Nudging Farmers to Use Fertilizer: Theory and Experimental Evidence from Kenya
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Duflo_Nudging Farmers.pdf
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592.94 KB
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Author(s)
Duflo, Esther
Kremer, Michael
Robinson, Jonathan
Date Issued
October 2010
Journal
American Economic Review
Publisher
American Economic Association
Citation
Duflo, Esther, Michael Kremer, and Jonathan Robinson. 2011. "Nudging Farmers to Use Fertilizer: Theory and Experimental Evidence from Kenya." American Economic Review, 101(6): 2350–90.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
We model farmers as facing small fixed costs of purchasing fertilizer and assume some are stochastically present biased and not fully sophisticated about this bias. Such farmers may procrastinate, postponing fertilizer purchases until later periods, when they may be too impatient to purchase fertilizer. Consistent with the model, many farmers in Western Kenya fail to take advantage of apparently profitable fertilizer investments, but they do invest in response to small, time-limited discounts on the cost of acquiring fertilizer (free delivery) just after harvest. Calibration suggests that this policy can yield higher welfare than either laissez-faire policies or heavy subsidies.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics
Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.101.6.2350
