Individuals’ aspirations and their consequences for future-oriented behavior have received increased attention in devel-opment economics literature in recent years. At this stage, however, each study relies on ad hoc empirical instruments to measure aspirations, thereby limiting...

Poor people often do not make investments, even when returns are high.  One possible explanation is that they have low aspirations and form mental models which ignore some options for investment.  This paper reports on findings of an innovative experiment to test this in rural Ethiopia. ...

Poor people often do not make investments, even when returns are high. One possible explanation is that they have low aspirations and form mental models of their future opportunities which ignore some options for investment. This paper reports on a field experiment to test this hypothesis in...

This article assesses the importance of social interactions in determining an individual’s choice to connect to an electrical grid, using an original data set on a new rural electrification program in Ethiopia. Combining global positioning system information with random allocation of discount...

This paper addresses the extent to which the scope of smallholder cooperatives' activities may affect their performance in marketing their members' surplus output. Previous papers have highlighted such effects and explained it by the extra burden that diversified activities impose on the often...