends in hunger. Current global counts rely on combining each country’s total food balance with information on distribution patterns from household consumption expenditure surveys. Recent research has advocated for calculating hunger numbers directly from these same surveys, which are increasingly available in low-income countries. For either approach,…
Migration and Economic Mobility in Tanzania
This study explores to what extent migration has contributed to improved living standards of individuals in Tanzania. Using a thirteen-year panel survey, we find that migration between 1991 and 2004 added 36 percentage points to consumption growth. Although moving out of agriculture resulted in much higher growth than staying in agriculture, growth was always greater in any sector if the individual physically moved. As to why more people do not m…
Social Identity and the Formation of Health Insurance Networks
In a panel survey of an informal insurance network in Tanzania we find none of the tell-tale signs that insurance transfers follow reciprocal risk sharing arrangements among self-interested individuals: insurance remittances do not occur through informal loans; transfers are not regressive; and they do not fall when shocks are repeated over time. The evidence of unreciprocated transfers occurring between kin is suggestive of risk sharing based on…
Migration and Economic Mobility in Tanzania
This study explores to what extent migration has contributed to improved living standards of individuals in Tanzania. Using a thirteen-year panel survey, we find that migration between 1991 and 2004 added 36 percentage points to consumption growth. Although moving out of agriculture resulted in much higher growth than staying in agriculture, growth was always greater in any sector if the individual physically moved. As to why more people do not m…
Improving consumption measurement and other survey data through Capi
Methods of household consumption measurement through surveys
Methods of household consumption measurement through surveys
Consumption expenditure has long been the preferred measure of household living standards. However, accurate measurement is a challenge and household expenditure surveys vary widely across many dimensions, including the level of reporting, the length of the reference period, and the degree of commodity detail. These variations occur both across countries and also over time within countries. There is little current understanding of the implication…
Moving out of Poverty in Tanzania
This paper uses linked qualitative and quantitative data to explore the growth trajectories of matched households in the Kagera region of Tanzania, finding that agriculture and trade provided the two main routes out of poverty. The interplay between initial conditions, shocks, networks and experiences of life beyond their village determine whether a person moves out of poverty in the following decade
A Comparison of Capi and Papi through a Randomized Field Experiment
This paper reports on a randomized \n survey experiment among one thousand eight hundred and forty \n households, designed to compare pen-and-paper interviewing \n (PAPI) to computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI). \n The authors find that PAPI data contain a large number of \n errors, which can be avoided in CAPI. The authors show that \n error counts are not randomly distributed across the sample, \n but are correlated with household cha…
Orphanhood and human capital destruction
This article presents unique evidence that orphanhood matters in the long run for health and education outcomes in a region of northwestern Tanzania. We study a sample of 718 non-orphaned children surveyed in 1991–1994 who were traced and reinterviewed as adults in 2004. A large proportion, 19%, lost one or more parents before age 15 in this period, allowing us to assess permanent health and education impacts of orphanhood. In the analysis, we co…
Migration And Economic Mobility In Tanzania
This study explores the extent to which migration has contributed to improved living standards of individuals in Tanzania. Using longitudinal data on individuals, the authors estimate the impact of migration on consumption growth between 1991 and 2004. The analysis addresses concerns about heterogeneity and unobservable factors correlated with both income changes and the decision to migrate. The findings show that migration adds 36 percentage poi…
Risk-sharing networks and insurance against illness
Methods of household consumption measurement through surveys
Group-based funeral insurance in Ethiopia and Tanzania
Not your average job
Orphanhood and human capital destruction
This article presents unique evidence that orphanhood matters in the long run for health and education outcomes in a region of northwestern Tanzania. We study a sample of 718 non-orphaned children surveyed in 1991–1994 who were traced and reinterviewed as adults in 2004. A large proportion, 19%, lost one or more parents before age 15 in this period, allowing us to assess permanent health and education impacts of orphanhood. In the analysis, we co…
From corn to popcorn? Urbanization and dietary change
Why secondary towns can be important for poverty reduction – A migrant perspective
Improving consumption measurement and other survey data through Capi
Child health across the rural–urban spectrum
Adult Mortality and Consumption Growth in the Age of HIV/Aids
This article uses a 13‐year panel of individuals in Tanzania to assess how adult mortality shocks affect both the short‐ and long‐run consumption growth of surviving household members. Using unique data that tracks individuals from 1991 to 2004, we examine consumption growth, controlling for a set of initial community, household, and individual characteristics; the effect is identified using the sample of households in 2004 that grew out of basel…
Risk Sharing and Internal Migration
Over the past 2 decades, more than half the population in our sample of rural Tanzanians has migrated out of their home communities. We hypothesize that this powerful current of internal migrants is changing the nature of traditional institutions such as informal risk sharing. Mass internal migration has created geographically disperse networks, on which we collected detailed panel data. By quantifying how shocks and consumption covary across lin…
Decomposing response error in food consumption measurement
The Challenge of Measuring Hunger through Survey
There is widespread interest in estimating the number of hungry people in the world as well as trends in hunger. Current global counts rely on combining each country’s total food balance with information on distribution patterns from household consumption expenditure surveys. Recent research has advocated for calculating hunger numbers directly from these same surveys, which are increasingly available in low-income countries. For either approach,…
Measuring macro- and micronutrient consumption in multi-purpose surveys
Where to create jobs to reduce poverty
Group-based funeral insurance in Ethiopia and Tanzania
Risk-sharing networks and insurance against illness
Migration And Economic Mobility In Tanzania
This study explores the extent to which migration has contributed to improved living standards of individuals in Tanzania. Using longitudinal data on individuals, the authors estimate the impact of migration on consumption growth between 1991 and 2004. The analysis addresses concerns about heterogeneity and unobservable factors correlated with both income changes and the decision to migrate. The findings show that migration adds 36 percentage poi…
