learning about a new technology pineapple in ghana this paper investigates the role of social learning in the diffusion of a new agri cultural 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 farmers adjust their inputs to align with those of their information neighbors who were surpris ingly successful in previous periods the relationship of these input adjustments to experience further indicates the presence of social learning in addition applying the same method to input choices for another crop of known technol ogy correctly indicates an absence of social learning effects jel d83 013 033 q16

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

evaluating borrower s default risk in peer to peer lending evidence from a lending platform in china recent years have witnessed the popularity of online peer to peer lending which allows individuals to borrow from and lend to each other on an internet based platform using data from a large p2p

the hyperbolic consumption model calibration simulation and empirical evaluation ur preferences for the long run tend to conflict with our short run behavior when planning for the long run we intend to meet our deadlines exercise regularly and eat healthfully but in the short run we have little interest in revising manuscripts jogging on the stairmaster and skipping the chocolate souffleala mode delay of gratification is a nice long term goal but instant gratification is disconcertingly tempting this gap between long run intentions and short run actions is apparent across a wide range of behaviors including saving choices a 1997 survey found that 76 percent of respondents believe they should be saving more for retirement looking only at respondents who believed they were at an age where you should be seriously saving already the survey found that 55 percent reported being behind in their savings and only 6 percent reported being ahead farkas and johnson 1997 the report on the survey concluded t he gaps between people s atti tudes intentions and behavior are troubling and threaten increased insecurity and dissatisfaction for people when they retire americans are simply not doing what logic and their own reasoning suggests they should be doing a 1993 luntz webber merrill lynch survey found similar answers when baby boomers were asked what percentage of your annual household income do you think you should save for retirement and what percentage of your annual

can peers improve agricultural revenue crop revenues vary greatly among farmers and the source of that variation is not fully understood even after controlling for factors including input use technology adoption and other agro climatic factors one hypothesis that may explain the variation in outcomes among farmers is differential access to information through peers using a household survey from india containing detailed information about personal relationships we estimate peer effects on cash crop revenue using a novel spatial econometric technique to control for reflection our results show that 60 of farmers revenue is explained by peers peer effects are particularly large in pesticide use and in the cultivation of a new crop however peer effects in input expenditures and land allocation cannot fully explain the variation in revenue implying peers may also associate with management negotiation and marketing we find that peer effects are significant among farmers self reported peers especially among those peers who are farmers main advisors for agricultural matters although caste based networks both within the same and in adjacent villages are important their effect is smaller than that of self reported peer networks we empirically rule out that our effects are driven by other factors such as geographically correlated unobservables farmers following a lead farmer or economies of scale our findings speak to both the potential and the limitations of peers as sources of agricultural information and highlight the need for future research about how to best integrate peers into agricultural extension

the money supply announcements puzzle comment in a recent paper in this review 1983 bradford cornell presented a survey of existing literature on the empirical relationship between weekly money supply announcements made by the federal reserve and changes in the spot prices of several financial instruments at the time of the announcement cornell sought to unify and extend the work done in this area by estimating a number of relationships which bear directly on this issue among his main conclusions are that asset markets are efficient with re spect to money supply announcements since only the unexpected component of the announcement is correlated with price changes and that the unexpected compo nent of money supply announcements has a highly significant positive correlation with short term interest rates but only after the october 6 1979 change in fed policy p 651 both of these conclusions are at vari ance with results reported in similar studies by jacob grossman 1981 v vance roley 1982 and thomas urich and paul wachtel 1981 all three find that unanticipated announcements matter in periods before october 6 1979 and roley and urich wachtel find that anticipated announcements matter in at least some of their regressions this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

borrowing high versus borrowing higher price dispersion and shopping behavior in the u s credit card market we document substantial cross individual dispersion in u s credit card borrowing costs even after controlling for borrower risk and card characteristics that remaining dispersion arises because cross lender pricing heterogeneity generates dispersion in annual percentage rate apr offers to borrowers and borrowers vary in shopping intensity our empirics match administrative data to self reported card shopping intensity and use instruments suggested by fair lending law to account for the endogeneity between aprs and search the results show that shoppers versus nonshoppers pay aprs as different as those paid by borrowers in the best versus worst credit score deciles we discuss implications for policy and practice

