Trade and agricultural technology adoption: Evidence from Africa

Abstract The incentives for and effects of widespread technology adoption depend on the trade costs separating producers from input and output markets. I incorporate the decision to adopt imported fertilizer into a model of agricultural trade between 230 regional markets across sub-Saharan Africa. I then evaluate two alternative approaches to promoting technology adoption: lowering trade costs and subsidizing fertilizer. Whereas trade cost reduction shifts production towards the most productive regions, subsidies lead to larger increases in fertilizer use. Greater adoption lowers local food prices under existing high trade costs but only increases farmer incomes when trade costs are low.

• Publication year

  2020

• Venue

  Journal of Development Economics

• Publication date

  2020-05-01

• Fields of study

  Agricultural and Food Sciences, Economics

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2020.102440
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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