A Second Look at the Pesticides Initiative Program: Evidence from Senegal

This paper investigates whether the Pesticides Initiative Program has signicantly affected the export performance of Senegal’s horticulture industry. We apply two main microeconometric techniques, difference-in-differences and matching difference-in-differences, to identify the effect of the Pesticides Initiative Program on exports of fresh fruits and vegetables. We use a unique firm-level dataset containing data on sales, employment, and exports by product and destination markets, as well as firm enrolment year, over 2000-2008. The results suggest that while the program had no signicant effect on exports pooled over all products and destinations, it had a positive effect when considering fresh fruits and vegetables exports to the European Union.