Price information, inter-village networks, and “bargaining spillovers”: Experimental evidence from Ghana

A-Tier
Journal: Journal of Development Economics
Year: 2023
Volume: 164
Issue: C

Score contribution per author:

1.005 = (α=2.01 / 4 authors) × 2.0x A-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

Through a randomized experiment and detailed data on inter-village communication, we identify the impact of providing commodity price information to smallholder farmers. For yam, a crop with high prevalence of bargaining, the intervention leads to a 9% increase in the prices received by farmers in the treatment group in the first year and possibly to mixed indirect effects in the second year in areas with high density of treatment. While control farmers do not gain price information, we speculate that bargaining spillovers might lead to indirect benefits and capture this intuition in a formal model. The intervention has no impact on other crops grown in the area, which are characterized by different market structures and lower incidence of bargaining. The results expand our understanding of the market structure characteristics that affect the effectiveness of ICT interventions and highlight the importance of considering longer-run inter-village spillover effects.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:eee:deveco:v:164:y:2023:i:c:s030438782300055x
Journal Field
Development
Author Count
4
Added to Database
2026-01-26