Swedish legislation makes municipalities responsible for recycling or disposing of household waste. Municipalities therefore play an important role in achieving Sweden’s increased levels of ambition in the waste management area and in achieving the goal of a more circular economy. This paper studies how two municipal policy instruments – weight-based waste tariffs and special systems for the collection of food waste – affect the collected volumes of different types of waste. We find that a system of collecting food waste separately is more effective overall than imposing weight-based waste tariffs in respect not only of reducing the amounts of waste destined for incineration, but also of increasing materials recycling and biological recovery, despite the fact that the direct incentive effects of these two systems  should be similar. Separate food waste collection was associated with increased recycling not only of food waste but also of other waste. Introducing separate food waste collection indirectly signals to households that recycling is important and desirable, and our results suggest that this signalling effect may be as important as direct incentive effects.

In this article, we study the impact of an institutional intervention on market efficiency in Ethiopia. More specifically, we analyze to what extent the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX) in combination with regional warehouses have contributed to a reduction in price spreads between regional markets. Our hypothesis is that warehouses connected to the ECX reduce the dispersion between export prices and local retail prices in different coffee growing areas, as well as the dispersion between export prices and local retail prices in different coffee growing areas. By doing so, the ECX has the potential to improve the market efficiency. To identify the causal effect, we combine retail price data with information on the gradual rollout of warehouses connected to the ECX from 2007 to 2012. Our results suggest that, when two markets both have access to an operating warehouse, the average price spread is 0.86–1.78 ETB lower than it is for markets where at least one part lacks warehouse access. This is a substantial reduction considering that the average price spread over the full period is 3.33 ETB. The main results are robust to various econometric specifications, and our analysis thus suggests that local warehouses connected to the ECX have indeed improved market efficiency

This application brings together a multidisciplinary team to study the opportunities for, and implications of, better management of miombo forest landscapes in Tanzania. To develop and improve miombo production systemsthere is need for both broadened and deepened understanding of present land use, forest ecology, forest products economy, and related social and economic structures on process scale and up-scaled in the landscape. Tightly coupled to this is the analysis on the appropriateness and sustainability of different C-sequestration and C-trade mechanisms and land use forest management in relation to adaptation to climate vulnerability. Tanzania is chosen because of significantly heightened interest in the forest sector, but the suggested research will be applicable for the larger miombo area as well as for dry land Africa at large.

Mellanhänder på den afrikanska landsbygden har ett övertag gentemot bönderna, i form av att de har bättre information än bönderna om priser på grödor och insatsvaror på regionala marknader. De kan utnyttja detta till att erbjuda bönderna låga priser på grödor och höga priser på insatsvaror, vilket avskräcker bönderna från att öka sin produktion. Förändrad tillgång till information om priser på regionala marknader, antingen via offentliga satsningar på exempelvis radiosändningar om priser eller via privat utbyggnad av mobiltelefonnätet, kan därför potentiellt ha stor effekt på den lokala prisbildningen och (på längre sikt) på jordbruksproduktionen.Programmet kommer för det första att utveckla teoretiska modeller för hur förändrad tillgång på information påverkar förhandlingsspelet mellan bönder och mellanhänder. För det andra kommer vi att analysera de faktiska effekterna av två sådana informationssatsningar i Etiopien (via radio) och Rwanda (via mobiltelefoni). Vi kommer att utnyttja att vi, via tidigare upparbetade kanaler, har tillgång till mycket bra data för bägge länder.Den låga produktiviteten i jordbruket är ett av de viktigaste problemen i Afrika i dag. Om förbättrad information till bönderna kan leda till ökad produktivitet är det en billig lösning på flera av de problem som Afrika står inför, och det är därför viktigt med en bättre förståelse av hur stor effekt sådana informationssatsningar faktiskt har.

In many developing countries, supermarkets are expanding rapidly. This affects farmers' marketing options. Previous studies have analyzed welfare effects of smallholder participation in supermarket channels from a static perspective, using cross-section data. We develop a conceptual framework and use panel data to better understand participation and impact dynamics. The analysis focuses on vegetable producers in Kenya. Participation in supermarket channels is associated with income gains. However, many farmers have dropped out of the supermarket channel due to various constraints. The initial income gains cannot be sustained when returning to the traditional market. Organizational support may be needed to avoid widening income disparities.

Many developing countries experience a food system transformation with a rapid growth of supermarkets. We analyze impacts of supermarkets on farm household nutrition with survey data from Kenya. Participation in supermarket channels is associated with significantly higher calorie, vitamin A, iron, and zinc consumption. We use simultaneous equation models to analyze impact pathways. Supermarket-supplying households have higher incomes, a higher share of land under vegetables, and a higher likelihood of male control of revenues. Furthermore, income and the share of land under vegetables have positive impacts, while male control of revenues has negative impacts on dietary quality. Policy and further research implications are discussed.

Microcredit schemes have become a popular means of improving smallholders’ access to credit and making long term investment possible. However, it remains to be explored whether the current microcredit schemes are more successful than earlier formal small scale lending in identifying successful borrowers. We studied shrimp farming in a rural region in Bangladesh where formal microlending is well established, but where more expensive informal microlending coexists with the formal schemes. Farmers – both those who exclusively use formal loans and those who also use informal loans – remain credit-constrained; both types overutilize labour in order to reduce the need for working capital. However, the credit constraint is actually milder for the informal borrowers: the implicit shadow price of working capital is substantially higher in the group that only takes formal loans than in the group that also uses informal loans. These results suggest that informal lenders – with their closer ties to the individual farmers – remain more successful in identifying those smallholder farmers that are most likely to use the borrowed funds successfully. Informal lenders have an information advantage that formal microlenders lack: the latter need to find routes to access this information in order for formal microcredit schemes to succeed.