CFAES Give Today
AEDE

Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics

CFAES

Nicholas Dadzie – AEDE Job Market Candidate

Nicholas Dadzie, who is originally from Takoradi, Ghana, recognizes the potential of agriculture to transform economies in Sub-Saharan Africa. In Dadzie’s academic pursuits he has focused on agricultural and development economics from an observation that Ghana’s strong agrarian economy is poised for substantial growth.

Dadzie, who is advised by AEDE Professor Dave Kraybill, is studying agricultural and development economics while pursuing his PhD at the Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics (AEDE) at Ohio State. In his research, Dadzie is interested in learning how households spend their money on farm inputs. In particular, he has looked at household survey data from Ghana and Ethiopia to examine the microeconomics of non-farm income earnings of households in these countries. Dadzie is interested in learning how men and women in these households use non-farm income on farm input expenditures. His research tests existing theories of intra-household bargaining to determine the extent to which income-pooling or non-pooling affects farm expenditures.

While pursuing his undergraduate degree in agricultural economics at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Ghana, Dadzie worked as a Research Assistant on several projects associated with the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). These are both CGIAR institutions committed to agricultural development work in Sub-Saharan Africa. In this capacity, he conducted data analysis for IITA and IFAD, as well as wrote research literature reviews. During his time at Ohio State, Dadzie has held a number of research consultancies, working with organizations like the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), to look at productivity issues and the effects of weather variability on crop yields in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Dadzie has excelled both behind a desk and in front of a class full of students while at AEDE. He has greatly enjoyed his time spent teaching the Ohio State course “Economic Development for Sub-Saharan Africa” as he has enjoyed engaging with the undergraduate students he instructs. He finds that his experiences in Ghana and his work with large global organizations working on food security issues has given him a range of experiences and cross-cultural exchanges to share with the students in his classes. These experiences involve the development successes and challenges for economies in Sub-Saharan Africa.

In addition to engaging with the undergraduate students in his classes, Dadzie has greatly enjoyed the opportunities to engage with the outstanding AEDE faculty and his fellow PhD students while a graduate student at AEDE. He has found these exchanges, both in and out of the classroom, to be of high caliber due to the varied experiences and research interests of the faculty and students in the AEDE program. Dadzie notes that he has also enjoyed the AEDE PhD program of study due to the applied approach of the program, which builds on theoretical content available to him through open exchanges with Ohio State’s Economics department. He notes that he has greatly benefited from the empirical research opportunities he has been afforded as part of the AEDE learning experience. Dadzie, who has intermediate French language skills, has also enjoyed the practical knowledge that he’s gained through the AEDE program, including the program’s focus on teaching scholarly writing and presentation skills.

To learn more about Nicholas Dadzie, please see his job market profile.