This paper examines the impact of the Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Program on household dietary diversity and child nutrition using both waves of the Ethiopian Socioeconomic Survey. The study uses various methodologies, to estimate the effect of the program on household dietary diversity, it relys on the exogeneity of the change in the amount of money that kebeles (lowest administrative unit) have available to allocate among program beneficiaries, which depends on donor support. It presents evidence that there is a discrete jump in the kebeles’ allocated budget between 2012 and 2014.

Improving farm-level use of multiple climate change adaptation strategies is essential for improving household food security, particularly against a backdrop of a high risk of climatic shocks. However, the empirical foundation for understanding how farm households choose multiple climate-smart practices is far from being established. In this paper, the effects of household, farm and climatic factors on farmers’ decisions to use multiple adaptation practices are analysed.

This study looks at the determinants of farm technology uptake, with attention to farmers’ risk preference and income. We use a field experiment to elicit measures of risk aversion, loss aversion, and non-linear weights of probability. We then relate these measures to the uptake of drought-resistant and improved seeds. In light of the poverty trap theory, we also consider the role that income plays in risk preference. Our findings suggest that farm risk management policies need to take into account the role of risk and loss preferences in uptake decisions.

Climate adaptation actions, like any other investment, require financial resources, which are likely to be in short supply in the rural sector in developing countries. This paper assesses the role of credit constraints in the choice of adaptation strategies in settings with severe financial market imperfections. Household-level panel data from selected zones in the highland region of Ethiopia, combined with climate information from the adjacent meteorological stations, is employed in the analysis.

We analyzed a provincial-scale data set of observed winter wheat yield, together with fine-scale daily weather outcomes from 1979 to 2011, to assess the responses of winter wheat yield in China to changes in the daytime temperature (Tmax) and the nighttime temperature (Tmin). Contrasting with the literature’s emphasis on a negative correlation between Tmin and wheat yield, we showed that winter wheat yield in China responded positively to higher Tmin, with the positive yield responses varying across wheat growing seasons.