We studied whether relative income has an impact on subjective well-being among extremely poor people. Contrary to the findings in developed countries, where relative income has shown a significant and negative impact on subjective well-being, we cannot reject the hypothesis that relative income...

We test the inverseness of fertility and labor supply for married women in Ethiopia to determine if previous research (focusing on developed countries) that has found an inverse relationship between fertility and labor supply is applicable to least developed countries. The research into...

We looked at risk and ambiguity attitudes among Ethiopian peasants in one of the poorest regions of the world and compared their attitudes to a standard Western university student sample elicited by the same decision task. Strong risk aversion and ambiguity aversion were found with the Ethiopian...

We investigated attitudes toward positionality among rural farmers in Northern Ethiopia, using a tailored survey experiment. On average, we found positional concerns neither in income per se nor in income from aid projects among the farmers. These results support the claim that positional...

Economists have traditionally assumed that individual behavior is motivated exclusively by extrinsic incentives. Social psychologists, in contrast, stress that intrinsic motivations are also important. In recent work, economic theorists have started to build psychological factors, like intrinsic...

Most developing countries face shortages of health workers in rural areas. This has profound consequences for health service delivery, and ultimately for health outcomes. To design policies that rectify these geographic imbalances it is vital to understand what factors determine health workers'...

In this paper, we study how classmate gender composition matters for students in Ethiopia. We base our results on a unique survey of students across classrooms and schools and among those randomly assigned to class. We find a strong asymmetry: males do not and females do benefit from exposure to...

This paper revisits the causes behind child labor supply by focusing on an aspect that has received little attention: the link between the household head's risk and time preferences and observed child labor supply. We develop a theoretical model and empirically test for this causality using data...

This paper presents a novel method for estimating the likely welfare effects of competition reforms for both current and new consumers. Using household budget survey data for 2015/16 for Ethiopia and assuming a reform scenario that dilutes the market share of the state-owned monopoly to 45...

This paper examines the labor market implications of a mandatory social insurance scheme introduced in Ethiopia in 2011 for private sector employees in the formal sector. We use firm-level panel data and exploit differences in pre-reform pension plans across firms to identify the effects of the...