EMPIRICAL RESULTS 37
productive assets through their groups. The individual acquiring the pri- vate productive asset would pay the entire beneficiary contribution in the name of the FUG. Fadama II did not interfere with the private ownership of productive assets, which could explain the significant increase in the value of such assets for beneficiaries. Another possible explanation is that FUG mem- bers were required to buy complementary inputs to support the jointly owned productive assets. For example, FUG members owning irrigation equipment may have needed to buy pesticide sprayers to grow irrigated vegetables. The statistically insignificant impact of project participation on private produc- tive assets for beneficiaries in the poorest asset tercile and in female-headed households suggests that the poor and vulnerable were not able to finance both types of assets. The results suggest that targeting was not effective in increasing the individually owned assets, which are important for increasing the efficiency of group-owned productive assets.
However, the estimated magnitude of the mean impacts for these groups was positive and large (128 percent increase for the poorest asset tercile and 32 percent for female-headed households), even though these estimates were not statistically significant. Therefore, the statistical insignificance of the esti- mates does not prove that the impacts were nonexistent; rather, it indicates that the variances of subsample impacts were too large to measure with the sample size we had. For example, the unmatched sample results show that participation in Fadama II significantly increased the value of individually owned assets for the poorest asset tercile (see Table 5.3). The differences in the impact of matched and unmatched samples could be due to significant dif- ferences in the initial values of individually owned assets. As shown in Appendix C, the values of private productive assets for the unmatched beneficiaries and nonbeneficiaries before Fadama II were significantly lower than those for the matched beneficiaries and nonbeneficiaries. The small initial value of these assets could explain the significant impact on poor beneficiaries. However, the absolute increase of the productive assets in the richest tercile was the great- est, suggesting that the wealthy benefited more than their poor compatriots, even though their percentage increase was smaller.
How are these productive assets managed, and how are their benefits shared among group members? These interesting questions require further study of the efficiency of collective ownership of productive assets and how the poor among FUG members benefit from such assets. Issues to investigate include the economic viability, maintenance, management, and operational efficiency of these assets. Among the benefits of studying jointly owned productive assets are a greater understanding of the returns to productive assets and how they affect the productivity of labor and other resources, and increased knowledge of methods for targeting poor and vulnerable groups
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