My research interests revolve around the microeconomics of individual behaviour and how that affects welfare mainly in developing countries. The following bullet points outline my main research interests and activities.
- Intra-household allocations (survey data): This focuses on decisions and resource allocations within households. My DPhil studies relied on econometric analysis of household panel data from the now famous Ethiopian Rural Household Survey (ERHS) gathered by Addis Ababa University, University of Oxford and IFPRI (International Food Policy Research Institute). I was the fieldwork manager of the initial four rounds of the survey. Some of the outputs from that work include Kebede (2005; 2008), Fafchamps, et al. (2009). Please look at the 'Publications' web page for details.
- Intra-household allocations (survey and experimental games data): Most of my current work combines survey data with experimental games. In an earlier ESRC-DFID funded project, I worked with an inter-disciplinary group gathering survey and experimental data from married couples in Ethiopia, India, Nigeria and Uganda. This project mainly focused on monogamous households but in Nigeria polygnous marriages were also covered. The papers from this project mainly analyse efficiency within households (Iversen, et al., 2011; Kebede, et al., 2013; Munro, et al. 2014; Munro, et al., forthcoming). Further pursuing my interest on decision-making within polygynous households, with another research group, we gathered both survey and experimental data from Nigeria (Barr, et al., forthcoming).
- Social preferences: Current economics increasingly understands that individual behaviour is significantly affected by concerns about and actions of others. Funded by the ESRC and using money-burning games in Ethiopia, we examine social determinants of risk behaviour and the role of envy in technological adoption (Fafchamps, et al., 2015; Kebede and Zizzo, 2015).
- Public goods and cooperation: I've done extensive research on contribution behaviour in public goods within different contexts. In an European Union funded inter-disciplinary project, an experimental payment for environmental services (PES) was implemented in Rwanda (Gross-Camp, et al., 2015; Martin, et al., 2014; Martin, et al., 2014; Gross-Camp, et al., 2012). To understand the impact of inequality and thresholds, different treatments of public good games were implemented in this project (Kebede, et al, in preparation). In another ESRC project on the role of community forestry in conservation in Bolivia, China and Tanzania, other variants of public goods game were implemented to understand how institutions of allocation affect contribution (Kebede, et al., in preparation).
- Personality and individual behaviour: I'm increasingly working on the role of personality in individual behaviour. In most recent projects, I've succeeded in collecting data on personality with experimental games in the field aw well as in the lab.
- Over the years, I've done research in diverse topics some of which are given below:
- Experimental game as an impact evaluation instrument: Experimental games were used to complement the traditional impact evaluation tools to assess IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development) projects in Cambodia, Ghana and Laos.
- Literacy: The value of literacy and schooling in Mozambique (Esposito, et al., 2014; 2011)
- Poverty and distribution of income: Analysis of poverty in Ethiopia with panel data (Bigsten, et al., 2003; Bigsten, et al., 1999)
- Land tenure: Distribution of land and institutions in Ethiopia (Kebede, 2008; 2002)
- Child health: Child health in Ethiopia mainly captured by anthropometrics (Kebede, 2005)
- Fishery: The decline of fishing communities in the UK (Abernethy, et al., 2010)
- Household energy: Demand for household energy in Ethiopia (Kebede, 2006; Kebede, et al., 2002)