Stein Terje Holden

Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU) · School of Economics and Business (HH)

This study examines current land access and livelihood choices of rural youth in Southern Ethiopia. We found that youth in rural south have limited access to agricultural land because of land scarcity and land market restrictions. We hypothesize that this forces the youth to abandon agriculture in search of other livelihoods. Our study shows that o...

This paper reviews the literature to identify the relationship between tenure security and food security. The literatures on tenure issues and food security issues are not well connected and the scientific evidence on the causal links between tenure security and food security is very limited. The paper explores the conceptual linkages between land...

Climate risk represents an increasing threat to poor and vulnerable farmers in drought-prone areas of Africa. This study assesses the maize adoption responses of food insecure farmers in Malawi, where drought-tolerant (DT) maize was recently introduced. A field experiment, eliciting relative risk aversion, loss aversion and subjective probability w...

Youth unemployment and migration are growing challenges that need more political attention in many countries, particularly countries with rapid population growth and economic transformation. Proactively mobilizing the youth as a resource in the creation of sustainable livelihoods can potentially be a win-win-win solution that Ethiopia is currently...

We study how social preferences and norms of reciprocity are related to generalized (outgroup) and particularized (ingroup) trust among members of youth business groups in northern Ethiopia. The Ethiopian government promotes youth employment among land-poor rural youth by allocating them rehabilitated communal lands for the formation of sustainable...

We have used the standard trust game on a random sample of university students (N=764) and a random sample of rural residents (N=834) in Malawi. The study identifies social preference types (Bauer, Chytilová, & Pertold-Gebicka, 2014; Fehr, Glätzle-Rützler, & Sutter, 2013) and how these relate to variations in trust and trustworthiness based on the...

Basic numeracy skills are obviously important for rational decisionmaking when agents are facing choices between risky prospects. Poor and vulnerable people with limited education and numeracy skills live in risky environments and have to make rational decisions in order to survive. How capable are they to understand and respond rationally to econo...

Weather shocks and poverty worsen seed and food insecurity in smallholder farming. Here we use rich and representative household-level data for Ethiopia, Malawi, and Tanzania, combined with historical monthly weather data to examine the effects of prior drought exposure and wealth (asset endowment) inequality on seed purchase decisions. We find tha...

Youth unemployment has been prevalent in Ethiopia. Over the past decades, efforts to rehabilitate degraded communal lands have been taking place in Ethiopia. This has created the opportunity to organize landless and land-poor youth and implement a policy of allocating rehabilitated lands for youth to engage in agriculture as a livelihood option. Ho...

Significant progress has been achieved in universal basic education in African countries since the late 1990s. This study provides empirical evidence on the within- and across-country variation in numeracy skills performance among children based on nationally representative data from eight African countries (DR Congo, The Gambia, Ghana, Lesotho, Si...

While economists in the past tended to assume that individual preferences , including risk preferences, are stable over time, a recent literature has developed and indicates that risk preferences respond to shocks. This paper utilizes a natural experiment with covariate (drought) and idiosyncratic shocks in combination with an independent field ris...

Can luck predict risk-taking behavior in games of chance? Economists have not widely studied this issue although overconfidence, optimism-, and pessimism bias have received substantial attention in recent years. In this study, we investigate how good and bad luck outcomes in a simple repeated risky investment game affect risk-taking behavior in the...

This study investigates how exposure to short and long-term measures of rainfall shocks and past crop diversification decisions influence subsequent diversification in Malawi and Tanzania. We use balanced household panel data combined with corresponding historical monthly weather data to achieve our aim. Crop diversification is studied as a state-c...

We study whether luck in a repeated risky investment game can contribute to measurement errors and also help improve the predictive power of the game. We investigate how good and bad luck affect risk-taking behavior in the following rounds of the game. The luck outcome of the previous round is known when the subjects decide how risky their next cho...

This study makes a broad review of important contributions by economists to the understanding of land and labor contracts in agriculture and the analyses of major land tenure reforms in the twentieth century. Possible disincentive effects associated with share tenancy received much attention in the early theoretical literature and have later been s...

Significant progress has been achieved in universal basic education in African countries since the late 1990s. This study provides empirical evidence on the within-and across-country variation in numeracy skills performance among children based on nationally representative data from eight African countries (DR Congo, The Gambia, Ghana, Lesotho, Sie...

