Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP18215
Authors: Esther Duflo; Daniel Keniston; Tavneet Suri; Cline Zipfel
Abstract: Agricultural extension programs often train a few farmers and count on diffusion through social networks for the innovation to spread. However, if markets are imperfectly integrated, this may also inflict negative externalities. In a two-step experiment of an agronomy training program among Rwandan coffee farmers, we first randomize the concentration of trainees at the village level and then randomly select within each village. Knowledge increased, and yields were 6.7% higher for trained farmers. We find no evidence of social diffusion; instead, control households experienced negative spillovers in high treatment concentration areas, likely because of competition for a scarce input, fertilizer.
Keywords: Agricultural Training; Knowledge Diffusion; Market Spillovers; Rwanda; Coffee Farmers
JEL Codes: O12; Q13; Q16
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Agronomy training program (Q16) | Yields for trained farmers (Q12) |
| Agronomy training program (Q16) | Yields for control farmers (Q15) |
| Trained farmers did not share knowledge with control farmers (Q12) | Negative spillover effects in high treatment concentration areas (D62) |
| Training some farmers while excluding others (J43) | Lower aggregate output (E23) |
| Naive comparison between treated and control farmers (C93) | Overestimate of program's benefits (H43) |