Hamdiyah Alhassan

Food expenditure and household welfare in Ghana

The main objective of this study was to investigate the determinants of household food expenditure and its effects on welfare. As a result of potential simultaneity between food expenditure and welfare, a simultaneous equations model was estimated using the two-stage least squares method. The findings confirm the theoretical and empirical evidences that households reduce the percentage share of their food expenditure as they become richer. Also, increases in the food budget share lead to a reduction in welfare. Different households which spent greater percentages of their incomes on food were as follows: female headed households; households headed by the aged; households whose heads had little or no formal education; households whose heads were married; smaller households; rural households; households in the forest and savannah belts; and households living farther from the nation’s capital. Also, welfare was greater for the following households: female headed households; households headed by the aged, households whose heads had formal education, smaller households, households who owned assets; households living in the urban centres, as well as those living closer to the nation’s capital. Households that must be targeted for support include male-headed households, households headed by the relatively young, larger households, rural households and households farther from the nation’s capital, including those in the savannah belt.

The effect of energy and urbanisation on carbon dioxide emission: evidence from Ghana

Concerned with the declining trend of renewable energy consumption as well as a change in the energy mix for electricity production amidst growing urban population and carbon dioxide (CO) emissions in Ghana, this study examines the effect of urbanisation and energy on carbon dioxide emissions in Ghana within the framework of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) Hypothesis over the period 1971–2013. Estimation results from Fully Modified OLS confirm the presence of the EKC hypothesis over the period for Ghana. In addition, combustible renewables and waste consumption, electricity production from hydro and trade openness are found to reduce carbon dioxide emission while fossil fuel consumption, electricity production from fossil fuels, urbanisation and industrialisation increase carbon dioxide emission for Ghana. The study again finds that an interaction between urbanisation and combustible renewables and waste consumption, however, has a positive effect on CO while the interaction between urbanisation and fossil fuel consumption has a negative effect. Further analysis using the Engel–Granger causality test, the variance decomposition and impulse response functions are embarked. The outcome of the study implies the need to pursue the implementation of the low‐carbon development strategy.

Application of theory of planned behaviour to households’ source separation behaviour in Ghana

The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that encourage households’ source separation behaviour in Accra and Tamale Metropolises in Ghana.,Using a cross-sectional design, 855 households of Ghana were interviewed based on the theoretical framework of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB). The ordered probit regression model was employed to examine the factors that influence households’ source separation intention.,The results indicated that educational attainment of head of household, total income of household, occupation type of household head, information, past experience with source separation, inconvenience in terms of time, space and availability of formal source separation scheme, attitude, subjective norm and the location of the respondents significantly predicted households’ solid waste separation intentions.,The cross-sectional design does not determine causality but an association. Thus, future studies should examine actual household waste separation behaviour by using the experimental design to test the TPB model.,To promote solid waste separation at source, the public should be educated and provided with solid waste separation schemes that are efficient and compatible with households’ preference.,This study was partly motivated by the fact that despite the benefits associated with source separation, little attention has been given to formal source separation in Ghana. Moreover, there are limited studies on source separation behaviour in Ghana using the TPB as the theoretical framework.

Consumers’ preferred purchasing outlet of safer vegetables in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

Abstract This study assesses consumers’ preferred purchasing outlet of safer vegetables in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso using Multinomial Logit. A semi-structured questionnaire was administered on 350 consumers of vegetables (cabbage, lettuce and tomatoes) selected through a multistage random sampling procedure from 10 districts of the capital city, Ouagadougou. Descriptive statistics was used in describing consumers’ socio-economic characteristics. Multinomial logit was used to estimate how consumers’ socio-economic characteristics affect their preference for purchasing point/outlets for safer vegetables. The Garrett’s ranking technique was then used to rank the constraints to accessing safe vegetables. The result revealed that 52.57% of the consumers preferred to buy safer vegetables from the roadside market, 31.43% preferred to buy from the supermarket, while the remaining 16.00% preferred to buy from the farm gate. From the estimation results, the supermarket was a preferred choice for the following categories of consumers: the married; the formally educated; the salaried workers; the relatively rich; and those who purchased vegetables much more frequently. With respect to the constraints to accessing safe vegetables, inadequate supply of safe vegetables was ranked first while cultural barriers was the least ranked. Based on the findings, the study recommends that stakeholders should work at scaling up the production of safer vegetables and the marketing of same via the supermarkets. This is against the backdrop of the existence of a potentially huge market among the affluent society of Ouagadougou.