Livestock holdings in rural areas of the West African semiarid tropics are often substantial, yet the evidence for livestock sales in response to shocks is mixed. This paper revisits farm households’ ability to cope with adverse shocks via livestock sales. Based on data covering Burkina Faso’s 2004 drought, we find that livestock sales increase significantly in response to drought, with households citing the need to finance food consumption. At the same time, we find no effects of rainfall shocks on revenues from livestock sales. We show that this seemingly contradictory finding is largely due to a decrease in livestock prices during droughts. Our findings suggest that precautionary saving, while costly as a coping strategy in poorly integrated markets, is nevertheless common in this setting.

中文翻译：

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畜牧业在一体化程度低的市场中作为缓冲库存

西非半干旱热带农村地区的牲畜保有量通常很大，但针对冲击而出售牲畜的证据却是喜忧参半。本文重新审视了农户通过牲畜销售应对不利冲击的能力。根据涵盖布基纳法索 2004 年干旱的数据，我们发现牲畜销售因干旱而显着增加，家庭表示需要为粮食消费提供资金。同时，我们发现降雨冲击对牲畜销售收入没有影响。我们表明，这一看似矛盾的发现主要是由于干旱期间牲畜价格下降。我们的研究结果表明，预防性储蓄虽然在一体化程度低的市场中作为一种应对策略成本高昂，但在这种情况下却很普遍。