In much of the developing world, many farmers grow crops for local or personal consumption despite export options which appear to be more profitable. Thus many conjecture that one or several markets are missing. We report here on a randomized controlled trial conducted by DrumNet in Kenya that...

This paper reviews econommic studies of rice research programs and attempts to identify the contributions of rice varietal improvement to changes in rice productivity. I also report some new work specifically addressed to the contributions of genetic resources to the production of rice varieties.

This paper introduces habit formation into an otherwise standard model of international trade. Household tastes evolve over time to favor foods consumed as a child. The opening of trade causes preferred goods to rise in price, as these were relatively inexpensive in autarky. Neglecting the...

This paper presents (1) a conceptual framework for structural change when farms may be multiproduct or specialized and (2) an econometrics of causes of structural and total factor productivity (TFP) change for U.S. agriculture. Farm size, farm specialization, and part-time farming are the...

This study uses the example of the German cooperatives to test one hypothesis often advanced by advocates of microcredit institutions: that cooperatives succeeded because they overcame problems caused by asymmetric information and enforcement problems in credit markets.

We present a model to explain why natural resource windfalls tend not only to lead to slower economic growth but to generate and reinforce authoritarian tendencies in Third World political regimes. In the model, the political elite's power over the populace is derived both from its own wealth...

In this paper, we analyze supervision activities reported in a cross-section survey of rice farmers in the Bicol region of the Philippines. This survey is unique because it provides supervision data at the farm task level. We present a simple optimization model in which supervision intensity...

Low adoption of productive agricultural technologies is a puzzle. Agricultural extension services rely on external agents to communicate with farmers, although social networks are known to be the most credible source of information about new technologies. We conduct a large-scale field...

We look at the effects of rainfall forecasts and realized rainfall on equilibrium agricultural wages over the course of the agricultural production cycle. We show theoretically that a forecast of good weather can lower wages in the planting stage, by lowering ex ante out-migration, and can...

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