This paper is based on the theory that a society's nutritional well-being is both a cause and a consequence of the developmental process within that society. An approach to the choices made by poor rural households regarding food acquisition and nurturing behavior is emerging from recent research based on the new economic theory of household production. The central thesis of this approach is that household decisions related to the fulfillment of basic needs are strongly determined by decisions on the allocation of time to household production activities. Summarized are the results of the estimation of a model of household production and consumption behavior with data from a cross-sectional survey of 30 rural communities in Veraguas Province, Panama. The struture of the model consists of allocation of resources to nurturing activities and to production activities. The resources to be allocated are time and market goods, and in theory, these are allocated according to relative prices. The empirical results of this study are generally consistent with the predictions of the neoclassical economic model of household resource allocation. The major conclusions that time allocations and market price conditions matter in the determination of well-being in low-income rural households and, importantly, that nurturing decisions significantly affect the product and factor market behavior of these households form the basis for a discussion on implucations for agricultural and rural development. Programs and policies that seek nutritional improvement should be determined with explicit recognition of the value of time and the importance of timing in the decisions of the poor.

中文翻译：

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低收入农村家庭的资源配置决策

本文基于这样一种理论，即社会的营养健康既是该社会发展过程的原因，也是其结果。最近基于家庭生产新经济理论的研究提出了一种解决农村贫困家庭在食物获取和养育行为方面的选择的方法。这种方法的中心论点是，与满足基本需求有关的家庭决策很大程度上取决于为家庭生产活动分配时间的决定。总结了使用巴拿马贝拉瓜斯省 30 个农村社区的横断面调查数据对家庭生产和消费行为模型的估计结果。该模型的结构包括将资源分配给培育活动和生产活动。需要配置的资源是时间和市场商品，理论上是按照相对价格来配置的。本研究的实证结果与新古典家庭资源配置经济模型的预测基本一致。时间分配和市场价格条件在决定低收入农村家庭的福利方面很重要，重要的是，培育决定显着影响这些家庭的产品和要素市场行为的主要结论构成了关于影响讨论的基础为农业和农村发展。