IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/apecpp/v47y2025i1p97-124.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Combine harvester outsourcing services and seasonal rural non‐farm employment in Myanmar

Author

Listed:
  • Ben Belton
  • Peixun Fang
  • Thomas Reardon

Abstract

Prior research on mechanization outsource services has not explored seasonal variations in drivers and outcomes of adoption by smallholders. These omissions are important because seasonality of crop cultivation may influence intensity of demand for machines, while seasonality of demand for non‐farm labor may influence the availability and cost of agricultural workers and the opportunity costs of on‐farm self‐employment. We analyze seasonal correlates of combine harvester outsource service use in Myanmar. Surprisingly, adoption is not associated with lower labor costs or higher net margins from paddy cultivation. Rather, using combines releases family labor into more remunerative dry season non‐farm employment.

Suggested Citation

  • Ben Belton & Peixun Fang & Thomas Reardon, 2025. "Combine harvester outsourcing services and seasonal rural non‐farm employment in Myanmar," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 47(1), pages 97-124, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:apecpp:v:47:y:2025:i:1:p:97-124
    DOI: 10.1002/aepp.13480
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/aepp.13480
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/aepp.13480?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
    ---><---

    More about this item

    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:wly:apecpp:v:47:y:2025:i:1:p:97-124. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)2040-5804 .

    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.