This paper deals with set-valued equilibrium problems under conditions of pseudo-monotonicity. Concepts such as strict quasi-convexity, hemicontinuity and pseudo-monotonicity for extended real set-valued mappings are introduced and applied to obtain results on the existence of solutions of set-valued equilibrium problems generalizing those in the literature in the pseudo-monotone case. Applications to Browder variational inclusions under weakened conditions are given. In particular, it is shown that the upper semicontinuity from line segments of the involved pseudo-monotone set-valued operator is not needed in the whole space when solving Browder variational inclusions.