Stein T Holden
Biographic Data
| ID | 371819 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Stein T Holden |
| GIVEN NAMES | Stein T |
| FAMILY NAME | Holden |
| SIGNATURE | HOLDEN S T |
| AFFILIATIONS | Norwegian University of Life Sciences |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7502-2392 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 34 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 372 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 34 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1995 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Contribution of Community Seed Banks to farmer seed systems and food security in Northern and Central Malawi
Beyond Ostrom
We argue that while community forest management is effective in protecting forest resources, as argued by Ostrom, such management may fail to provide the proper incentives to nurture such resources because the benefits of forest management are collectively shared. This study proposes a mixed private and community management system characterized by communal protection of community-owned forest areas and individual management of individually owned …
Evolution of farm-level crop diversification and response to rainfall shocks in smallholder farming
This study investigates how exposure to short and long-term measures of rainfall shocks and past crop diversification decisions influence subsequent diversification in Malawi and Tanzania. We use balanced household panel data combined with corresponding historical monthly weather data to achieve our aim. Crop diversification is studied as a state-contingent risky investment decision that households make before the state of nature is revealed. We …
Endowment effects in the risky investment game
The risky investment game of Gneezy and Potters (Q J Econ 112(2):631–645, 1997) has been proposed as a simple tool to measure risk aversion in applied settings, especially attractive in settings where participants may have limited education. However, this game can produce a significant endowment effect (attached to the initial position), so that analysis of the behavior in this game should not be done in the Expected Utility Theory (EUT) framewor…
Crops in crises
Crop diversity plays a central role in smallholder farmers' ability to cope with and adapt to shocks. Shifting crop varieties and diversifying the crop portfolio are common risk reduction strategies. This paper addresses the influence of covariate climate shocks and idiosyncratic socioeconomic shocks on crop variety use and crop species diversification by smallholder farmers using nationwide balanced panel data (2011/12, 2013/14, & 2015/16) from …
Mobile phones, leadership and gender in rural business groups
Digital information and communication technologies are recognized as vital tools for empowering marginalized groups such as women in low income developing countries through reducing the costs of communication and connectivity. This study aimed at assessing the gender difference in mobile phone ownership among youth business group members, and how it affects election into leadership and group board positions in rural youth business groups in north…
Are land-poor youth accessing rented land? Evidence from northern Ethiopia
Continued population growth in densely populated parts of Sub-Saharan Africa makes it harder for youth to choose agriculture as main source of income. We investigate whether near landless youth can access rented land as a source of income. We used data collected in 2016 (from 1138 youths in 119 youth business groups) and 2019 (from 2427 youths in 246 business groups), in five districts of Tigray region of Ethiopia. We find that 42% of the youth h…
Farm size and gender distribution of land
Urban proximity, demand for land and land shadow prices in Malawi
We assess the spatial and intertemporal variation in farmland prices using per hectare minimum willingness to accept (WTA) sales and rental (shadow) prices in Malawi. We use three rounds of nationally representative farm household panel data from the Living Standards Measurement Surveys (LSMS), collected in 2010, 2013 and 2016. The sample is split in quintiles based on distance from the nearest major city, building on the land valuation and trans…
Gendered Incidence and Impacts of Tenure Insecurity on Agricultural Performance in Malawi’s Customary Tenure System
Malawi’s recent passage of Land Acts provide an opportunity to clarify different aspects of the country’s land tenure in an integrated way. To assess whether doing so might be economically justified, we explore incidence and impact of tenure insecurity among smallholders. Insecurity is not only widespread, with 22 per cent of land users being concerned about losing their land, but is also associated with a productivity loss of 9 per cent for fema…
Use of Integrated Soil Fertility Management Technologies in Malawi
Integrated soil fertility management (ISFM) technologies hold potential to protect against climate risks, reduce nutrient depletion and enhance food security. In this paper, we study how exposure to dry spells influences use and use intensity of ISFM technologies, specifically focusing on maize-legume intercropping and organic manure. We use a four-round panel dataset collected from households in six Malawi districts over a period of nine years a…
