This paper examines whether social protection - in the form of existing social assistance programmes - affects measures of household well-being such as poverty, food security and costly risk-coping behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using primary data from nationally representative,...

Carbon farming, particularly soil carbon climate strategies, has emerged as a popular tool in addressing climate change and variability in worldwide agriculture. Yet, there is a paucity of evidence on its application, and even more so, limited evidence exists on the welfare impacts in developing...

This paper looks at the integration of regions and nations through the prism of the merger of populations (societies). The paper employs a particular index of social stress. Stylized examples of the merging of two populations suggest that with integration, the social stress index will increase....

Bioenergy is a major source of energy in developing countries. However, increasing demand for agricultural commodities can lead to a stronger competition for natural resources with the bioenergy production. The nexus among energy, food production and natural resource use may result in trade-offs...

We study a policy response to an increase in post-merger social stress. If a merger of groups of people is viewed as a revision of their social space, then the merger alters people's comparators and increases social stress: the social stress of a merged population is greater than the sum of the...

The focus of our analysis is on nexus issues among energy use, incomes, employment, investment decisions, and agricultural production for meeting food and feed demands, as well as health-related effects on rural households. As an example we investigate potential policies, such as public...

In determining the optimal redistribution of a given population's income, we ask which factor is more important: the social planner's aversion to inequality, embedded in an isoelastic social welfare function indexed by a parameter alpha, or the individuals' concern at having a low relative...

This paper argues that an increase in the inequality of wealth prompts a stronger quest for status that in turn fosters the accumulation of wealth. It proposes a measure for an individual's want of social status. For a given level of a population?s wealth, the corresponding aggregate measure of...

Acknowledging individuals’ distaste for low relative income renders trade less appealing when trade is viewed as a technology that integrates economies by merging separate social spheres into one. We define a “trembling trade” as a situation in which gains from trade are overtaken by...

I study the integration of regions in the form of a merger of populations, which I interpret as a revision of people's social space and their comparison set; I illustrate the way in which a merger can aggravate social distress; and I consider policy responses. Specifically, I view the merger of...