Department für Agrarökonomie und Rurale Entwicklung

Prof. Dr. Henry de-Graft Acquah

Date of birth
October 19, 1970

Place of birth
Takoradi, Ghana

Undergraduate studies

  • 1998: University of Cape Coast (Diploma in Education)
  • 1998: University of Cape Coast (B.Sc. Agriculture)
  • B.Sc. Thesis: "The effect of Rural Bank operations on small scale foodcrop production: A case study of Ahantaman Rural Bank , in the Ahanta West District"
  • 2000: Association of Rural Banks (Certificate in Credit Management)
  • 2003: Georg-August-University of Göttingen (M.Sc. International Agriculture, Major in Socio-Economics of Rural Development)
  • M.Sc.Thesis: "Sustainability and Outreach of Rural Banking Institutions In Ghana."



Current position
Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, University of Göttingen. Ph.D. Candidate since October 2004 under the Supervision of Prof. Dr. S. v. Cramon-Taubadel, Chair of Agricutural Policy .Concurrently with the Centre For Statistics, University of Göttingen.

Research interest

  • Asymmetric price transmission
  • Microfinance and rural finance
  • Bayesian Econometrics and Statistics



Research project

  • Analysis of price transmission and asymmetric adjustments using Bayesian methods (PhD Thesis)

    Within the econometric models of asymmetric price transmission, different specifications which detect asymmetry at different rates have been developed. This leads to issues of model comparison and model selection, measuring the relative merits of alternative specifications and using the appropriate criteria to choose the most reliable method or model specification which best fits or explains a given set of data. The Bayesian theory which provides a flexible and conceptually simple framework for comparing competing models is introduced and developed for the price transmission models. On the basis of Marginal likelihood and Information Criteria, alternative methods of testing for asymmetry are evaluated when the true asymmetric data generating process is known. Using a Monte Carlo simulation of model selection, the performance of a range of Bayesian algorithms to clearly identify the true asymmetric data generating process is examined and the effects of the amount of noise in the model and the sample size on model selection are also simulated.



Work experience

  • 2001-2003: Institute of Agronomy in the Tropics and Subtropics, University of Gottingen. (Student Assistantship)
  • 2001-2002: Centre for Tropical and Subtropical Agriculture and Forestry (CeTSAF), University of Goettingen. (Student Assistantship)
  • 2000-2001: Nyarkrom Rural Bank Limited (Project Officer and Head of the Project Department)