This report presents new work on the impacts of the global financial crisis on the rural labour market in Cambodia. The analysis uses a combination of descriptive statistics and econometric modelling with data from household surveys in nine rural villages to track labour market changes before, during and after the crisis and then assesses the magnitude of associated impacts. The study produces a number of interesting findings. Perhaps the most important result was that, because of the global financial crisis, […]

This paper investigates the impact of the global financial and economic crisis on Cambodian rural households, mainly focussing on trends in household consumption and poverty, i.e. the poverty headcount ratio, poverty gap and squared poverty gap, using four-period panel data covering the years 2001, 2004, 2008 and 2011. Descriptive statistics reveal that all study villages except Andoung Trach experienced a sharp drop in consumption per capita between 2008 and 2011. As a result, the 2011 poverty headcount ratio shot up […]

This paper studies the role of rural credit in Cambodia during the global financial and economic crisis that began in 2008. The paper briefly reviews rural credit in Cambodia during 2008, analyses rural households’ formal and informal credit demand during the crisis and proposes policy options. The results suggest that household demand for credit increased during the crisis. The demand for formal loans was higher than for informal ones, indicating the important role of the formal rural credit market in times of economic downturn. There […]

This paper uses four-period panel data covering the years 2001, 2004, 2008 and 2011 to analyse the roles of rural income diversification during the global financial crisis. Income diversification is commonly defined as a proportion of income derived from non-farm activities or the number of income portfolios. However, the use of such measures is problematic because the income diversification variable is sensitive to assumptions about the thresholds used to assign households to different income categories. To address this concern, following […]

Although economic growth started to show signs of recovery in early 2010, a consumption shortfall was pervasive across Cambodian sample villages and household wealth statuses, reflecting the protracted effect of the global financial crisis up to March 2011. This paper aims to investigate the extent of rural household vulnerability and their use and the effectiveness of risk-coping mechanisms in response to the crisis. We find that groups vulnerable to the global financial crisis include larger households and households with older […]

Although the global economy is recovering from the financial and economic crisis that started in 2008, many countries have not returned to their pre-crisis growth rates. Cambodia is no exception. Despite its rich endowment of natural resources, especially minerals, oil and gas, the country still depends on a narrow growth base of just four sectors: garments and textiles, tourism, construction and agriculture. Agriculture apart, heavy reliance on foreign investment and markets makes these sectors vulnerable to external shocks, which have […]

This research project represents the first baseline socioeconomic survey that CDRI has conducted for the Greater Mekong Sub-region Transmission Project of Asian Development Bank. The study was designed to develop a set of comprehensive baseline demographic, social and economic as well as energy consumption indicators for the project. The tools for data collection were village and household surveys in 27 villages, of which 17 villages are potentially project beneficiaries (treatment group) and 10 are non-beneficiaries (control group). It then used […]

International labour migration can be characterised in three ways – as human aspiration, tradition, and necessity. For some people, working overseas is a dream. For others, international labour mobility is a tradition. For a great number of people however, international labour migration is an economic necessity. It is the only viable solution to realise their basic human right to a decent life. GMS worker movements to Thailand typify all three characterisations of international labour mobility. While this book focuses on […]

This study utilises the national representative household survey data, Cambodia Socio-Economic Survey (CSES) 2007, to examine the impact of internal and international remittances on poverty, measured by the poverty ratio, poverty gap and squared poverty gap. The result shows that both internal and international remittances reduce the amount, depth and severity of poverty. Remittances have a larger effect on the severity of poverty than on the poverty rate. Our findings also suggest that remittances from international migrants are more effective […]