Irrigation expansion is critical for agricultural and rural development, food and nutrition security, and climate change adaptation in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Lack of accessible energy for irrigation development due to limited off- and on-grid infrastructure and the resulting dependence on...

We study risky inter-temporal choice in a large random student sample (n=721) and a large rural sample (n=835) in Malawi. All respondents were exposed to the same 20 Multiple Choice Lists with a rapid elicitation method that facilitated the identification of near-future Certainty Equivalents of...

This study investigates the impact of sibling effects on children's educational outcomes in Ghana and Niger, with a focus on disability and gender disparities. Surveys conducted in both countries utilize the Washington Group Child Functional Module (WG-CFM) to identify children’s disability...

We investigate how random luck in repeated variants of the risky investment game of Gneezy, Leonard, and List (2009); Gneezy and Potters (1997) influences risk-taking and discounting behavior in future risky prospects with probabilistic payouts one week, six, 12, and 24 months into the future....

Agricultural technology change is required in developing countries to increase the robustness to climate-related variability, feed a growing population, and create opportunities for market-oriented production. This study investigates technological change in the form of adoption of improved...

Food-based transfer programs have the potential to change diets or alter basic crop mixes. This study empirically investigates the associations between participating in food-for-work (FFW) programs and the diversity of food consumption and production. Four waves of panel data from the Tigray...

There has been an increase in fertilizer use among farmers in the semi-arid Tigray region of Ethiopia during 2006-2015. Our household panel data covering nine years show that the average fertilizer adoption rate had increased from about 31% of plots in 2006 to almost 67% in 2015. Likewise,...

Although development intervention programs can have far-reaching impacts beyond their stated objective, there have been few careful studies of unintended outcomes of such programs. This study assesses the role of Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) on household size and dependency...

Our study investigates the impact of the November 2020 to November 2022 Tigray war on youth groups and their members based on survey data from 281 youth group leaders and 2528 youth group members in five districts in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia. The data was collected from August to...

To promote SDG Goal 4 and "education for all", this study investigates children’s basic reading skills in 11 low-income and lower-middle-income African countries, using standardized reading tests from the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS). Research specifically examining children’s...