the adoption of reduced tillage the role of human capital and other variables this paper presents a model of adoption behavior and explains differences econometrically in farmers decisions to adopt reduced tillage practices and in the efficiency of farmers adoption decisions the empirical results obtained from microdata show that the probability of adopting reduced tillage in corn enterprises differs widely across farms and depends on soil characteristics cropping systems and size of farming operation the results also show that farmers schooling enhances the efficiency of the adoption decision

best practices in demand forecasting tests of universalistic contingency and configurational theories abstract the paper focuses on best practices in demand forecasting literature has addressed the best practice concept under three different perspectives according to the universalistic perspective some forecasting practices are universally effective regardless of the context in which companies operate in the contingent perspective the effectiveness of forecasting practices depends on the specific kind of context each company faces a third perspective is the configurational one which asserts that there are synergistic effects among best practices in this work we compare these different perspectives by designing and testing different sets of propositions that underline the aforementioned perspectives analysis is conducted by collecting data of more than 500 companies in different countries via the 4th edition of the global manufacturing research group gmrg iv questionnaire the results demonstrate that each perspective has some empirical support

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

impact of farmer field schools on agricultural productivity and poverty in east africa summary the authors used a longitudinal impact evaluation with quasi experimental methods to provide evidence on economic and production impact of a farmer field school ffs project in east africa ffss were shown to have positive impact on production and income among women low literacy and medium land size farmers participation in ffs increased income by 61 participation in ffs improved agricultural income and crop productivity overall this implies that farmer field schools are a useful approach to increase production and income of small scale farmers in east africa and that the approach can be used to target women and producers with limited literacy

evolutionary stability in games of communication abstract this paper identifies evolutionarily stable outcomes in games in which one player has private information and the other takes a payoff relevant action the informed player can communicate at little cost outcomes satisfying a set valued evolutionary stability condition must exist and be efficient in common interest games when there is a small cost associated with using each message the outcome preferred by the informed player is stable the paper introduces a nonequilibrium set valued stability notion of entry resistant sets for games with partial common interest the no communication outcome is never an element of an entry resistant set journal of economic literature classification numbers c72 d82

the economic impact of agricultural extension a review the history of economic development shows that few countries have achieved sustained economic growth without first or simultaneously developing their agricultural sector in most developing countries agriculture is the most important economic activity providing income employment and foreign exchange without an efficient agricultural sector a country is severely constrained in its ability to feed itself or import foreign products for domestic consumption and development rapid technological advances in agriculture have occurred since world war ii these advances have induced great changes in agricultural production and also highlighted the importance of a rapid and efficient transfer of advanced knowledge to the farmer when farmers become aware of the availability of new technology they may have inaccurate perceptions of the related costs and benefits as information availability may be limited as farmers decisions are based on their perceptions their resource allocation and technology choice will deviate from the social optimum if perceptions do not coincide with the correct attributes of the technology both society and the farmers as individuals would gain from improved information and theoretically there should exist a market for information however information on improved agricultural technology is often a public good because the provider of the information cannot exclude other potential users from free access to information provided to one user and the value of the information is not directly affected by the number of users while many instances of market activities in various aspects of agricultural information are observed e g specialized information on pest man

a field study of sales forecasting accuracy and processes abstract as might be expected surveys show accuracy is the most important criterion in selecting a forecasting strategy this may lead to the expectation that computer based software would be used to aid the forecasting effort however despite the wide availability of forecast software management judgement appears to be the preferred method this leads to the question does management judgement provide the most accurate forecast estimates this paper reports a field study of judgemental sales forecasting over thirteen manufacturing organisations to investigate whether these forecasts are accurate unbiased and efficient and whether better ex ante forecasts could have been developed using a computer based model the study shows that the company forecasts were not uniformly more accurate than a simple un seasonally adjusted naive forecast most of the source of error is due to both inefficiency a serial correlation in the errors and bias in the forecasts these two factors seemed to mask any contribution of contextual information to accuracy the results are also discussed in terms of forecasting objectives the organisations may have other than accuracy

economic efficiency and supply response of women as farm managers comparative evidence from western kenya summary this paper assessed the relative economic efficiency and output supply and input demand responses of women farmers in western kenya the results showed that women are as technically and allocatively efficient as men however neither men nor women have absolute allocative efficiency women farmers are equally responsive to price incentives in terms of output supply and input demand while education and extension contact have significant effects on overall maize supply and input demand only extension contact has significant effects among women farmers the paper discusses a number of significant results and concludes with implications for policy

