Smartphone-based information acquisition and wheat farm performance: insights from a doubly robust IPWRA estimator

This study examines the impact of smartphone-based information acquisition on crop yields, net returns, return on investment (ROI), and production costs, using survey data collected from 558 wheat farmers in rural China. We employ a double-robust inverse probability weighted regression adjustment estimator to address the potential selection bias issue. The results reveal that information acquisition via smartphones significantly increases wheat yields, net returns, and ROI by 7%, 31%, and 39%, respectively, and it has a negative but insignificant impact on production costs. These results largely echo the results estimated from propensity score matching and endogenous switching regression models. In general, our findings suggest that policy interventions targeting to boost farm economic performance should consider distributing agricultural production and marketing information via smartphones.