I’m a development economist and senior lecturer at the School of International Development, University of East Anglia (UEA).  I joined the School in July 2004 after completing my DPhil (PhD) studies at the University of Oxford in 2003 and working as a post-doc in Bath for more than a year.

My main research interests revolve around understanding individual behaviour and how that affects welfare in developing countries.  As such, one of the focuses of my research is on intra-household allocations; while earlier research mainly used econometric analysis of household data, my current work combines this with behavioural economics using data from experimental games in developing countries including Ethiopia, India, Nigeria and Uganda.  This data collection is funded by an ESRC-DFID project.

A second area of my research concentrates on understanding social preferences, such as inequality aversion and envy; this project is funded by ESRC.  Specifically, using money-burning experimental games the effect of social preferences on agricultural innovation in Ethiopia will be analysed.
Third, I’m doing research on how cooperation among inhabitants of villages affect the implementation of a payments for environmental services (PES) in Rwanda; this European Union funded project uses different versions of public goods games with additional data from a randomised experimental payments for environmental services scheme.

In addition to these three main areas, I’ve done research on child health especially using anthropometric measurements, poverty and inequality, land distribution, market structures, household energy demand in developing countries, fisheries economics and mixed research methods (qualitative-quantitative analysis).  I’m developing a long-term research interest in using insights from psychology – specifically personality psychology – to understand intra-household allocations and other economic issues.

I am currently supervising the following PhD students:

Kirsten Abernethy, ‘Why do Fishers Fish Where They Fish?’

Kevin Crooks, ‘Social Behaviour and Agricultural Innovations Adoption: The Case of Jamaica’

Alessandro De Matteis, ‘Food for All or Food Aid for All? What Rationale for Food Aid in the 21st Century?’

Kalu Ibe Kalu, ‘Do Financial Incentives Make a Difference to the Performance of Public Sector Workers in Nigeria’

Elizabeth Manda, ‘The Role of Information Systems in Agricultural Marketing in Malawi’

John Sawdon, ‘Economic analysis of climate change mitigation policies in rapidly developing countries: Vietnam case study’
Jesus Resendiz Silva, ‘Electricity, Privatisation, Politics and regulation in the Mexican Economy’

The following successfully completed their studies:

Lucio Esposito, ‘Essays in Poverty Measurement’, PhD

Fortune Laurence, ‘Industrial Development and Issues in the Footwear Industry of Nigeria’, MPhil

For details on my publications, recent activities, teaching and previous experience use the links given in the left hand side frame.
 

Email: b.kebede@uea.ac.uk

DEV Research Groups: Livelihoods & Well-being