technology adoption impact and extension in developing countries agriculture a review of the recent literature given the stagnant agricultural productivity and persistent food insecurity in low income countries notably in sub saharan africa ssa there has been continued interest in the adoption of new technology and its impact on productivity in these regions interestingly there are signs of green revolution in maize and rice in ssa reflected in sharply increasing yield trends in advanced regions to increase crop yields and sustain yield gains recent case studies of technology adoption unanimously recommend the adoption of integrated farm management systems particularly in ssa on the other hand since the 2010s there have been increasing numbers of studies on social network or farmer to farmer technology extension these studies explore more efficient extension systems than traditional public sector extension approaches this article reviews both recent case studies of technology adoption and its productivity impacts as well as studies on agricultural extension to identify common findings shortcomings and major remaining issues

impact of improved maize adoption on welfare of farm households in malawi a panel data analysis summary this paper assesses rural households decision to use improved maize varieties in malawi and examines its impact on household welfare using a three year household panel data the distributional effect of maize technology adoption is investigated by looking at impacts across wealth and gender groups we applied control function approach and iv regression to control for possible endogeneity of input subsidy and area under improved maize we found that area under improved maize varieties is positively correlated with own maize consumption income and asset holdings we found evidence that improved maize adoption has a stronger impact on welfare of poorer households

money matters the role of yields and profits in agricultural technology adoption despite the growing attention to technology adoption in the economics literature knowledge gaps remain regarding why some valuable technologies are rapidly adopted while others are not this paper contributes to our understanding of agricultural technology adoption by showing that a focus on yield gains may in some contexts be misguided we study a technology in ethiopia that has no impact on yields but that has nonetheless been widely adopted using three waves of panel data we estimate a correlated random coefficient model and calculate the returns to improved chickpea in terms of yields costs and profits we find that farmers comparative advantage does not play a significant role in their adoption decisions and hypothesize that this is due to the overall high economic returns to adoption despite the limited yield impacts of the technology our results suggest economic measures of returns may be more relevant than increases in yields in explaining technology adoption decisions

productivity and land enhancing technologies in northern ethiopia health public investments and sequential adoption the adoption of more efficient farming practices and technologies that enhance agricultural productivity and improve environmental sustainability is instrumental for achieving economic growth food security and poverty alleviation in sub saharan africa our research examines the interaction between public investments community health and adoption of productivity and land enhancing technologies by households in the northern ethiopian state of tigray agricultural technology adoption decisions are modeled as a sequential process where the timing of choices can matter we find that time spent sick and opportunity costs of caring for sick family members are significant factors in adoption sickness through its impact on household income and labor allocation decisions for healthcare and other activities significantly reduces the likelihood of technology adoption our findings suggest that agencies working to improve agricultural productivity and land resource conservation should consider not only the financial status of potential adopters but also their related health situation

estimating price discounts for low quality maize in sub saharan africa evidence from benin summary this article uses household data from benin to estimate the extent that markets in sub saharan africa discount damaged maize stated preference methods indicate that a 10 increase in insect damage results in a 9 maize price discount however revealed preference methods indicate that this discount is only 3 discounts are larger immediately after harvest than they are in the lean period when maize is scarce our results help explain why many smallholder farmers sell maize at harvest rather than making the effort to preserve grain of good quality for later in the season when it may fetch a higher price

maize of the ancestors and modern varieties the microeconomics of high yielding variety adoption in malawi farmer adoption of seed fertilizer technology can be characterized in terms of several interrelated choices one choice is whether to adopt only seed only fertilizer or both components of the technology adoption another choice relates to the extent of land allocation to modem and to farmers seed varieties extent of adoption a third choice is the level per hectare of either seed or fertilizer or both intensity of adoption 1 in the literature about agricultural innovations in developing countries some theoretical models treat more than one aspect of the adoption decision 2 but most econometric approaches have portrayed only the discrete adoption choice for a single input although farmers often adopt parts or components of recommended technology neither the theoretical nor the econometric models have included the level of fertilizer applied to farmers varieties in the analysis of seed fertilizer adoption 3 two features of the seed fertilizer adoption decision as defined above are particularly evident in malawi first even when farmers adopt hybrid maize they continue to allocate a part of their maize area to their own varieties microeconomic theory provides four explanations for land allocation to both modern and traditional seed variet

