Damir Esenaliev’s research on welfare effects of export participation by household farms in Kyrgyzstan is published at The Journal of Development Studies.
In this article, Damir uses the Life in Kyrgyzstan data for 2010-13 and analyses if small farms in Kyrgyzstan improve their welfare by selling their products to export markets. He finds no evidence that selling for export makes farmers better off in terms of their household income or consumption. A lack of welfare effects are likely related to the functioning of export value chains, which are driven by intermediaries, who have incentives to equalize farm-gate prices, regardless of whether the products are destined for export or domestic markets. Possibly, land reform and trade liberalization alone are insufficient to yield profitable export participation without organized value chains and farmer cooperation around export products.
