From climate worry to guest welcome: Agritourism as a diversification path
for Kosovo's smallholder farmers
(Link)
Journal of Rural Studies, 2026
Adrian Vargas-Lopez, Gjylisha Cena, Ann-Kathrin Koessler
Small farms in Kosovo are facing hotter summers, longer dry seasons, and sudden storms that make
yields and income less predictable. To cope, agricultural households are looking beyond basic
crops and livestock and turning to agritourism, a commonly discussed adaptation option.
In this paper, we pose three questions: How do farmers’ perceptions of changing weather relate
to their interest in starting agritourism as a diversification strategy? What motives and
conditions (economic goals, family considerations, available assets and access, etc.) shape
willingness-to-start? How do farmers describe the link between diversification and perceived
stress within this setting? We conducted 25 semi-structured interviews between 2023 and 2024
and analysed the transcripts with a hybrid deductive and inductive coding approach. Many
participants attributed recent yield losses to changing weather, viewing agritourism as a
“safer”
income stream when the necessary roads, cabins, and family labour were available. The strongest
motives to diversify were income security, keeping the farm in family hands, and experimenting
with low-input, nature-friendly practices. Diversification reduced stress for some farmers, but
new pressures emerged where infrastructure or marketing support was limited. Policy support may
include small grants for basic facilities and signage, a shared booking platform, light-touch
coaching on pricing and marketing, screening tools to match assets to options, and advisory
support paired with simple stress-management resources.
How do the consequences on others affect dishonest behavior? Evidence from an
online experiment in Mexico
(Link)
Latin American Economic Review, 2025
Giuliana Triberti, Pablo Soto-Mota, Adrian Vargas-Lopez, Luis
Serra-Barragán
Dishonesty harms economic performance and growth.
However, the literature on dishonesty has used almost exclusively samples from developed
countries.
In addition, previous studies present non-conclusive results on how concerns for others affect
lying behaviour.
In view of this gap in the evidence, the present study explores how the decision to be dishonest
changes when it affects a charity.
In an experiment involving 555 participants in Mexico, subjects could lie about the result of a
dice roll without any possibility of detection.
We contrast a situation without incentives to three conditions that differ in how dishonesty
affected the charity.
Deceitful behaviour increased when participants could benefit from it.
Also, participants lied less when they received benefits at the expense of the charity, but they
did not lie more when they could help it.
Our results suggest that making salient how dishonesty harms others might help reduce its
negative effects in society.
Farmer adaptation and maladaptation in the face of extreme weather events
(Link)
Q Open, 2024
Adrian Vargas-Lopez, Ann-Kathrin Koessler
With the advent of climate change, extreme weather events have become increasingly frequent and
intense, posing significant challenges to agricultural systems worldwide.
Farmers are among the most vulnerable groups, whose livelihoods depend heavily on
weather-sensitive crops.
In this paper, we assess whether farmers adapt or maladapt after being exposed to extreme
weather events and whether their perceived well-being determines their decisions.
By analysing data about the farming practices and conditions of 970 farmers in Thailand, we
examine the actions farmers implement, which can be catalogued as adaptation or maladaptation
actions.
Although our results cannot specify an increase in adaptation or maladaptation actions after
experiencing an extreme weather event, we reveal a notable rise in maladaptation with state aid
for natural disasters.
Similarly, we find that risk tolerance correlates with increased adaptation, while higher
patience offsets this effect.
Comparison of Two Different Approaches to Measuring Economic Vulnerability to
Food Insecurity: An Application to Mexico Using Official Data
(Link)
Social Indicators Research, 2024
Stefano Marchetti, Luca Secondi, Adrian Vargas-Lopez
The United Nations Social Development Goals ensure the achievement of food security by 2030.
Food security is characterized by various aspects, however in this study we focus on economic
vulnerability to food insecurity.
In particular, we compared two measures: food insecurity levels as defined by the Integrated
food security phase classification Global-Partners quantitative scale and those defined by the
Latin American and Caribbean Food Security qualitative scale.
The qualitative scale only measures nutritional status using specific questions, regardless of
food expenditures, while the quantitative scale is based on the share of consumer expenditure
spent on food (the ratio between food expenditure and total expenditure).
From our analysis on 2018 Mexico data—therefore unaffected by the pandemic—59% of discrepancies
were found between the two measures.
The qualitative scale does not classify people who spend too much on food as being food
insecure, so they are economically vulnerable about housing, healthcare and other important
aspects of social life (access to food generate insecurity).
The quantitative scale does not identify people who do not have access to high-quality nutrition
because they must pay for other fixed expenses, for example for housing or healthcare.
These two measures depict two aspects of economic vulnerability to food insecurity, and here we
quantify this difference in a developing country.
Future research should be at integrating these two aspects into one single indicator based on
food and non-food expenditures, so to take into account both the two aspects by using only
consumption expenditure data.
The use of the Theory of Planned Behaviour as a Conceptual Framework to
Understand and Promote Health Recommendations During the First Wave of Covid-19 in Mexico City
(Link)
Nova Scientia, 2023
Nuria Álvarez Agüí, Enrique Cáceres Nieto, Manuel Alejandro García Martínez,
Josafat Hernández, Rosa Lidia López Bejarano, Pablo Soto-Mota, Adrian Vargas-Lopez
In this study, we apply the Theory of Planned Behavior to understand the factors that explained
adherence to health recommendations during the first wave of Covid-19 in Mexico City.
To do this, we designed and implemented an online survey on prevention measures.
In addition, we generate an empirical correlate of the Theory of Planned Behavior to hypothesize
about correlations between variables in the survey.
In addition, we included four simple experiments in the survey. We found that norms, attitudes
and perception of control are correlated with the planning and adoption of preventive actions.
In the experiments we observe (1) that corruption reduces the credibility of the government with
respect to the health crisis, (2) doctors are more persuasive about prevention, and (3) masks
generate feelings of security.
We conclude that the Theory of Planned Behavior is useful to make sense of data from surveys
like ours.
We encourage governments in developing countries to use methods like ours to collect and
interpret data, even if provisional, to respond to future health crises.
Consumer expenditure, elasticity and value of food waste: A Quadratic Almost
Ideal Demand System for evaluating changes in Mexico during COVID-19
(Link)
Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, 2022
Adrian Vargas-Lopez, Clara Cicatiello, Ludovica Principato, Luca
Secondi
Household food waste is driven by consumer habits and behaviors.
The necessary measures implemented during the lockdown worldwide to contain the Covid-19
pandemic altered these consumer practices.
This paper examines how household's culinary traditions and food management have changed in
Mexico as a result of Covid-related restrictions, and their impact on food waste.
We obtained 525 answers using an online survey about food habits distributed through social
networks in Mexico between December 2020 and January 2021.
The results show that the participating households increased their monetary expenditure on
groceries and reduced food waste during the pandemic.
The estimation of consumer responsiveness to waste, through the introduction of a framework
based on a Quadratic Almost-Ideal Demand System, confirms that, even more during the lockdown,
food waste has become a luxury good.
The analysis of food category changes allows for a detailed study useful to curtail the level of
food waste in Mexican households and to encourage transition towards sustainable and circular
consumption behaviors.
