ZEF Discussion Papers on Development Policy

Spousal Cooperation and Agricultural Technology Adoption

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Spousal Cooperation and Agricultural Technology Adoption Ndip, Francis E.; Maina, Cecilia Adoption of agricultural technologies is crucial for sustainable development, yet adoption of many relevant technologies remains low, especially among smallholder farmers in Africa. While there is an extensive literature aimed at understanding drivers of adoption, intra-household factors have received much less attention. In this study, we examine the relationship between spousal cooperation, an important intra-household factor, and the adoption of agricultural technologies among smallholder farmers in Cameroon. Specifically, we focus on improved seed varieties, inorganic fertilizers, intercropping, and minimum tillage as technologies. We combine survey and lab-in-the-field experimental data and employ multivariate probit models to account for simultaneous adoption. We also estimate associations between cooperation and the number of technologies adopted. The results suggest that spousal cooperation is positively associated with the adoption of improved varieties and intercropping. However, we find no associations between cooperation and adoption of inorganic fertilizers and minimum tillage, although the coefficients are positive. We also find that cooperation is positively associated with the number of technologies adopted. Lastly, we find interesting complementarities between the various technologies. Our findings suggest that promoting spousal cooperation could serve as an important leverage point for the adoption of modern agricultural technologies.

Cooperation under Comparison

Tue, 17 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Cooperation under Comparison Stark, Oded; Kosiorowski, Grzegorz We establish a new approach to the modeling of cooperation, and we formulate a new solution concept for cooperative games. We do this by constructing a game of cooperation between individuals who exhibit distaste for relative deprivation, RD, in the sense that they experience stress when their income is lower than that of their comparators. In such a game, the sharing out of the jointly earned income between these individuals when they cooperate, as prescribed by standard solutions of cooperative games, might not be acceptable to the individuals. The stress from RD may have the upper hand. Measuring stress by RD, we thus model a setting in which two individuals who are concerned with being relatively deprived need to decide whether or not to cooperate. We term this setting an RD cooperative game, and we design a rule, the RD solution, for the distribution of the income yielded in this game. The RD solution prescribes cooperation in spite of cooperation-induced stress and preserves the spirit of standardness (an equal sharing of the gain that accrues from cooperation) for two-player games (a property shared by the main solution concepts for cooperative games).

Women's empowerment and nutrition

Tue, 03 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Women's empowerment and nutrition Maina, Cecilia Chemeli; Debela, Bethelhem Legesse; Qaim, Matin Women play key roles in food systems, yet continue to face persistent disadvantages in terms of low decision-making power and limited access to goods, services, and markets. Discrimination against women is often deeply ingrained in social norms, policies, and institutions. Widely observed gender gaps are not only unfair; they also undermine broader sustainability objectives. Extensive evidence shows that women's empowerment contributes to productivity, efficiency, and broader social welfare gains. We review and synthesize the literature on links between women's empowerment and nutrition, focusing on rural households in Africa and Asia. We analyze advances in the measurement of women's empowerment, discuss strengths and limitations of existing metrics, and summarize the broad empirical evidence showing that women's empowerment is positively associated with dietary quality and nutrition. Further, we develop a conceptual framework, highlighting key mechanisms of the empowerment-nutrition relationship, including women's bargaining power, control over income, and time allocation. Using this framework and examples from different countries, we show that development initiatives, such as promoting agricultural commercialization and women's off-farm employment, can involve tradeoffs, sometimes resulting in undesirable empowerment and/or nutrition outcomes. Such tradeoffs need to be properly understood and addressed through gender-transformative policies. We conclude by discussing policy and research implications.

Access to Electricity and Gendered Labor Allocation

Mon, 23 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Access to Electricity and Gendered Labor Allocation Pieper, Theresa; Nguyen, Thanh Tung; Qaim, Matin Electrification typically promotes economic development and enhances household wellbeing. However, how electrification affects the economic activities of different demographic groups is not yet sufficiently understood. Focusing only on aggregate household-level outcomes may overlook unequal effects on different individuals, which may potentially result in intra-household inequities. Here, we use panel data from Ethiopia to analyze the implications for different groups of individuals. Specifically, we analyze how electrification is associated with labor time allocation of male and female adults, children, and elderly household members. For adults, we find that electrification is positively associated with off-farm working hours and negatively associated with time spent on own farming activities and unpaid housework such as firewood and water fetching. For working-age women, the positive association with the time spent on off-farm activities is particularly large. For children, most of the associations are not statistically significant, even though electrification seems to increase boy’s time allocation to own farming activities, possibly substituting for some of the reduced adult time spent on farming. Differentiating between sources of electricity, we find that the effects are typically larger for grid than for off-grid solar electricity. Our results suggest that electrification is economically beneficial and can promote more gender-equitable labor outcomes.