Twin Crises in Myanmar

Twin Crises in Myanmar

The recent military coup in Myanmar brought a decade of political and economic opening to an abrupt end, an event which coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns. Dr. Mateusz Filipski and students Susan Paudel and Thomas Woldu Assefa from UGA’s department of Agricultural and Applied Economics have been collaborating with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) to study Myanmar’s rural economy both before and after these “twin crises”. The team has been collecting data since 2015, fielding several household surveys over the years, then continuing with phone surveys since the start of political upheaval.

This work has led to a number of publications over the years, on topics ranging from agricultural mechanization to aquaculture development to labor migration. AAEC Master student Susan Paudel combined data from multiple surveys to study income diversification in the rural sector. Although Myanmar’s rural sector is still often believed to be highly agrarian, her work shows that only about a quarter of income is generated directly from agriculture – a sign that rural transformation is well underway. Farm and non-farm wage work are both prevalent, as are trade, construction, manufacturing and services. The rural non-farm sector had been thriving and growing until the onset of the twin crises, at which point over half of businesses reported experiencing difficulties.

This research continues as the consequences of the crises keep unfolding. In the meantime, Susan Paudel’s MS thesis was published last year as an IFPRI Discussion Paper.