Efficient information exchanges between sellers and buyers are essential if prices are to act as a signal for resource allocation in an economy. In the case of seed and planting materials, information on quality traits are often difficult for consumers (farmers) to obtain prior to purchase,...

Rice, which is one of the major sources of energy, vital nutrients and a staple food, is in short supply in many Nigerian households. Nigeria is among many African countries that have engaged in agricultural liberalization since 1986 in the hope that reforms emphasizing price incentives will...

This paper builds a model determining optimal capacities of diversion dams or water transfer projects. The model incorporates stochastic inflows to the dams and the role of the dam capacity in reducing overflows, and gives a closed-form expression of the marginal benefit of capacities....

This paper investigate the effect of credit constraints on children’s academic performances in Vietnam. To estimate precise effect, this paper measures the credit constraints directly and address endogeneity of credit constraints. The results tell us that credit constraints have more effect on...

Social networks play an important role in generating learning externalities that can drive the diffusion of innovative, and potentially poverty-reducing, technologies. This is particularly the case in developing countries where rural education, extension, and agricultural information services...

With the rapidly changing economic environments and numerous challenges hindering smallholders’ adoption of externally developed technologies, it is often argued that farmers’ innovations may be essential in the livelihoods of rural farm households and need to be promoted. Yet a rigorous...

One prominent feature of the US biofuels sector is its reliance on mandates to enforce use. The performance of this policy tool has been mixed, with corn-based ethanol production successfully meeting targets but cellulosic ethanol falling well short of them. A crucial difference in this setting...

For many environmental problems, economics adaptation will likely be the primary means by which potential damages are avoided. How and by how much humans adapt to environmental risks, therefore, is a question of paramount importance. This paper uses a novel dataset documenting the introduction...

In the United States, public universities may choose to license a plant variety to a limited number of producers (an exclusive license) or to an unlimited number of producers (an open license). This choice has implications for the quantity and distribution of total benefits from the variety....

We investigate the role of risk and learning in biotechnology adoption, with an empirical focus on the adoption of Genetically Modified (GM) corn in the U.S. Corn Belt. Relying on the Kalman filter algorithm, a conceptual structural dynamic programming (DP) model is developed to capture the...