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

whether crop diversification is a desired strategy for agricultural growth in bangladesh abstract this study aimed at examining the merit of crop diversification as a strategy for agricultural growth in bangladesh specifically the existence of economies of diversification scale economies and diversification efficiencies at the farm level were examined using a stochastic input distance function approach the results reveal strong evidence of diversification economies amongst most crop enterprises except the combination of modern rice and modern wheat enterprises ray economies of scale exist in bangladeshi cropping system also significant are efficiency gains made from diversification among cropping enterprises the key policy implication is that crop diversification should be a desired strategy for agricultural growth in bangladesh development of the rural infrastructure is also essential as this will not only improve technical efficiency but may also synergistically promote crop diversification by opening up opportunities for technology diffusion marketing storage and resource supplies

the behavior of the exchange rate in the genetic algorithm and experimental economies this paper studies the behavior of the exchange rate in the kareken wallace overlapping generations economy with two currencies in which decision rules are updated using the genetic algorithm the analysis shows that a stationary monetary equilibrium of the kareken wallace model is not stable under the genetic algorithm dynamics the fluctuations in the genetic algorithm exchange rate are driven by fluctuations in the portfolio fractions which change over time in response to the inequality between the rates of return on two currencies further both the genetic algorithm simulations and the experiments with human subjects were characterized by continuing fluctuations of the exchange rate with first period consumption values close to a stationary value

the heterogeneous effect of shocks on agricultural innovations adoption microeconometric evidence from rural ethiopia abstract theoretically the relationship between shocks and agricultural innovation adoption could be ambiguous while shocks could lower the competence and capacity of households to adopt new agricultural innovations households can also take up agricultural innovations as a coping mechanism against the different shocks they face using a nationally representative household data from ethiopia of the living standards measurement study integrated surveys on agriculture lsms isa of the world bank this paper analyzes the effect of idiosyncratic and covariate shocks on adoption of different agricultural innovations assuming interdependence among the innovations we find shocks to have heterogeneous effects on the adoption of agricultural innovations specifically production and health shocks have negative effects on the adoption of high cost innovations such as improved seeds chemical fertilizer and irrigation however production shocks are positively associated with low cost innovations such as organic fertilizer to enhance farmers adoption of agricultural innovations especially high cost innovations there is a greater need towards the design of policies and interventions that would reduce household s exposure to production and health shocks

adoption of organic farming are there differences between early and late adoption based on the fact that not all farmers adopt a technology at the same time it is argued in this paper that the distinction between groups is important because early medium and late adopters respond differently to economic and non economic factors when they consider whether to take up organic farming or not the individual effects on adoption between the groups are identified by the use of multinomial logit analysis the results provide evidence that there are significant differences in the characteristics between the adopter groups the findings also reveal that the factors that affect adoption play a different role for early medium and late adopters particularly with regard to farming intensity age information gathering as well as attitudes of the farmer more specifically early adopters were the youngest to adopt organic farming and their decisions were found to be less profit related compared to other groups late adoption is constrained by risk considerations while environmental attitudes and social learning were identified to be important determinants for all adopter groups overall the findings strongly suggest that for policy measures to be effective the current state of diffusion has to be taken into account

money as a medium of exchange in an economy with artificially intelligent agents abstract we study the exchange economies of kiyotaki and wright 1989 in which agents must use a commodity or fiat money as a medium of exchange if trade is to occur our agents are artificially intelligent and are modeled as using classifier systems to make decisions in the assignment of credit within the classifier systems we introduce some innovations designed to study sequential decision problems in a multi agent environment for most economies that we have simulated trading and consumption patterns converge to a stationary nash equilibrium even if agents start with random rules in economies with multiple equilibria the only equilibrium that emerges in our simulations is the one in which goods with low storage costs play the role of medium of exchange i e the fundamental equilibrium of kiyotaki and wright