Exchange asymmetries in productive assets
Exchange asymmetries in individual decision-making have attracted substantial attention from economists since Thaler (1980) referred to the phenomenon that losses are weighted more heavily than gains as an “endowment effect” and related it to loss aversion and prospect theory. We used a field experiment to investigate exchange asymmetries in productive assets among poor rural respondents in Ethiopia. Farmers were randomly allocated two types of p…
Can lead farmers reveal the adoption potential of conservation agriculture? The case of Malawi
The importance of Ostrom’s Design Principles
Land tenure reforms, tenure security and food security in poor agrarian economies
This paper reviews the literature to identify the relationship between tenure security and food security. The literatures on tenure issues and food security issues are not well connected and the scientific evidence on the causal links between tenure security and food security is very limited. The paper explores the conceptual linkages between land tenure reforms, tenure security and food security and illustrates how these vary across diverse cont…
The Role of Land Certification in Reducing Gaps in Productivity between Male- and Female-Owned Farms in Rural Ethiopia
This paper analyses the impact of a low-cost land certification programme on the productivity of female-headed households. The hypotheses tested in the paper emphasise on the interaction between the constraints that female-headed households face in terms of insecure land tenure, lack of productive resources and suboptimal land market participation, on the one hand, and the tenure security benefits of certification on the other. Our findings show …
Land rental market legal restrictions in Northern Ethiopia
Preferences for land sales legalization and land values in Ethiopia
The roles of land tenure reforms and land markets in the context of population growth and land use intensification in Africa
This article reviews the past and potential future roles of land tenure reforms and land markets in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) as responses to population growth in the process of land use intensification and livelihood transformation. The farm size distribution and the existence of an inverse relationship (IR) between farm size and land productivity in SSA and the implications of this relationship for efficiency and equity are investigated. More se…
Are Rural Youth in Ethiopia Abandoning Agriculture
This study examines current land access and livelihood choices of rural youth in Southern Ethiopia. We found that youth in rural south have limited access to agricultural land because of land scarcity and land market restrictions. We hypothesize that this forces the youth to abandon agriculture in search of other livelihoods. Our study shows that only 9% of the rural youth plan to pursue agriculture as their livelihood. We also found a sharp incr…
Demand for second-stage land certification in Ethiopia
Ethiopia has implemented one of the largest, fastest and least expensive land registration and certification reforms in Africa. While there is evidence that this ‘first-stage’ land registration has had positive effects in terms of increased investment, land productivity and land rental market activities, the government is now piloting another round of land registration and certification that involves technically advanced land survey methods and c…
Who Benefit from Malawi's Targeted Farm Input Subsidy Program
Malawi has over the last 6 years embarked on a comprehensive targeted fertilizer and seed subsidy program to boost its agricultural production and to enhance household and national food security. The program aims to target coupons for purchase of subsidized fertilizers and seeds to poor rural households. This study provides evidence on the extent of leakages of coupons and fertilizers and the targeting efficiency of the program. While the program…
Does the Nonfarm Economy Offer Pathways for Upward Mobility? Evidence from a Panel Data Study in Ethiopia
Tenure Insecurity, Gender, Low-cost Land Certification and Land Rental Market Participation in Ethiopia
There is a renewed interest in whether land reforms can contribute to market development and poverty reduction in Africa. This paper assesses effects on the allocative efficiency of the land rental market of the low-cost approach to land registration and certification of restricted property rights that was implemented in Ethiopia in the late 1990s. Four rounds of a balanced household panel from 16 villages in northern Ethiopia are analysed, showi…
Impacts of Low‐Cost Land Certification on Investment and Productivity
New land reforms are again high on the policy agenda and low‐cost, propoor reforms are being tested in poor countries. This article assesses the investment and productivity impacts of the recent low‐cost land certification implemented in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, using a unique household and farm‐plot‐level panel data set, with data from before and up to eight years after the reform. Alternative econometric methods were used to test and cont…
Formalisation of land rights
The roles of land tenure reforms and land markets in the context of population growth and land use intensification in Africa
