Recent studies argue that cross-country labor productivity differences are much larger in agriculture than in the aggregate. We reexamine the agricultural productivity data underlying this conclusion using new evidence from disaggregate sources. We find that for the world's staple...

We present a new framework to identify supply elasticities of storable commodities where past shocks are used as exogenous price shifters. In the agricultural context, past yield shocks change inventory levels and futures prices of agricultural commodities. We use our estimated elasticities to...

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...

This paper investigates the role of social learning in the diffusion of a new agricultural technology in Ghana. We use unique data on farmers' communication patterns to define each individual's information neighborhood. Conditional on many potentially confounding variables, we find evidence that...

New ideas, products, and practices take time to diffuse, a fact that is often attributed to some form of heterogeneity among potential adopters. This paper examines three broad classes of diffusion models -- contagion, social influence, and social learning -- and shows how to incorporate...

Imperfect information about product attributes inhibits efficiency in many choice settings, but can be overcome by providing simple, lowcost information. We use a randomized control trial to test the effect of high-frequency information about residential electricity usage on the price elasticity...