IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v112y2022i8p2518-52.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Market Access and Quality Upgrading: Evidence from Four Field Experiments

Author

Listed:
  • Tessa Bold
  • Selene Ghisolfi
  • Frances Nsonzi
  • Jakob Svensson

Abstract

Smallholder farming in many developing countries is characterized by low productivity and low-quality output. Low quality limits the price farmers can command and their potential income. We conduct a series of experiments among maize farmers in Uganda to shed light on the barriers to quality upgrading and to study its potential. We find that the causal return to quality is zero. Providing access to a market where quality is paid a market premium led to an increase in farm productivity and income from farming. Our findings reveal the importance of demand-side constraints in limiting rural income and productivity growth.

Suggested Citation

  • Tessa Bold & Selene Ghisolfi & Frances Nsonzi & Jakob Svensson, 2022. "Market Access and Quality Upgrading: Evidence from Four Field Experiments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(8), pages 2518-2552, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:112:y:2022:i:8:p:2518-52
    DOI: 10.1257/aer.20210122
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aer.20210122
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://doi.org/10.3886/E158401V1
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aer.20210122.appx
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aer.20210122.ds
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/aer.20210122?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Pierre Marion & Etienne Lwamba & Andrea Floridi & Suvarna Pande & Megha Bhattacharyya & Sarah Young & Paul Fenton Villar & Shannon Shisler, 2024. "The effects of agricultural output market access interventions on agricultural, socio‐economic, food security, and nutrition outcomes in low‐ and middle‐income countries: A systematic review," Campbell Systematic Reviews, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 20(2), June.
    2. Rao, Manaswini & Shenoy, Ashish, 2023. "Got (clean) milk? Organization, incentives, and management in Indian dairy cooperatives," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 212(C), pages 708-722.
    3. McWay, Ryan & Nchare, Karim & Sun, Pu, 2024. "Market Access and Quality Upgrading: Evidence from Four Field Experiments. A Replication Study of Bold et al. (American Economic Review, 2022)," Journal of Comments and Replications in Economics (JCRE), ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 3(2024-2), pages 1-17.
    4. Nindi, Tabitha Charles & Bauchet, Jonathan & Ricker-Gilbert, Jacob, 2023. "Information and the trade-off between food safety and food security in rural markets: Experimental evidence from Malawi," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 216(C), pages 170-186.
    5. Li Zhang & Dong Liu & Qie Yin & Jundi Liu, 2024. "Organic Certification, Online Market Access, and Agricultural Product Prices: Evidence from Chinese Apple Farmers," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 14(5), pages 1-18, April.
    6. Wossen, Tesfamicheal & Spielman, David J. & Alene, Arega D. & Abdoulaye, Tahirou, 2024. "Estimating seed demand in the presence of market frictions: Evidence from an auction experiment in Nigeria," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    7. Paul Fenton Villar & Tomasz Kozakiewicz & Vinitha Bachina & Sarah Young & Shannon Shisler, 2023. "PROTOCOL: The effects of agricultural output market access interventions on agricultural, socio‐economic and food and nutrition security outcomes in low‐ and middle‐income countries: A systematic revi," Campbell Systematic Reviews, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 19(3), September.
    8. Jens Klooster & Mikhail Zhelonkin, 2024. "Outlier robust inference in the instrumental variable model with applications to causal effects," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(1), pages 86-106, January.
    9. Cansın Arslan & Daniel Gregg & Meike Wollni, 2024. "Paying more to make less: value degrading in the coffee value chain in eastern Uganda," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 106(1), pages 96-117, January.
    10. Vivian Hoffmann & Sarah Kariuki & Janneke Pieters & Mark Treurniet, 2023. "Upside risk, consumption value, and market returns to food safety," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 105(3), pages 914-939, May.
    11. Wouter Zant, 2022. "Two Birds with One Stone: Technology Adoption and Market Participation through Protection against Crop Failure," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 22-091/V, Tinbergen Institute.
    12. Travis J. Lybbert & Ashish Shenoy & Tomoé Bourdier & Caitlin Kieran, 2024. "Striving to revive pulses in India with extension, input subsidies, and output price supports†," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 106(3), pages 1167-1192, May.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • L14 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Transactional Relationships; Contracts and Reputation
    • L15 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Information and Product Quality
    • L22 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Organization and Market Structure
    • O13 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Environment; Other Primary Products
    • Q12 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Micro Analysis of Farm Firms, Farm Households, and Farm Input Markets
    • Q13 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agricultural Markets and Marketing; Cooperatives; Agribusiness

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:112:y:2022:i:8:p:2518-52. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.