We analyze individual investment behavior among 822 young men and women that are members of 111 formal business groups in northern Ethiopia. We collected baseline data and investment data one year later combined with incentivized field experiments to obtain dis-aggregated risk preference data. We find that businesswomen on average invest significan...

Crop diversity plays a central role in smallholder farmers’ ability to cope with and adapt to shocks. Shifting crop varieties and diversifying the crop portfolio are common risk reduction strategies. This paper addresses the influence of covariate climate shocks and idiosyncratic socioeconomic shocks on crop variety use and crop species diversifica...

Intensification of agriculture is crucial for food security in India, and farm mechanization offers a way to achieve it. However, farm mechanization depends on several factors, and thus, understanding those factors is crucial for enhancing its uptake to improve the farmers’ wellbeing and also, for designing appropriate policies. Using data collecte...

This study is based on a survey of 764 students at the Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (LUANAR), Lilongwe, Malawi. It aims to provide evidence on the extent of exposure to the pandemic among university students, their knowledge and beliefs related to the corona virus and the ways they protect themselves against getting infe...

This study investigates the covid risk perceptions, information updating behavior related to the pandemic, use of protective measures, especially facemasks, and the demand for vaccines among university students in Malawi. In particular, the study focuses on how religion and belief in prayer as a protective device against covid-19 are affecting perc...

This study provides the initial survey data from a sample of 764 students at the Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (LUANAR), Lilongwe, Malawi. It aims to provide evidence on the extent of exposure to the pandemic among university students, their knowledge and beliefs related to the corona virus and the ways to protect oneself...

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 wheat, drought-tolerant teff, and cash crops in the semi-ar...

The incentivized risky investment game has become a popular tool in lab-in-the-field experiments for its simplicity and ease of comprehension compared to some of the more complex Multiple Choice List approaches that have been more commonly used in laboratory experiments. We use a field experiment to test whether the game can predict real-world inve...

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set up by the United Nations include an overarching principle of "leaving no one behind" and aim for, among other goals, equal access to education for children with disabilities. Our study contributes to the knowledge on the school enrolment of disabled children with different disability types, with a focus...

We use a field experiment and a within-subject design based on multiple Choice Lists (CLs) that integrate time and risk. Diminishing impatience with extended time horizons is studied by varying time horizons from one week to two years. Time-dated risky prospects are constant within CLs and are always compared with time-dated certain amounts to iden...

The risky investment game of Gneezy and Potters (Q J Econ 112(2):631–645, 1997) has been proposed as a simple tool to measure risk aversion in applied settings, especially attractive in settings where participants may have limited education. However, this game can produce a significant endowment effect (attached to the initial position), so that an...

We analyze individual investment behavior among 822 young men and women that are members of 111 formal business groups in northern Ethiopia. We collected baseline data and investment data one year later combined with incentivized field experiments to obtain dis-aggregated risk preference data. We find that businesswomen on average invest significan...

We analyze individual investment behavior among 822 young men and women that are members of 111 formal business groups in northern Ethiopia. We collected baseline data and investment data one year later combined with incentivized field experiments to obtain dis-aggregated risk preference data. We find that businesswomen on average invest significan...

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set up by the United Nations include an overarching principle of “leaving no one behind” and aim for, among other goals, equal access to education for children with disabilities. Our study contributes to the knowledge on the school enrolment of disabled children with different disability types, with a focus...

Our time preferences deviate systematically from that of Homo economicus. They seem to be driven by a form of mental zooming, where higher and more distant amounts induce a more holistic perspective in contrast to smaller and near future amounts. We model zooming as variable asset integration and ask whether this can explain the observed variation...

This book delivers new conceptual and empirical studies surrounding the design and evaluation of land governance, focusing on land management approaches, land policy issues, advances in pro-poor land tenure and land-based gender concerns. It explores alternative approaches for land management and land tenure through international experiences. Theme...

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 wheat, drought-tolerant teff, and cash crops in the semiari...

Digital information and communication technologies are recognized as vital tools for empowering marginalized groups such as women in low-income developing countries through reducing the costs of communication and connectivity. This study aimed at assessing the gender difference in mobile phone ownership among youth business group members, and how i...