This article reviews the past and potential future roles of land tenure reforms and land markets in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) as responses to population growth in the process of land use intensification and livelihood transformation. The farm size distribution and the existence of an inverse relationship (IR) between farm size and land productivity in SSA and the implications of this relationship for efficiency and equity are investigated. More se…
Are Rural Youth in Ethiopia Abandoning Agriculture
This study examines current land access and livelihood choices of rural youth in Southern Ethiopia. We found that youth in rural south have limited access to agricultural land because of land scarcity and land market restrictions. We hypothesize that this forces the youth to abandon agriculture in search of other livelihoods. Our study shows that only 9% of the rural youth plan to pursue agriculture as their livelihood. We also found a sharp incr…
Rural Land Certification in Ethiopia
Non-farm income, household welfare, and sustainable land management in a less-favoured area in the Ethiopian highlands
Demand for second-stage land certification in Ethiopia
Ethiopia has implemented one of the largest, fastest and least expensive land registration and certification reforms in Africa. While there is evidence that this ‘first-stage’ land registration has had positive effects in terms of increased investment, land productivity and land rental market activities, the government is now piloting another round of land registration and certification that involves technically advanced land survey methods and c…
Soil Erosion and Smallholders' Conservation Decisions in the Highlands of Ethiopia
Preferences for land sales legalization and land values in Ethiopia
Land rental market legal restrictions in Northern Ethiopia
Evolution of farm-level crop diversification and response to rainfall shocks in smallholder farming
This study investigates how exposure to short and long-term measures of rainfall shocks and past crop diversification decisions influence subsequent diversification in Malawi and Tanzania. We use balanced household panel data combined with corresponding historical monthly weather data to achieve our aim. Crop diversification is studied as a state-contingent risky investment decision that households make before the state of nature is revealed. We …
Crops in crises
Crop diversity plays a central role in smallholder farmers' ability to cope with and adapt to shocks. Shifting crop varieties and diversifying the crop portfolio are common risk reduction strategies. This paper addresses the influence of covariate climate shocks and idiosyncratic socioeconomic shocks on crop variety use and crop species diversification by smallholder farmers using nationwide balanced panel data (2011/12, 2013/14, & 2015/16) from …
Does the Nonfarm Economy Offer Pathways for Upward Mobility? Evidence from a Panel Data Study in Ethiopia
Farm size and gender distribution of land
Can lead farmers reveal the adoption potential of conservation agriculture? The case of Malawi
The importance of Ostrom’s Design Principles
Who Benefit from Malawi's Targeted Farm Input Subsidy Program
Malawi has over the last 6 years embarked on a comprehensive targeted fertilizer and seed subsidy program to boost its agricultural production and to enhance household and national food security. The program aims to target coupons for purchase of subsidized fertilizers and seeds to poor rural households. This study provides evidence on the extent of leakages of coupons and fertilizers and the targeting efficiency of the program. While the program…
Adjustment Policies, Peasant Household Resource Allocation and Deforestation in Northern Zambia
Stein Holden, ‘Adjustment Policies, Peasant Household Resource Allocation and Deforestation in Northern Zambia: An Overview and Some Policy Conclusions’, Forum for Development Studies, 1997:1, pp. 117–134. This article gives an overview of effects of adjustment policies on resource use of peasant farm households in northern Zambia. The transaction costs and imperfect information paradigm is used as a basis for the analysis. This research included…
Urban proximity, demand for land and land shadow prices in Malawi
We assess the spatial and intertemporal variation in farmland prices using per hectare minimum willingness to accept (WTA) sales and rental (shadow) prices in Malawi. We use three rounds of nationally representative farm household panel data from the Living Standards Measurement Surveys (LSMS), collected in 2010, 2013 and 2016. The sample is split in quintiles based on distance from the nearest major city, building on the land valuation and trans…
Are land-poor youth accessing rented land? Evidence from northern Ethiopia
Continued population growth in densely populated parts of Sub-Saharan Africa makes it harder for youth to choose agriculture as main source of income. We investigate whether near landless youth can access rented land as a source of income. We used data collected in 2016 (from 1138 youths in 119 youth business groups) and 2019 (from 2427 youths in 246 business groups), in five districts of Tigray region of Ethiopia. We find that 42% of the youth h…
Use of Integrated Soil Fertility Management Technologies in Malawi
