• Adoption of agricultural technologies in the semi-arid northern Ethiopia: A Panel Data Analysis 

      Gebru, Menasbo; Holden, Stein T.; Alfnes, Frode (CLTS Working paper;03/20, Working paper, 2020)
      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 ...
    • Are land-poor youth accessing rented land? : evidence from northern Ethiopia 

      Holden, Stein T.; Tilahun, Mesfin (CLTS Working paper;7/19, Working paper, 2019)
      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 ...
    • Beyond Ostrom: Randomized Experiment of the Impact of Individualized Tree Rights on Forest Management in Ethiopia 

      Takahashi, Ryo; Otsuka, Keijiro; Tilahun, Mesfin; Birhane, Emiru; Holden, Stein T. (CLTS Working paper;06/21, Working paper, 2021)
      In this study, we argue that while community forest management is effective in protecting forest resources as argued by Ostrom, it may fail to provide proper incentives to take care of such resources because of collective ...
    • Can climate shocks make vulnerable subjects more willing to take risks? 

      Holden, Stein T.; Tilahun, Mesfin (CLTS Working paper;03/23, Working paper, 2023-01)
      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 ...
    • Can rainfall shocks enhance access to rented land? Evidence from Malawi 

      Tione, Sarah E.; Holden, Stein T. (CLTS Working paper;05/20, Working paper, 2020)
      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 ...
    • Can the risky investment game predict real world investments? 

      Holden, Stein T.; Tilahun, Mesfin (CLTS Working paper;05/21, Working paper, 2022)
      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 ...
    • The Corona pandemic among university students in Malawi 

      Holden, Stein T.; Katengeza, Samson; Tione, Sarah; Tilahun, Mesfin; Berg, Ørjan; Chimseu, Patrick; Njinga, Blessings (CLTS Working paper;06/21, Working paper, 2022)
      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 ...
    • Country Socio-economic Development and Disparity in School Children's Reading Skills Learning in Africa 

      Zhang, Huafeng; Holden, Stein T. (CLTS Working paper;08/23, Working paper, 2023-12)
      To achieve the overarching goal of "education for all," there is a growing interest in understanding school learning outcomes and disparities among school children from disadvantaged backgrounds in Africa. This study employs ...
    • The Devil is in the details : risk preferences, choice list design, and measurement error 

      Holden, Stein T.; Tilahun, Mesfin (CLTS Working paper;3/19, Working paper, 2019)
      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 ...
    • Endowment Effects and Loss Aversion in the Risky Investment Game 

      Holden, Stein T.; Tilahun, Mesfin (CLTS Working paper;01/20, Working paper, 2020)
      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 ...
    • Farm size and gender distribution of land: Evidence from Ethiopian land registry data 

      Holden, Stein T.; Tilahun, Mesfin (CLTS Working paper;02/20, Working paper, 2020)
      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) ...
    • Gender assessment of youth business groups : female participation and characteristics 

      Holden, Stein T.; Tilahun, Mesfin (CLTS Working paper;6/19, Working paper, 2019)
      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 ...
    • Gender differences in investments and risk preferences 

      Holden, Stein T.; Tilahun, Mesfin (CLTS Working paper;02/22, Working paper, 2022)
      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 ...
    • Gender dimensions of land tenure reforms in Ethiopia 1995-2020 

      Holden, Stein T. (CLTS Working paper;06/20, Working paper, 2020)
      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 ...
    • How are social preferences of youth related to their motivation to invest in environmental conservation (local public goods)? 

      Holden, Stein T.; Tilahun, Mesfin (CLTS Working paper;03/21, Working paper, 2021)
      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 ...
    • How do social preferences and norms of reciprocity affect generalized and particularized trust? 

      Holden, Stein T.; Tilahun, Mesfin (CLTS Working paper;8/19, Working paper, 2019)
      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 ...
    • How Large is the Endowment Effect in the Risky Investment Game? 

      Holden, Stein T.; Tilahun, Mesfin (CLTS Working paper;04/21, Working paper, 2021)
      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 ...
    • How related are risk preferences and time preferences? 

      Holden, Stein T.; Tilahun, Mesfin (CLTS Working paper;4/19, Working paper, 2019)
      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 ...
    • How WEIRD are student samples? Lessons based on the trust game in Malawi 

      Holden, Stein T.; Tione, Sarah; Tilahun, Mesfin; Katengeza, Samson (CLTS Working paper;06/23, Working paper, 2023-11)
      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, Chytilov´a, & Pertold-Gebicka, ...
    • Intertemporal Choice Lists and Maximal Likelihood Estimation of Discount Rates 

      Sommervoll, Dag Einar; Holden, Stein T.; Tilahun, Mesfin (CLTS Working paper;09/23, Working paper, 2023-12)
      The experiments designed to estimate real-life discount rates in intertemporal choice often rely on ordered choice lists, where the list by design aims to capture a switch point between near- and far-future alternatives. ...