Production risk and technical (in)efficiency amongst smallholder livestock farmers in Botswana: An exploratory investigation

This article investigates production (in)efficiency and production risk among smallholder livestock farmers in Botswana. Using cross-sectional data for beef production households, we estimate stochastic production frontier model that accommodates both technical inefficiency and production risk simultaneously. Heteroscedasticity is assumed for both inefficiency and production risk functions. Potential endogeneity of off-farm income is investigated using the control function approach. The empirical results indicate that the deterministic beef production function exhibits decreasing returns to scale and it is mainly explained by herd size and capital equipment. Non-linear relationship between inefficiency and herd size is established with an inverted U shape. Whereas, off-farm income reduces inefficiency, an increase rainfall and household size were found to increase inefficiency. In addition, production risk increases with an increase in maximum temperature and off-farm income but reduces with an increase in rainfall. The average inefficiency and risk scores for beef production are 9.4% and 3.2% respectively. Acknowledgement

Energy poverty, development outcomes, and transition to green energy

There is a close connection between energy and development outcomes. Therefore, energy constraints could adversely influence development outcomes. Consequently, building resilience to energy constraints could be one effective channel to improve development outcomes. This study analyses the effect of energy poverty, while considering the influence of green energy transition, on several development outcomes. Our approach delineates the short and long run dynamics of the net effects of energy poverty and renewable energy transition on development outcomes. First, as a direct effect, we find that energy poverty (renewable energy) has a negative (positive) effect on income, education, life expectancy, employment and mobile phone subscription and a positive (negative) effect on poverty, income inequality, sanitation risk and risk of drinking unsafe water. Conditioning the effect of energy poverty on renewable energy, we find that the transition to green energy partially compensates the adverse effects of energy poverty on the various development outcomes considered in this study. Further, we find that, for several of the development outcomes, the risk of inflated energy cost associated with renewable energy transitions in the short-term is likely to neutralise in the long run, except for income poverty and environmental risk factors. We discuss the policy implications

Quality of institution and the FEG (forest, energy intensity, and globalization) -environment relationships in sub-Saharan Africa

The current share of sub-Saharan Africa in global carbon dioxide emissions is negligible compared to major contributors like Asia, Americas, and Europe. This trend is, however, likely to change given that both economic growth and rate of urbanization in the region are projected to be robust in the future. The current study contributes to the literature by examining both the direct and the indirect impacts of quality of institution on the environment. Specifically, we investigate whether the institutional setting in the region provides some sort of a complementary role in the environment-FEG relationships. We use the panel two-step system generalized method of moments (GMM) technique to deal with the simultaneity problem. Data consists of 43 sub-Saharan African countries. The result shows that energy inefficiency compromises environmental standards. However, the quality of the institutional setting helps moderate this negative consequences; countries with good institutions show greater prospects than countries with poor institutions. On the other hand, globalization of the region and increased forest size generate positive environmental outcomes in the region. Their impacts are, however, independent of the quality of institution. Afforestation programs, promotion of other clean energy types, and investment in energy efficiency, basic city infrastructure, and regulatory and institutional structures, are desirable policies to pursue to safeguard the environment