Integrated soil fertility management (ISFM) technologies hold potential to protect against climate risks, reduce nutrient depletion and enhance food security. In this paper, we study how exposure to dry spells influences use and use intensity of ISFM technologies, specifically focusing on maize-legume intercropping and organic manure. We use a four-round panel dataset collected from households in six Malawi districts over a period of nine years a…
Mobile phones, leadership and gender in rural business groups
Digital information and communication technologies are recognized as vital tools for empowering marginalized groups such as women in low income developing countries through reducing the costs of communication and connectivity. This study aimed at assessing the gender difference in mobile phone ownership among youth business group members, and how it affects election into leadership and group board positions in rural youth business groups in north…
Exchange asymmetries in productive assets
Exchange asymmetries in individual decision-making have attracted substantial attention from economists since Thaler (1980) referred to the phenomenon that losses are weighted more heavily than gains as an “endowment effect” and related it to loss aversion and prospect theory. We used a field experiment to investigate exchange asymmetries in productive assets among poor rural respondents in Ethiopia. Farmers were randomly allocated two types of p…
Can food-for-work encourage agricultural production
Structural Adjustment, Production Subsidies and Sustainable Land Use
Stein T. Holden and Nadarajah Shanmugaratnam, 'Structural Adjustment, Production Subsidies and Sustainable Land Use', Forum for Development Studies, 1995:2, pp. 247–266. The majority of sub-Saharan countries face economic stagnation, rapid population growth and natural resource degradation. Most of them have adopted structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) with the aim of revitalising their economies through a 'getting the prices right' strategy. …
Structural Adjustment, Production Subsidies and Sustainable Land Use
Stein T. Holden and Nadarajah Shanmugaratnam, 'Structural Adjustment, Production Subsidies and Sustainable Land Use', Forum for Development Studies, 1995:2, pp. 247–266. The majority of sub-Saharan countries face economic stagnation, rapid population growth and natural resource degradation. Most of them have adopted structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) with the aim of revitalising their economies through a 'getting the prices right' strategy. …
Peasant Agriculture and Land Degradation in Ethiopia
(1997). Peasant Agriculture and Land Degradation in Ethiopia: Reflections on Constraints and Incentives for Soil Conservation and Food Security. Forum for Development Studies: Vol. 24, No. 2, pp. 277-306
Adjustment Policies, Peasant Household Resource Allocation and Deforestation in Northern Zambia
Stein Holden, ‘Adjustment Policies, Peasant Household Resource Allocation and Deforestation in Northern Zambia: An Overview and Some Policy Conclusions’, Forum for Development Studies, 1997:1, pp. 117–134. This article gives an overview of effects of adjustment policies on resource use of peasant farm households in northern Zambia. The transaction costs and imperfect information paradigm is used as a basis for the analysis. This research included…
Population Pressure, Agricultural Change and Environmental Degradation in the Western Himalayan Region of India
Stein T. Holden and Prem L. Sankhayan, 'Population Pressure, Agricultural Change and Environmental Degradation in the Western Himalayan Region of India', Forum for Development Studies, 1998:2, pp. 271–300. This article provides a conceptual and methodological basis for studying the population-agriculture-environment nexus in the western Himalayan state of India, namely, Himachal Pradesh. A number of theories used to explain the phenomenon of envi…
Soil Erosion and Smallholders' Conservation Decisions in the Highlands of Ethiopia
Non-farm income, household welfare, and sustainable land management in a less-favoured area in the Ethiopian highlands
Can food-for-work encourage agricultural production
Rural Land Certification in Ethiopia
Formalisation of land rights
Impacts of Low‐Cost Land Certification on Investment and Productivity
New land reforms are again high on the policy agenda and low‐cost, propoor reforms are being tested in poor countries. This article assesses the investment and productivity impacts of the recent low‐cost land certification implemented in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, using a unique household and farm‐plot‐level panel data set, with data from before and up to eight years after the reform. Alternative econometric methods were used to test and cont…
Tenure Insecurity, Gender, Low-cost Land Certification and Land Rental Market Participation in Ethiopia
There is a renewed interest in whether land reforms can contribute to market development and poverty reduction in Africa. This paper assesses effects on the allocative efficiency of the land rental market of the low-cost approach to land registration and certification of restricted property rights that was implemented in Ethiopia in the late 1990s. Four rounds of a balanced household panel from 16 villages in northern Ethiopia are analysed, showi…
Who Benefit from Malawi's Targeted Farm Input Subsidy Program
