This dissertation is an empirical investigation on the microeconomics of growth, focusing on the role of shocks and on the formation of credit networks. It uses original data, collected in Southern Ethiopia, an environment where nonlinear wealth dynamics that are at the root of persistent...

Food security—the ability to obtain and use sufficient amounts of safe and nutritious food—is a fundamental human need. Climate change is very likely to affect global, regional, and local food security by disrupting food availability, decreasing access to food, and making food utilization...

"Marketecture: A Simulation-Based Framework for Studying Experimental Deregulated Power Market," Proceedings of the 6th IAEE European Energy Conference. Held at ETH Zurich: 2-3 September 2004

Basis risk – the remaining risk that an insured individual faces – is widely acknowledged as the Achilles Heel of index insurance, but to date there has been no direct study of its role in determining demand for index insurance. Further, spatiotemporal variation leaves open the possibility...

Basis risk – the remaining risk that an insured individual faces – is widely acknowledged as the Achilles Heel of index insurance, but to date there has been no direct study of its role in determining demand for index insurance. Further, spatiotemporal variation leaves open the possibility...

Basis risk – the remaining risk that an insured individual faces – is widely acknowledged as the Achilles Heel of index insurance, but to date there has been no direct study of its role in determining demand for index insurance. Further, spatiotemporal variation in risk, and therefore basis...

The paper explores the role social network capital might play in facilitating poor agents’ escape from poverty traps. We model endogenous network formation among households heterogeneously endowed with both traditional and social network capital who make investment and technology choices over...

Many governments try to stabilize commodity prices based on the widespread belief that households value price stability and that the poor especially benefit from food price stabilization. We derive an exact measure of multivariate price risk aversion and of associated household willingness to...

Supermarkets, specialized wholesalers, and processors and agro-exporters’ agricultural value chains have begun to transform the marketing channels into which smallholder farmers sell produce in low-income economies. We develop a conceptual framework through which to study contracting between...

Empirical studies across many developing countries routinely document a positive correlation between participation in rural nonfarm employment and households’ wealth or income. This paper explores whether nonfarm employment leads to higher consumption expenditure growth in Ethiopia. We find...