testing the rationality of doe s energy price forecasts under asymmetric loss preferences this paper examines the rationality of the price forecasts for energy commodities of the united states department of energy s doe departing from the common assumption in the literature that doe s forecasts are based on a symmetric underlying loss function with respect to positive vs negative forecast errors instead we opt for the methodology of elliott et al 2005 that allows testing the joint hypothesis of an asymmetric loss function and rationality and reveals the underlying preferences of the forecaster results indicate the existence of asymmetries in the shape of the loss function for most energy categories with preferences leaning towards optimism moreover we also examine whether there is a structural break in those preferences over the examined period 1997 2012

attitudes and farmer conservation behavior conservation behavior is influenced by the attitudes of farmers and by context variables like income and farm terrain important attitudes were selected by using the theory that fundamental value ranks or weights affect attitudes and that only certain values are important to the conservation decision an extension of the tobit estimation approach handling both censored observations of the dependent variable and measurement error for the nonlimit observations was used conservation behavior models can be improved with a merger of concepts and approaches from social psychology and economics

genetic algorithm learning and the cobweb model this paper presents the cobweb model in which competitive firms in a market for a single good use a genetic algorithm to update their decision rules about next period production and sales the results of simulations show that the genetic algorithm converges to the rational expectations equilibrium for a wider range of parameter values than other algorithms frequently studied within the context of the cobweb model price and quantity patterns generated by the genetic algorithm are also compared to the data of experimental cobweb economies it is shown that the algorithm can capture several features of the experimental behavior of human subjects better than three other learning algorithms that are considered

auctions with artificial adaptive agents abstract experiments on auctions find that subjects make systematic bidding errors that cannot be explained within the context of nash equilibrium bidding models experimenters and others have conjectured that learning by subjects could lead to errors consistent with those observed here we create and analyze a model of adaptive learning and demonstrate that such a model can capture the bidding patterns evident among human subjects in experimental auctions moreover our model provides a variety of insights into the nature of learning across different auction institutions journal of economic literature classification numbers c7 c9

note on adjustments to analysts earnings forecasts based upon systematic cross sectional components of prior period errors this study assesses the effectiveness of using systematic components of cross sectional forecast errors from prior years in order to adjust current analysts earnings forecasts the empirical results document that a significant component of the cross sectional mse in analysts forecasts is systematic and that parameter estimates from earlier periods enable the elimination of a substantial portion of the systematic errors in current forecasts further improvements in forecast accuracy are attained by the incorporation of prior year excess security returns in order to reduce unsystematic error

analytical debiasing of corporate cash flow forecasts abstract we propose and empirically test statistical approaches to debiasing judgmental corporate cash flow forecasts accuracy of cash flow forecasts plays a pivotal role in corporate planning as liquidity and foreign exchange risk management are based on such forecasts surprisingly to our knowledge there is no previous empirical work on the identification statistical correction and interpretation of prediction biases in large enterprise financial forecast data in general and cash flow forecasting in particular employing a unique set of empirical forecasts delivered by 34 legal entities of a multinational corporation over a multi year period we compare different forecast correction techniques such as theil s method and approaches employing robust regression both with various discount factors our findings indicate that rectifiable mean as well as regression biases exist for all business divisions of the company and that statistical correction increases forecast accuracy significantly we show that the parameters estimated by the models for different business divisions can also be related to the characteristics of the business environment and provide valuable insights for corporate financial controllers to better understand quantify and feedback the biases to the forecasters aiming to systematically improve predictive accuracy over time

from participation to adoption comparing the effectiveness of soil conservation programs in the peruvian andes many efforts are made to promote soil conservation in developing countries this paper compares the effect of two programs promoting soil conservation in peru on the adoption decision of households one program applies a top down approach with soil conservation as its core activity the other program applies a participatory approach offering a portfolio of activities in order to improve rural livelihoods the decisions on participation and adoption are estimated with a trivariate probit model the results show that each program attracts different types of households and achieves different outcomes in terms of soil conservation

tales of dissemination in small farm agriculture lessons for institution builders abstract this article describes patterns that are discernible across a dozen cases of good micro performance in agricultural research and extension in poverty stricken northeast brazil research meant to contribute toward a more grounded approach to remedying the problem of mediocre performance of these institutions elsewhere the good performances involved the presence of demanding user agencies outside extension and research shorter time horizons and more focused tasks localized credit subsidies with automatic sunset provisions and penalties for nonperformance a strong presence of municipal elites normally avoided in the design of such programs and an equally strong and complementary presence of more centralized public sector actors