We assess how non-convex transaction costs constrain access to and participation in the land rental market by smallholder farmers within Sub-Saharan Africa. The theory suggests a dynamic externality due to such transaction costs and that orchestrated participation can reduce such costs and enhance future participation. We use dynamic random effects...

While economists in the past tended to assume that individual preferences, including risk preferences, are stable over time, a recent literature has developed that indicates that risk preferences respond to shocks. This paper combines survey data and field experiments with three different tools that facilitated elicitation of dis-aggregated measure...

The risky investment game of Gneezy and Potters (1997) has been a popular tool used to estimate risk tolerance and myopic loss aversion. Holden and Tilahun (2021) tested and found that the simple one-shot version of this game that is attractive as a simple tool to elicit risk tolerance among respondents with limited education, produce significant e...

Continued population growth in densely populated parts of Sub-Saharan Africa makes it harder for youth to choose agriculture as main source of income. We investigate whether near landless youth can access rented land as a source of income. We used data collected in 2016 (from 1138 youths in 119 youth business groups) and 2019 (from 2427 youths in 2...

Scholarship on African land markets has proliferated in recent years. We contend that this scholarship consists of distinct literatures that examine non-overlapping parts of the system and diverge in their conclusions. Some studies view rising land markets as providing greater options for smallholder farmers and positive impacts on agricultural pro...

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 Region of Northern Ethiopia, covering the period 2001–201...

This study investigates the spatial downside and upside rainfall shock effects on tenant household renting behavior and access to rented land in the short‐term and medium‐term. We model the tenant households’ demand decisions within the state‐contingent framework with renting‐in of land as a risky input choice. Our data are a 3‐year balanced househ...

We have used simple incentivized social preference experiments for a sample of 2427 resource-poor rural youth that have formed natural-resource based youth business groups in their home communities. The experiments were combined with questions investigating their attitudes towards environmental conservation and willingness to contribute to conserva...

Drought tolerant (DT) maize varieties have received massive support in sub‐Saharan Africa because of their potential to protect smallholder farmers against drought‐related maize yield losses. Using four waves of household farm panel data from six districts in Malawi, we examine the impact heterogeneity of this technology on maize productivity using...

Our time preferences deviate systematically from that of Homo economicus. They seem to be driven by a form of mental zooming, where higher and more distant payouts induce a more holistic perspective in contrast to smaller and near future payouts. We model zooming as variable asset integration and ask whether this can explain the observed variation...

This chapter investigates how land tenure reforms in Ethiopia have influenced the position of women in terms of land tenure security, access to land, decision-power over land within households, as well as the gendered impacts of these tenure reforms on land investments, land productivity, land renting, and household consumption welfare. It is based...

Land is an essential asset for the livelihood and welfare of rural households in agriculture-based rural economies. This study utilizes land registry data from the First and Second Stage Land Registration (FSLR and SSLR) Reforms that took place in 1998 and 2016 in Tigray region of Ethiopia, the first region in Ethiopia to implement land registratio...

This study investigates whether and to what extent rainfall shocks recurring in Sub-Saharan Africa, that have been associated with distress land rentals, enhance short-term and medium-term access to rented land by tenant households. Tenant households' rental decisions are modeled in the state-contingent framework with renting-in of land as a risky...

This chapter provides an overview of what we know about farm size distributions, the emerging land markets, the role of tenure systems, tenure reforms and land policies in shaping the distribution of increasingly scarce land resources. The primary focus is on Africa while making some comparisons with Asia. Climate risk and change have serious impli...

We assess the spatial and intertemporal variation in farmland prices using per hectare minimum willingness to accept (WTA) sales and rental (shadow) prices in Malawi. We use three rounds of nationally representative farm household panel data from the Living Standards Measurement Surveys (LSMS), collected in 2010, 2013 and 2016. The sample is split...

We investigate the extent of variation in output sharing in land rental contracts and alternative hypotheses to explain this variation. Close to half of the rental contracts in our study in northern Ethiopia have output shares that deviate from the dominant 50-50 equal sharing. Variation in land quality, the relative bargaining power of landlords a...