regulating consumer financial products evidence from credit cards we analyze the effectiveness of consumer financial regulation by considering the 2009 credit card accountability responsibility and disclosure card act we use a panel data set covering 160 million credit card accounts and a difference in differences research design that compares changes in outcomes over time for consumer credit cards which were subject to the regulations to changes for small business credit cards which the law did not cover we estimate that regulatory limits on credit card fees reduced overall borrowing costs by an annualized 1 6 of average daily balances with a decline of more than 5 3 for consumers with fico scores below 660 we find no evidence of an offsetting increase in interest charges or a reduction in the volume of credit taken together we estimate that the card act saved consumers 11 9 billion a year we also analyze a nudge that disclosed the interest savings from paying off balances in 36 months rather than making minimum payments we detect a small increase in the share of accounts making the 36 month payment value but no evidence of a change in overall payments jel codes d0 d14 g0 g02 g21 g28 l0 l13 l15

explaining the puzzle of cross state differences in bankruptcy rates abstract bankruptcy rates vary tremendously across states and it is not obvious why the number of candidate explanations is large relative to the number of states to overcome this problem we use zip code level data to identify the importance of demographic variables using within state variation this preserves state level degrees of freedom to identify the impact of state policy variables demographics wage garnishment restrictions and the fraction of bankruptcies filed under chapter 13 explain 70 percent of the variation in filing rates across states exemption rates size of public safety nets and payday loan regulations contribute virtually nothing to the cross state variance in filing rates our findings suggest that state bankruptcy rates reflect the relative costs of filing for formal bankruptcy versus informal default states without effective wage garnishment provisions allow easy informal default furthermore repayment plans mandated under chapter 13 bankruptcy often lead to repeated bank

credit card debt and default over the life cycle this paper solves an empirically parameterized model of life cycle consumption which allows for uncollaterized borrowing and the possibility of default the simulation results show that i social stigma and credit limit have a very large impact on default rates ii education level also has a significant effect on the probability of default namely through differences in the shape of lifetime labor income profiles and iii the response of simulated default rates to labor income shocks is determined by the nature of labor income uncertainty temporary versus permanent additionally the model generates simultaneous consumer holdings of credit card debt and liquid assets

testing for liquidity constraints in euler equations with complementary data sources previous tests for liquidity constraints using consumption euler equations have frequently split the sample on the basis of wealth arguing that low wealth consumers are more likely to be constrained we propose alternative tests using different and more direct information on borrowing constraints obtained from the 1983 survey of consumer finances in a first stage we estimate probabilities of being constrained which are then utilized in a second sample the panel study of income dynamics to estimate switching regression models of the euler equation our estimates indicate stronger excess sensitivity associated with the possibility of liquidity constraints than the sample splitting approach

a portfolio view of consumer credit abstract to compute risk adjusted returns and gauge the volatility of their portfolios lenders need to know the covariances of their loans returns with aggregate returns we use unique credit bureau data to measure individuals covariance risk i e the covariance of their default risk with aggregate consumer default rates and more generally to analyze the distribution of credit including the effects of credit scores we find significant heterogeneity in covariance risk across consumers also the amount of credit they obtain significantly increases with their credit scores and decreases with their covariance risk especially revolving credit though the effect of covariance risk is smaller

looking behind mortgage delinquencies abstract delinquency rates for mortgages originated before and after the financial crisis are examined using a novel and large panel obtained by merging data from tax records and credit registers first we estimate the selection into the mortgage market using an exogenous index of local credit supply as exclusion restriction second controlling for selection we estimate the impact of income shocks on the delinquency rate we find that since 2008 the selection process has led to the halving of the delinquency rate conditional on the creation of a new mortgage job losses nearly double the delinquency risk estimates uncorrected for selection are severely downward biased

bankruptcy as implicit health insurance this paper examines the implicit health insurance that households receive from the ability to declare bankruptcy exploiting multiple sources of variation in asset exemption law i show that uninsured households with a greater financial cost of bankruptcy make higher out of pocket medical payments conditional on the amount of care received in turn i find that households with greater wealth at risk are more likely to hold health insurance the implicit insurance from bankruptcy distorts the insurance coverage decision using a microsimulation model i calculate that the optimal pigovian penalties are three quarters as large as the average penalties under the affordable care act