Adult Mortality and Consumption Growth in the Age of HIV/Aids
This article uses a 13‐year panel of individuals in Tanzania to assess how adult mortality shocks affect both the short‐ and long‐run consumption growth of surviving household members. Using unique data that tracks individuals from 1991 to 2004, we examine consumption growth, controlling for a set of initial community, household, and individual characteristics; the effect is identified using the sample of households in 2004 that grew out of basel…
Methods of household consumption measurement through surveys
Consumption expenditure has long been the preferred measure of household living standards. However, accurate measurement is a challenge and household expenditure surveys vary widely across many dimensions, including the level of reporting, the length of the reference period, and the degree of commodity detail. These variations occur both across countries and also over time within countries. There is little current understanding of the implication…
Moving out of Poverty in Tanzania
This paper uses linked qualitative and quantitative data to explore the growth trajectories of matched households in the Kagera region of Tanzania, finding that agriculture and trade provided the two main routes out of poverty. The interplay between initial conditions, shocks, networks and experiences of life beyond their village determine whether a person moves out of poverty in the following decade
A Comparison of Capi and Papi through a Randomized Field Experiment
This paper reports on a randomized \n survey experiment among one thousand eight hundred and forty \n households, designed to compare pen-and-paper interviewing \n (PAPI) to computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI). \n The authors find that PAPI data contain a large number of \n errors, which can be avoided in CAPI. The authors show that \n error counts are not randomly distributed across the sample, \n but are correlated with household cha…
Orphanhood and human capital destruction
This article presents unique evidence that orphanhood matters in the long run for health and education outcomes in a region of northwestern Tanzania. We study a sample of 718 non-orphaned children surveyed in 1991–1994 who were traced and reinterviewed as adults in 2004. A large proportion, 19%, lost one or more parents before age 15 in this period, allowing us to assess permanent health and education impacts of orphanhood. In the analysis, we co…
Migration and Economic Mobility in Tanzania
This study explores to what extent migration has contributed to improved living standards of individuals in Tanzania. Using a thirteen-year panel survey, we find that migration between 1991 and 2004 added 36 percentage points to consumption growth. Although moving out of agriculture resulted in much higher growth than staying in agriculture, growth was always greater in any sector if the individual physically moved. As to why more people do not m…
Social Identity and the Formation of Health Insurance Networks
In a panel survey of an informal insurance network in Tanzania we find none of the tell-tale signs that insurance transfers follow reciprocal risk sharing arrangements among self-interested individuals: insurance remittances do not occur through informal loans; transfers are not regressive; and they do not fall when shocks are repeated over time. The evidence of unreciprocated transfers occurring between kin is suggestive of risk sharing based on…
Migration and Economic Mobility in Tanzania
This study explores to what extent migration has contributed to improved living standards of individuals in Tanzania. Using a thirteen-year panel survey, we find that migration between 1991 and 2004 added 36 percentage points to consumption growth. Although moving out of agriculture resulted in much higher growth than staying in agriculture, growth was always greater in any sector if the individual physically moved. As to why more people do not m…
Improving consumption measurement and other survey data through Capi
Methods of household consumption measurement through surveys
Risk Sharing and Internal Migration
Over the past 2 decades, more than half the population in our sample of rural Tanzanians has migrated out of their home communities. We hypothesize that this powerful current of internal migrants is changing the nature of traditional institutions such as informal risk sharing. Mass internal migration has created geographically disperse networks, on which we collected detailed panel data. By quantifying how shocks and consumption covary across lin…
The Challenge of Measuring Hunger through Survey
There is widespread interest in estimating the number of hungry people in the world as well as trends in hunger. Current global counts rely on combining each country’s total food balance with information on distribution patterns from household consumption expenditure surveys. Recent research has advocated for calculating hunger numbers directly from these same surveys, which are increasingly available in low-income countries. For either approach,…
Why Secondary Towns Can Be Important for Poverty Reduction – A Migrant's Perspective
This paper develops the concept of "action space" as the range of possible destinations to which a migrant can realistically move at a given point in time and, intimately linked to this, the set of possible livelihoods at destination. It shows how this space expands and contracts over time through "cumulative causation." Such a dynamic framework allows for appreciating the role of secondary towns in rural-urban migration and poverty reduction. Se…
Decomposing response error in food consumption measurement
Not your average job
Why secondary towns can be important for poverty reduction – A migrant perspective
From corn to popcorn? Urbanization and dietary change
Decomposing the Contribution of Migration to Poverty Reduction
In an economy with migration, poverty changes are composed of a number of forces, including the income gains and losses realized by the various migration streams. We present a simple but powerful decomposition methodology that uses panel data to measure the contributions of different migration streams to overall poverty change. An application to Tanzania shows the new insights that are provided – in particular on the role of migration to secondar…
Where to create jobs to reduce poverty
Child health across the rural–urban spectrum
When Distance Drives Destination, Towns Can Stimulate Development
While city migrants see their welfare increase much more than those moving to towns, many more rural-urban migrants end up in towns. This phenomenon, documented in detail in Kagera, Tanzania, begs the question why migrants move to seemingly suboptimal destinations. Using an 18-year panel of individuals from this region and information on the possible destinations from the census, this study documents, through dyadic regressions and controlling fo…
Measuring macro- and micronutrient consumption in multi-purpose surveys
Economics (24 works) · Socioeconomics (20 works) · Geography (19 works) · Tanzania (18 works) · Economic growth (16 works) · Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare (14 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Agriculture (9 works) · Demographic economics (9 works) · Migration and Labor Dynamics (9 works)