impacts of subsidized hybrid seed on indicators of economic well being among smallholder maize growers in zambia we test the hypotheses that subsidies on hybrid seed change maize production total household income the severity of poverty and relative deprivation among smallholder maize growers in zambia the analysis contributes to the literature by measuring the quantitative effects of seed as compared to fertilizer subsidies on indicators of household well being rather than input demand we apply a combination of econometric approaches to a nationally representative balanced panel of smallholder maize growing households and invoke the chain rule to generate quantitative estimates of impacts per kilogram of subsidized seed our findings demonstrate that in the initial years of the program subsidized seed enhanced the well being of smallholder maize growers according to each indicator but by small magnitudes simple calculations suggest high private and social benefit cost ratios when benefits are measured in terms of household income although magnitudes are sensitive to seed price and administrative costs

subsidies and crowding out a double hurdle model of fertilizer demand in malawi this article uses a double hurdle model with panel data from malawi to investigate how fertilizer subsidies affect farmer demand for commercial fertilizer the article controls for potential endogeneity caused by the nonrandom targeting of fertilizer subsidy recipients results show that on average 1 additional kilogram of subsidized fertilizer crowds out 0 22 kg of commercial fertilizer but crowding out ranges from 0 18 among the poorest farmers to 0 30 among relatively nonpoor farmers this indicates that targeting fertilizer subsidies to the rural poor is likely to maximize the contribution of the subsidy program to total fertilizer use

designing random allocation mechanisms theory and applications randomization is commonplace in everyday resource allocation we generalize the theory of randomized assignment to accommodate multi unit allocations and various real world constraints such as group specific quotas controlled choice in school choice and house allocation and scheduling and curriculum constraints in course allocation we develop new mechanisms that are ex ante efficient and fair in these environments and that incorporate certain non additive substitutable preferences we also develop a utility guarantee technique that limits ex post unfairness in random allocations supplementing the ex ante fairness promoted by randomization this can be applied to multi unit assignment problems and certain two sided matching problems jel c78 d82

disrupting demand for commercial seed input subsidies in malawi and zambia summary this study uses nationally representative household level panel data from malawi and zambia to identify the determinants of subsidized maize seed and fertilizer receipt and to estimate how input subsidies affect households commercial purchases of improved maize seed varieties in both countries we find that households in areas where the ruling party won the last presidential election acquire significantly more subsidized inputs than other households results also indicate that each additional kilogram of subsidized maize seed acquired by a household reduces its commercial improved maize seed purchases by 0 58 kg in malawi and by 0 49 kg in zambia on average

the effect of household wealth on the adoption of improved maize varieties in zambia abstract production and price risks that could render input use unprofitable sometimes prevent rural households from benefiting from input technological change the household s ability to cope with such risks and hence benefit from input technological change is often positively related to its wealth or stock of productive assets empirical evidence however suggests a non linear relationship between wealth and adoption of new agricultural technologies so that within a rural community households on the lower wealth continuum behave differently from those on the higher level using farm level data collected from 300 randomly selected households in three districts of zambia in 2004 2005 crop season this paper first stratifies households into poorly and well endowed households based on their access to productive assets and estimates separate double hurdle models for the adoption of improved high yielding maize ihym varieties for each group the results show that factors influencing the adoption and use intensity of ihym varieties differ between the two groups this draws attention to the need for recommending wealth group specific interventions to increase the adoption and use intensity of such varieties and their subsequent impacts on food security and general livelihoods of the households the explicit testing for the possibility that differences in household wealth affect the way in which other variables influence adoption decisions is the paper s unique contribution to the adoption literature

matching with contracts we develop a model of matching with contracts which incorporates as special cases the college admissions problem the kelso crawford labor market matching model and ascending package auctions we introduce a new law of aggregate demand for the case of discrete heterogeneous workers and show that when workers are substitutes this law is satisfied by profit maximizing firms when workers are substitutes and the law is satisfied truthful reporting is a dominant strategy for workers in a worker offering auction matching algorithm we also parameterize a large class of preferences satisfying the two conditions