personal bankruptcy and credit market competition we document a link between u s credit supply and rising personal bankruptcy rates we exploit the exogenous variation in market contestability brought on by banking deregulation the relaxation of entry restrictions in the 1980s and 1990s at the state level we find deregulation explains at least 10 of the rise in bankruptcy rates we also find that deregulation leads to increased lending lower loss rates on loans and higher lending productivity our findings indicate that increased competition prompted banks to adopt sophisticated credit rating technology allowing for new credit extension to existing and previously excluded households the last quarter century saw a dramatic increase in the share of u s con sumers filing for personal bankruptcy thereby seeking a discharge of their unsecured debt in 2005 this increase led to the most comprehensive change to u s bankruptcy law since 1978 while several causes for the rise in bankruptcies have been advanced and it is the subject of ongoing research two potentially significant changes occurred during this period banking deregulation the relaxation of bank entry restrictions in the 1980s and 1990s and technological change in consumer lending banking deregulation by removing barriers to entry increases credit market competition and there fore affects the supply of credit new screening technologies change the way loans are made allowing for interest rates to better reflect underlying risk and thus facilitating lending to riskier borrowers in this paper we examine whether banking deregulation and technological change played a role in the increase in consumer bankruptcy the empirical literature has mostly focused on cross sectional differences in personal bankruptcy in particular it has revolved around legal institutions as a way to answer whether consumers file due to adverse events as part of a rational financial calculation or as a consequence of unfair or deceptive lending practices usually researchers have exploited the different asset exemptions across u s states i e the amount of personal assets protected from creditors

local labor markets and welfare spells do demand conditions matter this paper examines the impact of changes in labor market conditions on participation in the aid to families with dependent children afdc program in california transitions off welfare and transi

who gets credit after bankruptcy and why an information channel abstract conventional wisdom holds that individuals find it difficult to obtain new credit post bankruptcy using credit bureau data we test this hypothesis and show that more than 90 of bankrupt individuals receive credit shortly after filing individuals with good credit history prior to filing have reduced credit availability after bankruptcy while those with ex ante low credit quality receive more credit we show that credit supplied to low quality individuals is severely curtailed during the financial crisis we also find that the default probability on new debt increases after bankruptcy especially among individuals with high ex ante credit score these findings are consistent with an information channel in which bankruptcy reveals new information about a borrower s credit quality

learning about new technologies through social networks experimental evidence on nontraditional stoves in bangladesh there are few marketing studies of social learning about new technologies in low income countries this paper examines how learning through opinion leaders and social networks influences demand for nontraditional cookstoves a technology with important health and environmental consequences for developing country populations we conduct marketing interventions in rural bangladesh to assess how stove adoption decisions respond to a learning the adoption choices of locally identified opinion leaders and b learning about stove attributes and performance through social networks we find that households generally draw negative inferences about stoves through social learning and that social learning is more important for stoves with less evident benefits in an institutional environment where consumers are distrustful of new products and brands consumers appear to rely on their networks more to learn about negative product attributes overall our findings imply that external information and marketing campaigns can induce initial adoption and experiential learning about unfamiliar technologies but sustained use ultimately requires that new technologies match local preferences

the determinants of attitudes towards strategic default on mortgages we use survey data to measure households propensity to default on mortgages even if they can afford to pay them strategic default when the value of the mortgage exceeds the value of the house the willingness to default increases in both the absolute and the relative size of the home equity shortfall our evidence suggests that this willingness is affected by both pecuniary and non pecuniary factors such as views about fairness and morality we also find that exposure to other people who strategically defaulted increases the propensity to default strategically because it conveys information about the probability of being sued

what happens when information leaves a market evidence from postbankruptcy consumers federal law mandates the removal of personal bankruptcies from credit reports after 10 years the removal s effect is market efficiency in reverse the short term effect is a spurious boost in apparent creditworthiness especially for the more creditworthy bankrupts delivering a substantial increase in both credit scores and the number and aggregate limit of bank cards the longer term effect is lower scores and higher delinquency than initial full information scores predict these findings relate to both the debate over the bankruptcy code and the wisdom of influencing market clearing by removing information

an empirical analysis of personal bankruptcy and delinquency this article uses a new dataset of credit card accounts to analyze credit card delinquency personal bankruptcy and the stability of credit risk models we estimate duration models for default and assess the relative importance of different variables in predicting default we investigate how the propensity to default has changed over time disentangling the two leading explanations for the recent increase in default rates a deterioration in the risk composition of borrowers versus an increase in borrowers willingness to default due to declines in default costs even after controlling for risk composition and economic fundamentals the propensity to default significantly increased between 1995 and 1997 standard default models missed an important time varying default factor consistent with a decline in default costs debt issued by consumers is an understudied asset class there has been particularly little academic study of recent trends in default on this debt between 1994 and 1997 the number of personal bankruptcy filings in the united states rose by about 75 the 1 35 million filings in 1997 represented well over 1 of u s households delinquency rates on credit cards rose almost as sharply federal reserve bank of cleveland 1998 the resulting losses to lenders amounted to a sizable fraction of the interest payments they collect potentially raising the average cost of credit these trends in default both in bankruptcy and delinquency are especially surprising in light of the strong economy over the period they provide an unusually rich source of variation to test the stability of models that forecast personal default and of credit risk models more generally there are two leading explanations for these trends first the risk composition of borrowers might have worsened under the risk effect less