investment in soil conservation in northern ethiopia the role of land tenure security and public programs abstract a double hurdle statistical analysis of 250 farms in the tigray region of ethiopia reveals different causal factors for soil conservation adoption versus intensity of use farmers reasons for adopting soil conservation measures vary sharply between stone terraces and soil bunds long term investments in stone terraces were associated with secure land tenure labour availability proximity to the farmstead and learning opportunities via the existence of local food for work ffw projects by contrast short term investments in soil bunds were strongly linked to insecure land tenure and the absence of local food for work projects public conservation campaigns on private plots reduced adoption of both stone terraces and soil bunds whereas capacity factors largely influenced the adoption decision expected returns carried more influence for the intensity of stone terrace adoption measured as metres of terrace per hectare more stone terracing was built where fertile but erodible silty soils in higher rainfall areas offered valuable yield benefits intensity of terracing was also greater in remote villages where limited off farm employment opportunities reduced construction costs these results highlight the importance of the right kind of public interventions direct public involvement in constructing soil conservation structures on private lands appears to undermine incentives for private conservation investments when done on public lands however public conservation activities may encourage private soil conservation by example secure land tenure rights clearly reinforce private incentives to make long term investments in soil conservation

farmer education and farm efficiency in nepal the role of schooling extension services and cognitive skills this paper reports on the analysis of data from nepal the farm households surveyed were chosen so that about half were in a region exposed to the newly introduced training and visit t v extension service while the other half were exposed to less intensive traditional extension services thus in addition to providing information on the mechanisms of education s effects on efficiency this study evaluates the impact of t v extension as introduced in nepal our study finds a positive effect of education on efficiency for the three major crops but only with wheat was the effect statistically significant at standard levels there is definite evidence of a threshold level of education 6 years below which education s impact is small and above which the effect is important the effect of education on efficiency is important only for adapting to changing circumstances we found no evidence that education s effects should be attributed even in part to family background correlates or to a measure we had of ability the farmer s numeracy did affect productivity in wheat production our measures of modernity and agricultural knowledge were uncorrelated with efficiency

cheap talk can matter in bargaining this paper describes an intuitive way in which cheap talk can matter in a twostage bargaining game in which talk may be followed by serious negotiation the intuition that all buyers would claim to have low reservation prices is incorrect in our model instead if good faith participation is endogenously determined then the parties can use talk to trade off bargaining position against the probability of continued negotiation our cheap talk equilibrium features bargaining behavior that could not be equilibrium behavior in the absence of talk

factors influencing adoption of land enhancing technology in the sahel lessons from a case study in niger abstract technical change through the introduction of land enhancing conservation technologies is essential to economic growth in the sahel tobit analysis was used to identify factors that motivate level and intensity of adoption of specific soil and water management technologies the results show that higher percentage of degraded farmland extension education lower risk aversion and the availability of short term profits are important for increasing the adoption and intensity of use of improved tassa and half crescent shaped earthen mounds age and attitudes to differential gains between farm and non farm income showed no influence on adoption three main policy implications emerge from these findings first technologies should be targeted to locations that have large percentages of degraded farmlands the probability of adoption and intensity of use are likely to be high at such locations second there is the need to provide extension education that demonstrates risk reduction capacities of conservation techniques this will make available information capable of stimulating adoption of land enhancing technologies finally policy makers should not seek to target innovations to younger farmers because age has no relationship to adoption of the improved tassa and half crescent shaped earthen mounds lessons from the case study have broad relevance to cropped areas in the sahel