maize is life malawi s delayed green revolution abstract the pattern of maize seed development in malawi demonstrates the importance of farmers capacity to articulate their interests through collective action and institutions despite the vital significance of maize as a wage good in malawi limited effective demand for maize seed research prolonged the period of technical stagnation analysis of the institutional factors shaping the demand for maize seed research complements previous work on malawi s political economy the supply of seed technology and adoption with implications for current political changes in that nation the importance of farmers organizations and state commitment to agricultural research in sub saharan africa

does storage technology affect adoption of improved maize varieties in africa insights from malawi s input subsidy program abstract to date there is limited knowledge of how having access to post harvest storage technology affects a smallholder african farmer s decision to adopt higher yielding improved maize varieties this is a key issue because higher yielding varieties are known to be more susceptible to storage pests than lower yielding traditional varieties we address this question using panel data from malawi and incorporating panel estimation techniques to deal with unobserved heterogeneity our results indicate that acquiring chemical storage protectants after the previous harvest is associated with a statistically significant and modest positive impact on the probability of adopting improved maize total area planted to improved maize varieties and share of area planted to improved maize varieties in the next planting season we also find that the storage chemical subsidy is associated with significant crowding out of commercial storage chemical purchases as farmers who acquire subsidized chemicals are more than 50 percentage points less likely to purchase commercial chemicals on average these findings have implications for maize adoption and input subsidy policies and they indicate that researchers extension staff and policy makers should consider post harvest issue when promoting adoption of improved varieties

recent developments in matching with constraints in an earlier work kamada and kojima 2015 we introduced matching with constraints a two sided matching problem in which the market is subject to feasibility constraints that paper proposed and analyzed a possible solution to this problem and discussed various real market applications of our results the present paper reorganizes some of the findings from our more recent effort based on kamada and kojima 2016a b

do input subsidy programs crowd in or crowd out commercial market development modeling fertilizer demand in a two channel marketing system many governments in developing countries distribute fertilizer at subsidized prices in an effort to stimulate small farmers agricultural productivity and food security prior fertilizer demand studies have largely failed to account for the effects of government programs on farmers commercial purchases using a double hurdle model and nationally representative rural household panel data in zambia we distinguish between these sources and measure the contemporaneous crowding in and crowding out effects of government input programs on commercial fertilizer sales where the private sector is relatively active and average wealth is higher areas seemingly more likely to be targeted by government programs results indicate that subsidies have substantially crowded out the private sector in some cases to the point that such programs could actually lower overall fertilizer use on the other hand in poorer areas where the private sector is relatively inactive subsidies help to generate demand and crowd in private sector retailers empirical studies explicitly modeling farmers fertilizer purchase behavior within a dual marketing framework can provide important insights for agricultural policy discussions in developing countries

the timing of redistribution we investigate whether late redistribution programs that can be targeted toward low income families but that may distort savings decisions can dominate early redistribution programs that cannot be targeted as a result of information constraints we use simple two period overlapping generations models with heterogeneous agents under six policy regimes a model calibrated to the u s economy benchmark two early redistribution lump sum regimes two targeted late redistribution regimes and finally a model without taxes and redistribution redistribution programs are financed by a labor tax on the young generation and a capital tax on the old generation we argue that if the programs are small in size late redistribution can dominate early redistribution in terms of welfare but not in terms of real output better targeting of low income households cannot completely offset savings distortions in addition we find that the optimal transfer and tax policy implies a capital tax of 100 and transfers exclusively to the young generation

cropland allocation effects of agricultural input subsidies in malawi summary we measure the impacts of malawi s farm input subsidy program on the cropland allocation decisions of farmers in kasungu and machinga districts in central and southern malawi using a two step regression strategy to control for endogenous selection into the program we find positive correlations between participation in the program and the amount of land planted with maize and tobacco furthermore results suggest that participating households simplified crop production by allocating less land to other crops e g groundnuts soybeans and dry beans our findings have implications for policies aimed at promoting both food self sufficiency and crop diversification in low income settings 2011 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

bidding for army career specialties improving the rotc branching mechanism motivated by the low retention rates of us military academy and reserve officer training corps graduates the army recently introduced incentives programs in which cadets could bid 3 years of additional service obligation to obtain higher priority for their desired branches the full potential of this incentives program is not utilized because of the rotc s deficient matching mechanism i propose a design that eliminates these shortcomings and mitigates several policy problems the army has identified in contrast to the rotc mechanism my design utilizes market principles more extensively and it is a hybrid between a market mechanism and a priority based allocation mechanism