Economic activity in developing countries is labor-intensive, low-scale, and family run, with substantial family managerial time spent supervising hired labor. We use a randomized control trial that subsidizes access to rental equipment markets to study the impact of the adoption of mechanized...

Many agricultural and environmental technologies require large upfront investments in exchange for longer-term benefits. This time profile of costs and benefits makes adoption particularly sensitive to liquidity and credit constraints, which are prevalent in low-income settings. We test the...

We study the influence of agricultural labor intensity on individualism across U.S. counties. To measure historical labor intensity in agriculture we combine data on crop-specific labor requirements and county-specific crop mix around 1900. To address endogeneity we exploit climate-induced...

This paper analyzes the role of social networks in the diffusion of knowledge and adoption of cultivation techniques, from trainees to the wider community, in the context of an extension project in Guinea-Bissau. In order to test for social learning, we exploit a detailed census of households...

We explore heterogeneity in soil quality, lack of knowledge and autonomy as explanations for the low adoption of improved agricultural practices using a randomized field experiment that combined localized soil analyses, tailored input recommendations, extension services and an in-kind grant. We...

Feeding the world's growing population is one of the most critical policy challenges for the 21st century. With tightening constraints on water, arable land, and other natural resources, agricultural innovation is quickly becoming the most promising path meet the nutrient needs for future...

We study the effect of information on technology adoption and productivity in agriculture. Our empirical strategy exploits the expansion of the mobile phone network in previously uncovered areas of rural India coupled with the availability of call centers for agricultural advice. We measure...

U.S. agriculture was transformed during the 20th century by waves of innovation with mechanical, biological, chemical, and information technologies. Compared with a few decades ago, today's agriculture is much less labor intensive and farms are much larger and more specialized, supplying a...

The standard treatment of U.S. agriculture asserts that, before the 1930s, productivity growth was almost exclusively the result of mechanization rather than biological innovations. This paper shows that, to the contrary, U.S. wheat production witnessed a biological revolution during the 19th...

Consistent with learning models of the adoption decision, we find positive treatment effects on farmers' estimated returns to the input package. We also document positive cross-household treatment spillovers: one's own fertilizer use rises in the number of social network members receiving...