spline based survival model for credit risk modeling abstract survival modeling has been adapted in retail banking because of its capability to analyze the censored data it is an important tool for credit risk scoring stress testing and credit asset evaluation in this paper we introduce a regression spline based discrete time survival model the flexibility of spline function allows us to model the nonlinear and irregular shape of the hazard functions by incorporating the regression spline into the multinomial logistic regression this approach complements the existing cox model from a practical perspective the logistic regression is relatively easy to understand and implement and the simple parametric form is especially advantageous for predictive scoring using a credit card dataset we demonstrate how to build a cubic regression spline based survival model we also compare the performance of spline based discrete time survival model with the classical cox model our results show the spline based survival model can provide similar statistical explanatory and improve the prediction accuracy for attrition model which has low event rate

forecasting bankruptcy more accurately a simple hazard model i argue that hazard models are more appropriate than single period models for forecasting bankruptcy single period models are inconsistent while hazard models produce consistent estimates i describe a simple technique for estimating a discrete time hazard model i find that about half of the accounting ratios that have been used in previous models are not statistically significant moreover market size past stock returns and idiosyncratic returns variability are all strongly related to bankruptcy i propose a model that uses both accounting ratios and market driven variables to produce out of sample forecasts that are more accurate than those of alternative models copyright 2001 by university of chicago press

seeing is believing evidence from an extension network experiment extension is designed to enable lab to farm technology diffusion decentralized models assume that information flows from researchers to extension workers and from extension agents to contact farmers cfs cfs should then train other farmers in their communities such a modality may fail to address informational inefficiencies and accountability issues the authors run a field experiment to measure the impact of augmenting the cf model with a direct cf training on the diffusion of a new technology all villages have cfs and access the same extension network in treatment villages cfs additionally receive a three day central training on the new technology they track information transmission through two nodes of the extension network from extension agents to cfs and from cfs to other farmers directly training cfs leads to a large statistically significant increase in adoption among cfs however higher levels of cf adoption have limited impact on the behavior of other farmers

do liquidity constraints and interest rates matter for consumer behavior evidence from credit card data this paper utilizes a unique new dataset of credit card accounts to analyze how people respond to changes in credit supply the data consist of a panel of thousands of individual credit card accounts from several different card issuers with associated credit bureau data we estimate both marginal propensities to consume mpcs out of liquidity and interest rate elasticities we also evaluate the ability of different models of consumption to rationalize our results distinguishing the permanent income hypothesis pih liquidity constraints precautionary saving and behavioral models we find that increases in credit limits generate an immediate and significant rise in debt counter to the pih the average mpc out of liquidity ddebt dlimit ranges between 10 14 the mpc is much larger for people starting near their limits consistent with binding liquidity constraints however the mpc is significant even for people starting well below their limit we show this response is consistent with buffer stock models of precautionary saving nonetheless there are other results that conventional models cannot easily explain e g why so many people are borrowing on their credit cards and simultaneously holding low yielding assets unlike most other studies we also find strong effects from changes in account specific interest rates the long run elasticity of debt to the interest rate is approximately 1 3 less than half of this elasticity represents balance shifting across cards with most reflecting net changes in total borrowing the elasticity is larger for decreases in interest rates than for increases which can explain the widespread use of temporary promotional rates the elasticity is smaller for people starting near their credit limits again consistent with liquidity constraints

the household bankruptcy decision personal bankruptcy filings have risen from 0 3 percent of households per year in 1984 to around 1 35 percent in 1998 and 1999 transforming bankruptcy from a rare occurrence to a routine event lenders lost about 39 billion in 1998 due to personal bankruptcy filings but economists have little understanding of why households file for bankruptcy or why filings have increased so rapidly until very recently studying the household bankruptcy decision was very difficult because no household level data set existed that included information on bankruptcy filings in this paper we use new data from the panel study of income dynamics which includes information on bankruptcy filings to estimate a model of households bankruptcy decisions we find support for the strategic model of bankruptcy which predicts that households are more likely to file when their financial benefit from filing is higher our model predicts that an increase of 1 000 in households financial benefit from bankruptcy would result in a 7 percent increase in the number of bankruptcy filings our model also predicts that if the 1997 national bankruptcy review commission s proposed changes in bankruptcy exemption levels were implemented there would be a 16 percent increase in the number of bankruptcy filings each year but if the 100 000 cap on homestead exemptions recently passed by the u s senate were adopted our model predicts that there would be only a negligible effect on the number of filings we find little support for the nonstrategic model of bankruptcy which predicts that households file when adverse events occur which reduce their ability to repay finally controlling for state and time fixed effects our model shows that households are more likely to file for bankruptcy if they live in districts with higher aggregate filing rates

