Projects
Improvement of animal welfare in stage points during long distance transport. KU Leuven
Effective and stable international climate accords. KU Leuven
The objective of this thesis is to identify the fundamental drivers of welfare effectiveness and game theoretic stability of International Environmental Agreements (IEAs), while focusing in particular on heterogeneity of regions; and analyzing the distributional effects of different climate change damage channels and mitigation policies. In the first phase we apply an analytical model combined with numerical simulation experiments in order to ...
Extended production cycle in laying hens KU Leuven
Laying hens are kept in production until the age of 75-80 wk, but the actual egg production period is only 55-60 weeks long, as young pullets start producing eggs approximately at 20 wk of age. During a single laying cycle a hen can produce on average 360 eggs. Extending the egg production period and keeping hens longer, possibly until 100 wk of age would not only contribute to increased profitability but also to more sustainable food ...
User-centric design of automatic lameness detection in dairy cattle KU Leuven
Lameness is an important health problem causing severe welfare deteriorations and economic losses up to € 53 per cow per year in dairy cattle. Timely detection and treatment can help to minimize economic losses and preserve cow welfare. Current visual detection methods are labor intensive and subjective, and require training to allow detection of subtle changes in a cow’s gait. As a result, the problem is underestimated in practice, and ...
Needs and reïntegration of people after detention (BruG onderzoek) University of Antwerp
Research project meals in kindergartens KU Leuven
The city of Ghent wants to have a participatory and practice-oriented research carried out in which it is investigated within which scenarios with which critical success factors in the Ghent context the consumption of a meal at school can be made possible for as many children as possible in kindergarten.
Nonparametric analysis of economic choice behavior KU Leuven
This PhD project focuses on nonparametric analysis of economic choice (consumption/production) behavior. In contrast to more standard parametric techniques, nonparametric techniques have the advantage that there is no need to make (typically unverifiable) assumptions about the functional form specification of preferences or the production function. A specific application area will be the consumption and production behavior of multi-member ...
Essays in Development Economics: Evidence from East Africa KU Leuven
This dissertation is divided into four chapters, each built around a different research paper that falls under the broad field of `development economics'. The analysis in all chapters is mostly empirical, relying on primary data collected in recent years from East Africa. Of course, theory plays a key role in directing the analysis. Chapters 1 and 2 study different aspects of female empowerment and household decisions in Tanzania. Chapters 3 ...
Value chains, technology transfer, food security, and agricultural development. KU Leuven
My research focuses on how food value chains can be (re-)organized to overcome technology and output market failures, increase value chain efficiency and improve farmer welfare and food security.