tactical sales forecasting using a very large set of macroeconomic indicators abstract tactical forecasting in supply chain management supports planning for inventory scheduling production and raw material purchase amongst other functions it typically refers to forecasts up to 12 months ahead traditional forecasting models take into account univariate information extrapolating from the past but cannot anticipate macroeconomic events such as steep increases or declines in national economic activity in practice this is countered by using managerial expert judgement which is well known to suffer from various biases is expensive and not scalable this paper evaluates multiple approaches to improve tactical sales forecasting using macro economic leading indicators the proposed statistical forecast selects automatically both the type of leading indicators as well as the order of the lead for each of the selected indicators however as the future values of the leading indicators are unknown an additional uncertainty is introduced this uncertainty is controlled in our methodology by restricting inputs to an unconditional forecasting setup we compare this with the conditional setup where future indicator values are assumed to be known and assess the theoretical loss of forecast accuracy we also evaluate purely statistical model building against judgement aided models where potential leading indicators are pre filtered by experts quantifying the accuracy cost trade off the proposed framework improves on forecasting accuracy over established time series benchmarks while providing useful insights about the key leading indicators we evaluate the proposed approach on a real case study and find 18 8 accuracy gains over the current forecasting process

corporate financing an artificial agent based analysis we examine corporate security choice by simulating an economy populated by adaptive agents who learn about the structure of security returns and prices through experience through a process of evolutionary selection each agent gravitates toward strategies that generate the highest payoffs despite the fact that markets are perfect and agents maximize value a financing hierarchy emerges in which straight debt dominates other financing choices equity and convertible debt display significant underpricing in general the smaller the probability of loss to outside investors the more likely the firm is to issue the security and the smaller the security s underpricing

cheap talk coordination and evolutionary stability abstract asymmetric information games where the informed player can send a costless message sender receiver games typically have equilibria where meaningful communication occurs we therefore know such cheap talk can matter still even when there is no conflict of interest there are also equilibria where no information transmission occurs this paper shows that for a class of games with perfectly coinciding interests modeled as asymmetric contests where players are unsure of which role they will have only meaningful communication is evolutionarily stable journal of economic literature classification numbers c70 c72 d82

ex ante actions and ex post public responses to drought shocks evidence and simulations from zimbabwe abstract the study examines the consequences of alternative public responses to drought shocks it does so by drawing on household data from resettlement areas of rural zimbabwe from 1992 93 to 1995 96 and the estimation of four behavioral relations the determinants of crop income the determinants of investment in livestock the determinants of investment in agricultural capital stock and the determinants of private transfers this information is used to construct a series of simulations in which drought relief received in the aftermath of the 1994 95 the ex post response is made available to households in the form of agricultural capital stock and extension advice an ex ante action doing so is found to raise household welfare in nondrought years but provides only limited protection in the aftermath of drought

relative efficiency of women as farm managers profit function analysis in cote d ivoire abstract the efficiency of women farmers in the agricultural sector of developing countries is passionately debated very few studies have examined this issue in african agriculture all previous studies were based on production functions but have been criticised as suffering from simultaneous equation bias because the input levels are endogenous the profit function method avoids these problems no previous study has used the profit function method to test for technical allocative and economic efficiency differences between women and men farmers the objective of this paper was to determine whether women rice farmers are less efficient than men rice farmers in cote d ivoire using the restricted normalised profit function method our results show that the relative degree of efficiency of women is similar to that of men the paper provides empirical support for efforts to eliminate bias against women farmers in african agriculture

finding missing markets and a disturbing epilogue evidence from an export crop adoption and marketing intervention in kenya in much of the developing world many farmers grow crops for local or personal consumption despite export options that appear to be more profitable thus many conjecture that one or several markets are missing this paper reports on a randomized controlled trial conducted by drumnet in kenya that attempts to help farmers adopt and market export crops drumnet provides smallholder farmers with information about how to switch to export crops makes in kind loans for the purchase of the agricultural inputs and provides marketing services by facilitating the transaction with exporters the experimental evaluation design randomly assigns pre existing farmer self help groups to one of three groups 1 a treatment group that receives all drumnet services 2 a treatment group that receives all drumnet services except credit or 3 a control group after one year drumnet services led to an increase in production of export oriented crops and lower marketing costs this translated into household income gains for new adopters however one year after the study ended the exporter refused to continue buying the cash crops from the farmers because the conditions of the farms did not satisfy european export requirements drumnet collapsed in this region as farmers were forced to sell to middlemen and defaulted on their loans the risk of such events may explain at least partly why many seemingly more profitable export crops are not adopted