the role of opinion leaders in the diffusion of new knowledge the case of integrated pest management the paper reviews the literature on the characteristics and impact of opinion leaders on the diffusion of new knowledge concluding that there is no clear evidence on whether opinion leaders are more effective if they are similar in socioeconomic attributes to the other farmers rather than superior to would be followers a multivariate analysis of the changes in integrated pest management knowledge in indonesia among follower farmers over the period 1991 98 indicates that opinion leaders who are superior to followers but not excessively so are more effective in transmitting knowledge excessive socioeconomic distance is shown to reduce the effectiveness of diffusion the paper then derives operational implications of the empirical results

improved stoves in india a study of sustainable business models burning of biomass for cooking is associated with health problems and climate change impacts many previous efforts to disseminate improved stoves primarily by governments and ngos have not been successful based on interviews with 12 organizations selling improved biomass stoves we assess the results to date and future prospects of commercial stove operations in india specifically we consider how the ability of these businesses to achieve scale and become self sustaining has been influenced by six elements of their respective business models design customers targeted financing marketing channel strategy and organizational characteristics the two companies with the most stoves in the field shared in common generous enterprise financing a sophisticated approach to developing a sales channel and many person years of management experience in marketing and operations and yet the financial sustainability of improved stove sales to households remains far from assured the only company in our sample with demonstrated profitability is a family owned business selling to commercial rather than household customers the stove sales leader is itself now turning to the commercial segment to maintain flagging cash flow casting doubt on the likelihood of large positive impacts on health from sales to households in the near term

impact of state exemption laws on small business bankruptcy decision 1 introductionsmall businesses are a primary source of employment in the u s economy employing over half of the private sector workforce small businesses are responsible for about two thirds of all net new jobs created according to the 2002 small business economic indicators sbei 1 over 99 7 of the 5 7 million firms in the united states are classified as small to medium sized businesses hence small businesses are a substantial contributor to economic growth in the united states small business owners enjoy more flexibility and freedom to capitalize on profitable opportunities than their larger business competitors hence they challenge the larger firms to be more efficient which is ultimately beneficial to consumers unfortunately small and medium sized businesses have a very low survival rate sbei 2002 in 2002 on the heels of the 2001 recession there were 550 100 small business births and 584 500 small business terminations both academics and public policy analysts have become increasingly concerned about the success of small businesses recently there has been a surge in small business research particularly surrounding small business credit supply and demand not surprisingly much of the literature has been focused on changes in lending technologies relationship2 versus scored3 information processing technologies soft versus hard 4 loan size considerations 5 and loan type considerations6 as they relate to small business supply and demand however very few have actually examined why small and medium sized businesses have very low survival rates some studies have analyzed the sensitivities of small business administration sba guaranteed loans to macroeconomic changes industry risks maturity structures 3 7 and 15 year maturities as well as lender and debt characteristics e g glennon and nigro 2001 2002 dunsky and pennington cross 2003 meanwhile agarwal chomsisengphet and liu 2003 empirically assessed the significant importance of owner and firm characteristics in determining the risk of small business default while controlling for the macroeconomic and industry risks with bankruptcy filings continuing to rise significantly in recent years many policy makers are turning their attention to bankruptcy laws specifically congress is considering reforming personal bankruptcy laws that if passed will significantly impact the demand for and supply of both consumer credit and small business funding white 2001 concludes that this bankruptcy reform could potentially reduce small business ownership but increase the supply of small business credit and in turn affect the growth of the u s economy small business owners have an incentive to file for personal bankruptcy when their indebtedness exceeds the value of their assets because both their personal and business debts can be discharged 7 though the bankruptcy exemption law is primarily designed for consumers the personal bankruptcy exemption law is a de facto bankruptcy procedure for small business owners because the debt of a noncorporate firm is the personal liability of the entrepreneur owner fan and white 2003 hence investigating the potential impact of the exemption law on small business bankruptcy decisions may provide some insight into how the bankruptcy laws should be reformed further fan and white 2003 argue that while the expected return to creditors should be lower in states with higher exemption level upon small business shutdown it is not entirely clear whether lenders will actually shut down a financially troubled small business while they empirically find that small businesses in high exemption states are more likely to be shut down this positive relationship is statistically insignificant the authors conclude that additional research will be needed to determine if a significant relationship exists p