TheImprovement ofTropical and Subtropical Rangelands

3
The Economic Context
The previous chapter dealt with the behavioral characteristics
of groups of people living on, or using, arid and semiarid lands. This
chapter focuses on the economic behavior of the individual or the
individual household.
Economic analysis of pastoral management practices has proved
difficult for several reasons. First, many analysts have a tendency
to consider the household as one homogeneous decision-making unit,
with the "head" of the household as the decision-making director. In
fact, households are heterogeneous and not always clearly defined,
and decision-making is generally delegated to a large number of individual
household members who may not share the same interests.
Surveys that used the (male) family head as the sampling or observation
unit have therefore yielded incomplete or biased data, leading
to biased conclusions.
Second, many studies have limited the focus ofthe analysis to one
aspect of household activities-only land management or only animal
performance, for example. These single-commodity approaches
fail to incorporate interactions among various household enterprises.
Therefore, the predictive value of the analysis for household behavior
is low.
Third, any economic analysis is based upon the identification of
determinants and their impact. Even when successful in identifying
important factors, allocating values ("impact") to these factors has