The risky investment game of Gneezy and Potters (1997) has been a popular tool used to estimate risk tolerance and myopic loss aversion. We have assessed whether a simple one-shot version of this game that is attractive as a simple tool to elicit risk tolerance among respondents with limited education, can lead to biased estimates of risk aversion...

Fertilizer and other input subsidies have been prominent components of agricultural policies in many Asian and African countries since the 1960s. Their economic and political rationale is scrutinized with emphasis on the second generation of targeted input subsidy programs that were scaled up in Sub-Saharan Africa after 2005. The extent to which th...

We assess the extent of access and degree of participation by smallholder tenants in the land rental market in Malawi. Our study is based on three rounds of nationally representative Living Standards Measurement Surveys collected in 2010, 2013 and 2016, from which we construct a balanced panel. We apply the transaction cost theory, which suggests t...

We study how social preferences and norms of reciprocity are related to generalized and particularized trust among members of youth business groups in northern Ethiopia. Members of these groups are recruited among land-poor rural youth. The Ethiopian government promotes youth employment among land-poor rural youth by allocating them rehabilitated c...

This working paper is an output from the research project "Youth Business Groups for Sustainable Development: Lessons from the Ethiopian Model" that is funded by Research Council of Norway under the NORGLOBAL2 research program for the period 2019-2022. This working paper provides updated and extended information on the gender differences among grou...

Continued strong population growth in already densely populated rural areas in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa makes it harder for youth to choose agriculture as their main source of income. We investigate whether near landless youth still can access rented land as a complementary source of income. We utilize a unique data of rural youth that have been...

This working paper is an output from the research project "Youth Business Groups for Sustainable Development: Lessons from the Ethiopian Model" that is funded by Research Council of Norway under the NORGLOBAL2 research program for the period 2019-2022. This working paper provides a summary of baseline survey data collected in the period January-May...

We use a field experiment to estimate the risk preferences of 945 youth and young adult members of 116 rural business groups organized as primary cooperatives in a semi-arid risky environment in northern Ethiopia. Multiple Choice Lists with binary choices between risky prospects and varying safe amounts are used to identify the certainty equivalent...

Risk and time preferences are fundamentally important for financial decisions. We study such preferences for business group members based on field experiments in Ethiopia. The relationship between risk preferences and time preferences has been subject to intensive research and debate among behavioral and experimental economists lately. We aim to co...

We use a field experiment to estimate the risk preferences of 945 youth and young adult members of 116 rural business groups organized as primary cooperatives in a semi-arid risky environment in northern Ethiopia. Multiple Choice Lists with binary choices between risky prospects and varying safe amounts are used to identify the certainty equivalent...

We assess the spatial and intertemporal change patterns of farmland prices using per hectare minimum willingness to accept (WTA) sales and rental prices in Malawi. We use three rounds of nationally representative household farm panel data from the Living Standards Measurement Surveys (LSMS), collected in 2010, 2013 and 2016. We study price changes...

The purpose of this study is to investigate the allocation efficiency in the tenancy market, and thereby the potential of the market to facilitate operational farm size adjustment that can help land‐poor tenant households to transform into smallholder commercial farms. We analyzed three rounds of balanced panel data for the production seasons 2005/...

The scarcity of land for crop and livestock production is critical in countries with growing populations. The idea that increasing population density leads to natural resource depletion and economic failure, as predicted by Malthus, or rather to farm intensification, as hypothesized by Boserup, motivates this research. This paper examines how high...

Exchange asymmetries in individual decision-making have attracted substantial attention from economists since Thaler (1980) referred to the phenomenon that losses are weighted more heavily than gains as an ''endowment effect" and related it to loss aversion and prospect theory. We used a field experiment to investigate exchange asymmetries in produ...

There is growing interest in understanding the links between land reforms, land markets, and poverty reduction in Africa. The study uses four‐wave panel data from the northern highlands of Ethiopia to assess the dynamics of rural poverty taking into account the status of participation of rural households in the land rental market. Applying both non...

Integrated soil fertility management (ISFM) technologies hold potential to protect against climate risks, reduce nutrient depletion and enhance food security. In this paper, we study how exposure to dry spells influences use and use intensity of ISFM technologies, specifically focusing on maize-legume intercropping and organic manure. We use a four...