extension services product quality and yields the case of grapes in argentina this article studies the impact of publicly subsidized agricultural extension services on yields and product quality we use panel data from grape producers in mendoza argentina to estimate the impacts of farmer trainings we find a negative overall impact on yields and evidence of a positive average impact on the adoption of higher quality grape varieties by analyzing the dynamic pattern of the estimated effects we find evidence of a temporary decrease in yields suggesting the existence of an adjustment process following the introduction of higher quality grapes the overall negative effect on yield is driven by a sharp drop in the year of participation this fades after year one and two to three years after treatment we observe increases in higher quality grape production findings reinforce the importance of temporal dimension of extension services

the impacts of information on returns from farming evidence from a nationally representative farm survey in india using a nationally representative sample of farm households from india this paper examines the impact of use of information on net farm incomes employing methodologies that mitigate potential biases in the estimation of the impact the empirical results show that farmers who use information realize over 12 higher net returns per hectare the paper also establishes a pecking order in access to information small farmers and those at the bottom of social hierarchy based on caste have access to fewer information sources and they depend more on informal social networks and input dealers for their information needs the larger farmers and those from upper caste rely relatively more on sources such as radio television and newspaper

environmental impacts of technological change in bangladesh agriculture farmers perceptions determinants and effects on resource allocation decisions this article measures the impact of modern technology adoption in raising farmers environmental awareness and the impact of farmers environmental awareness on resource use by utilizing survey data from 21 villages in three agro ecological regions of bangladesh the econometric analysis is based on the application of the tobit model explaining farmers environmental awareness in the first stage and a profit function examining environmental awareness and resource use relationships in the second stage results reveal that the level and duration of involvement with modern technology raises farmers environmental awareness and that farmers environmental awareness reduces resource use including chemicals farmers who are aware of the adverse environmental impacts of modern agricultural technology use lower amounts of all inputs in order to avoid further environmental damage therefore efforts to raise farmers environmental awareness are expected to enhance intangible benefits accruing from a relatively less chemical intensive environment

stages and determinants of fertilizer use in semiarid african agriculture the niger experience fertilization is a stepwise decision in niger survey data from a representative sample of 100 households were utilized with individual and joint estimation to evaluate the determinants of fertilizer use at its three different stages manure alone and two different types of inorganic fertilizer application the fertilizer price relative to the millet price was always a highly significant determinant of fertilizer adoption farmers experience in seeing the results of fertilization in the field was a principal factor influencing the use of manure and of the micro fertilization other studies in semiarid regions have emphasized risk liquidity or fertilizer responsiveness under harsh conditions but the shift to the micro doses of inorganic fertilizer was statistically associated here with the demonstration trials and the price ratios fertilizer millet a variable reflecting the millet price recovery approximately 6 months after harvest was the most important factor in the decision to raise further inorganic fertilizer use with side dressing policy implications were focused on the importance of demonstration trials and improvements in the economic conditions millet fertilizer price ratios

the impact of water conservation and intensification technologies empirical evidence for rice farmers in ghana this study employs the propensity score matching model to examine the impact of the adoption of water conservation and intensification technologies on farm output and income among small scale lowland rice farmers in the northern region of ghana the matching was conducted based on the mahalanobis distance combined with the propensity score balancing tests by checking the mean standardized absolute bias in the matched sample were conducted as well as a sensitivity analysis was conducted to check for hidden bias due to unobservable selection the empirical results show a positive and significant impact of the adoption of bunds technology on input demand as well as a positive but insignificant impact on output supply and net returns adopters of the dibbling technology were found to have higher output supply whereas no statistically significant difference was found between the incomes of adopters and nonadopters of dibbling seed method the results however reveal a positive and significant effect on output and net returns when the dibbling method is combined with intensified weeding the estimates were found to be relatively insensitive to hidden bias

the evolution of type communication in a sender receiver game of common interest with cheap talk abstract we use a genetic algorithm to simulate play of a sender receiver game of common interest in which players engage in anonymous pairwise interactions the order of an equilibrium is the number of player types that are communicated there are many equilibria of each order equilibria of the same order are pareto equivalent and equilibria of different orders are pareto ranked by their order we discover a dynamic process in which the population climbs an equilibrium payoff ladder successively moving from an equilibrium of one order to an equilibrium of the next highest order eventually converging on an equilibrium of the highest order