Malawi has over the last 6 years embarked on a comprehensive targeted fertilizer and seed subsidy program to boost its agricultural production and to enhance household and national food security. The program aims to target coupons for purchase of subsidized fertilizers and seeds to poor rural households. This study provides evidence on the extent of leakages of coupons and fertilizers and the targeting efficiency of the program. While the program…
Does the Nonfarm Economy Offer Pathways for Upward Mobility? Evidence from a Panel Data Study in Ethiopia
The roles of land tenure reforms and land markets in the context of population growth and land use intensification in Africa
This article reviews the past and potential future roles of land tenure reforms and land markets in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) as responses to population growth in the process of land use intensification and livelihood transformation. The farm size distribution and the existence of an inverse relationship (IR) between farm size and land productivity in SSA and the implications of this relationship for efficiency and equity are investigated. More se…
Are Rural Youth in Ethiopia Abandoning Agriculture
This study examines current land access and livelihood choices of rural youth in Southern Ethiopia. We found that youth in rural south have limited access to agricultural land because of land scarcity and land market restrictions. We hypothesize that this forces the youth to abandon agriculture in search of other livelihoods. Our study shows that only 9% of the rural youth plan to pursue agriculture as their livelihood. We also found a sharp incr…
Demand for second-stage land certification in Ethiopia
Ethiopia has implemented one of the largest, fastest and least expensive land registration and certification reforms in Africa. While there is evidence that this ‘first-stage’ land registration has had positive effects in terms of increased investment, land productivity and land rental market activities, the government is now piloting another round of land registration and certification that involves technically advanced land survey methods and c…
Land tenure reforms, tenure security and food security in poor agrarian economies
This paper reviews the literature to identify the relationship between tenure security and food security. The literatures on tenure issues and food security issues are not well connected and the scientific evidence on the causal links between tenure security and food security is very limited. The paper explores the conceptual linkages between land tenure reforms, tenure security and food security and illustrates how these vary across diverse cont…
The Role of Land Certification in Reducing Gaps in Productivity between Male- and Female-Owned Farms in Rural Ethiopia
This paper analyses the impact of a low-cost land certification programme on the productivity of female-headed households. The hypotheses tested in the paper emphasise on the interaction between the constraints that female-headed households face in terms of insecure land tenure, lack of productive resources and suboptimal land market participation, on the one hand, and the tenure security benefits of certification on the other. Our findings show …
Land rental market legal restrictions in Northern Ethiopia
Preferences for land sales legalization and land values in Ethiopia
The importance of Ostrom’s Design Principles
Use of Integrated Soil Fertility Management Technologies in Malawi
Integrated soil fertility management (ISFM) technologies hold potential to protect against climate risks, reduce nutrient depletion and enhance food security. In this paper, we study how exposure to dry spells influences use and use intensity of ISFM technologies, specifically focusing on maize-legume intercropping and organic manure. We use a four-round panel dataset collected from households in six Malawi districts over a period of nine years a…
Exchange asymmetries in productive assets
Exchange asymmetries in individual decision-making have attracted substantial attention from economists since Thaler (1980) referred to the phenomenon that losses are weighted more heavily than gains as an “endowment effect” and related it to loss aversion and prospect theory. We used a field experiment to investigate exchange asymmetries in productive assets among poor rural respondents in Ethiopia. Farmers were randomly allocated two types of p…
Can lead farmers reveal the adoption potential of conservation agriculture? The case of Malawi
Gendered Incidence and Impacts of Tenure Insecurity on Agricultural Performance in Malawi’s Customary Tenure System
Malawi’s recent passage of Land Acts provide an opportunity to clarify different aspects of the country’s land tenure in an integrated way. To assess whether doing so might be economically justified, we explore incidence and impact of tenure insecurity among smallholders. Insecurity is not only widespread, with 22 per cent of land users being concerned about losing their land, but is also associated with a productivity loss of 9 per cent for fema…
Economics (32 works) · Geography (27 works) · Business (25 works) · Agricultural economics (23 works) · Agriculture (23 works) · Land Rights and Reforms (21 works) · Economic growth (15 works) · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development (14 works) · Political science (14 works) · Population (13 works)