Most households in rural Africa are involved in smallholder farming, but off-farm employment is an important additional income source for many. Previous research has analyzed links between off-farm employment and wellbeing, but mostly at the household level, not considering that household...

While agriculture remains a key source of livelihoods in rural Africa, employment in other economic sectors is gaining in importance. However, details of the labor conditions are under-researched. Here, we examine labor conditions in different sectors of the rural economy using survey data from...

Many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are experiencing a nutrition transition from traditional diets to high-energy, processed foods, increasing non-communicable disease risks. Digitalization of food systems plays a significant role in shaping this transition. This paper investigates the...

Following Sen's (1973) characterization of the Gini coefficient as a ratio between a measure of aggregate income-based stress ("depression" in Sen's terminology) and aggregate income, we transform the Gini coefficient into a social welfare function rather than having the Gini coefficient feature...

Competition for land is a key challenge for decarbonized energy transitions. Open-space solar energy farms are gaining in importance but have large land requirements and displace agricultural production. Agrivoltaics offers a compromise, integrating solar panels into existing farming operations....

Climate change is associated with an increasing frequency of extreme weather events, which can severely reduce people's welfare, especially in the Global South. Here, we analyse the impacts of rainfall shocks - including lacking and excessive rains - on economic and social outcomes, using...

The internet is expanding at a rapid rate, which is true even in rural areas of low- and middle-income countries. The internet affects how people produce and consume food and other goods and services. This may also have implications for incomes and diets in smallholder farm households, where...

Electrification typically promotes economic development and enhances household wellbeing. However, how electrification affects the economic activities of different demographic groups is not yet sufficiently understood. Focusing only on aggregate household-level outcomes may overlook unequal...

Many people in rural Africa still rely on smallholder agriculture as their main source of livelihood. Yet pursuing other economic activities beyond farming to diversify incomes becomes increasingly important. In this paper, we focus on the role of people's income aspirations in the process of...

Sen (1973 and 1997) presents the Gini coefficient of income inequality in a population as follows. "In any pair-wise comparison the man with the lower income can be thought to be suffering from some depression on finding his income to be lower. Let this depression be proportional to the...