Abstract: Gendered food security gaps between female- and male-headed households (FHHs and MHHs) can be decomposed into two sets of components: those explained by observable differences in levels of resource use, and those due to unobserved differences affecting the returns to the resources used. Employing exogenous switching ordered probit and binary probit regression models, this paper examines the gendered food security gap and its causes in rural Malawi.

Abstract: Poverty and altered planning horizons brought on by the HIV/AIDS epidemic can change individual discount rates, altering incentives to conserve natural resources. Using longitudinal household survey data from Western Kenya, we estimate the effects of health status on investments in soil quality, as indicated by households’ agricultural land fallowing decisions.

Abstract: This paper explores the link between the gender of a household head and food security in rural Kenya. The results show that the food security gap between male-headed households (MHHs) and female-headed households (FHHs) is explained by their differences in observable and unobservable characteristics. FHHs’ food security status would have been higher than it is now if the returns (coefficients) on their observed characteristics had been the same as the returns on the MHHs’ characteristics.

The research analyzes the impact of climate change (including increased variability and less predictability of temperature and rainfall) on food security in Kenya. The study is based on county-level data, collected over time, for yields of four major crops (maize, beans, sorghum and millet), four climate variables (precipitation, temperature, runoff and total cloud cover), population, soil and agro-ecological zones data spanning over three decades. The paper estimates models of main food crop yields and also of the probability of a county being food insecure.

Even though antiretroviral treatment is becoming more efficient and available, new HIV infections still occur, and this is particularly evident in the sub-Saharan Africa region. Heterosexual intercourse is still the main mode of HIV transmission in the region, and multiple and concurrent sex partners are arguably crucial for the spread of the epidemic.

Using a unique city-level panel on the daily air pollution index (API) and fine-scale meteorological data from 2009 to 2013 in China, we examine the existence and the magnitude of spatial spillover effects of urban air pollution in Chinese cities.

The increasing block tariff (IBT) is among the most widely used tariffs by water utilities, particularly in developing countries. This is in part due to the perception that the IBT can effectively target subsidies to low-income households. Combining data on households’ socioeconomic status and metered water use, this paper examines the distributional incidence of subsidies delivered through the water tariff in Nairobi, Kenya.

In this article we present results from the Cape Area Panel Study investigating
how income comparisons affect the subjective well-being of young adults and parents.