IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/wdevel/v38y2010i12p1788-1796.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Identity, Interest and Information Search in a Dynamic Rural Economy

Author

Listed:
  • Santos, Paulo
  • Barrett, Christopher B.

Abstract

Summary This paper examines how farmers in a developing country search for information. Using data on farmers' decisions to connect with other farmers in order to ask for information about different agricultural problems, we explore the role played by identity in accessing information. We show that farmers target different subsets of acquaintances when searching for different types of information, supporting the view that identity cannot be the main determinant of such decisions.

Suggested Citation

  • Santos, Paulo & Barrett, Christopher B., 2010. "Identity, Interest and Information Search in a Dynamic Rural Economy," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(12), pages 1788-1796, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:38:y:2010:i:12:p:1788-1796
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305-750X(10)00090-2
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Durlauf, Steven N. & Fafchamps, Marcel, 2005. "Social Capital," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 26, pages 1639-1699, Elsevier.
    2. William Easterly & Ross Levine, 1997. "Africa's Growth Tragedy: Policies and Ethnic Divisions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1203-1250.
    3. repec:fth:oxesaf:93.5 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. George A. Akerlof & Rachel E. Kranton, 2002. "Identity and Schooling: Some Lessons for the Economics of Education," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(4), pages 1167-1201, December.
    5. Fafchamps, Marcel & Gubert, Flore, 2007. "The formation of risk sharing networks," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 326-350, July.
    6. Easterly, William, 2001. "Can Institutions Resolve Ethnic Conflict?," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 49(4), pages 687-706, July.
    7. repec:dau:papers:123456789/4392 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Marcel Fafchamps, 2004. "Market Institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa: Theory and Evidence," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262062364, December.
    9. James J. Heckman, 1998. "Detecting Discrimination," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 101-116, Spring.
    10. Marianne Bertrand & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 991-1013, September.
    11. George A. Akerlof, 1997. "Social Distance and Social Decisions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(5), pages 1005-1028, September.
    12. George A. Akerlof & Rachel E. Kranton, 2000. "Economics and Identity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(3), pages 715-753.
    13. Munshi, Kaivan & Myaux, Jacques, 2006. "Social norms and the fertility transition," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 1-38, June.
    14. Doss, Cheryl R., 2001. "Designing Agricultural Technology for African Women Farmers: Lessons from 25 Years of Experience," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 29(12), pages 2075-2092, December.
    15. Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), 2005. "Handbook of Economic Growth," Handbook of Economic Growth, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    16. Jean-Louis ARCAND & Marcel FAFCHAMPS, 2006. "Matching in Rural Producer Organizations," Working Papers 200626, CERDI.
    17. Miguel, Edward & Gugerty, Mary Kay, 2005. "Ethnic diversity, social sanctions, and public goods in Kenya," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(11-12), pages 2325-2368, December.
    18. Conley, T. G., 1999. "GMM estimation with cross sectional dependence," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1), pages 1-45, September.
    19. Mattia Romani, 2003. "Love Thy Neighbour? Evidence from Ethnic Discrimination in Information Sharing within Villages in Côte d'Ivoire," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 12(4), pages 533-563, December.
    20. Robert H. Bates, 2000. "Ethnicity and Development in Africa: A Reappraisal," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(2), pages 131-134, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Muange, Elijah Nzula & Schwarze, Stefan & Qaim, Matin, 2014. "Social networks and farmer exposure to improved cereal varieties in central Tanzania," 2014 International Congress, August 26-29, 2014, Ljubljana, Slovenia 182645, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    2. Sommarat Chantarat & Christopher Barrett, 2012. "Social network capital, economic mobility and poverty traps," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 10(3), pages 299-342, September.
    3. Chen, Xi, 2011. "Accounting for social spending escalation in rural China," IAMO Forum 2011: Will the "BRICs Decade" Continue? – Prospects for Trade and Growth 6, Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Central and Eastern Europe (IAMO).
    4. Maria Porter, 2016. "Effects of microcredit and other loans on female empowerment in Bangladesh: the borrower's gender influences intra-household resource allocation," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 47(2), pages 235-245, March.
    5. Santos, Paulo & Barrett, Christopher B., 2011. "Persistent poverty and informal credit," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(2), pages 337-347, November.
    6. Magnan, Nicholas & Spielman, David J. & Gulati, Kajal & Lybbert, Travis J., 2015. "Information networks among women and men and the demand for an agricultural technology in India:," IFPRI discussion papers 1411, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    7. Nicholas Magnan & David J Spielman & Travis J. Lybbert & Kajal Gulati, 2013. "Leveling with Friends: Social Networks and Indian Farmers’ Demand for Agricultural Custom Hire Services," Working Papers id:5591, eSocialSciences.
    8. Mekonnen, Dawit K. & Dorfman, Jeffrey H., 2017. "Synergy and Learning Effects of Informal Labor-Sharing Arrangements," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 1-14.
    9. Muange, Elijah N. & Schwarze, Stefan & Qaim, Matin, 2014. "Social networks and farmer exposure to improved crop varieties in Tanzania," GlobalFood Discussion Papers 183635, Georg-August-Universitaet Goettingen, GlobalFood, Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development.
    10. Yann Bramoullé & Bernard Fortin, 2009. "The Econometrics of Social Networks," Cahiers de recherche 0913, CIRPEE.
    11. Shikuku, K.M., 2018. "Information exchange links, knowledge exposure, and adoption of agricultural technologies in Northern Uganda," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 275974, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    12. A. Stefano Caria & Marcel Fafchamps, 2015. "Can Farmers Create Efficient Information Networks? Experimental Evidence from Rural India," CSAE Working Paper Series 2015-07, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    13. Chen, Xi & Kanbur, Ravi & Zhang, Xiaobo, 2011. "Peer effects, risk pooling, and status seeking: What explains gift spending escalation in rural China?," IFPRI discussion papers 1151, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    14. Ishika Gupta & Prakashan Chellattan Veettil & Stijn Speelman, 2020. "Caste, Social Networks and Variety Adoption," Journal of South Asian Development, , vol. 15(2), pages 155-183, August.
    15. Weihong Huang & Caiyan Yang & Ke Liu & Rui Min, 2023. "Information Acquisition Ability and Farmers’ Herd Behavior in Rice–Crayfish Coculture System Adoption," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-15, September.
    16. repec:dau:papers:123456789/11437 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Magnan, Nicholas & Spielman, David J. & Gulati, Kajal, 2013. "Female social networks and learning about a new technology in eastern Uttar Pradesh, India," 2013 Annual Meeting, August 4-6, 2013, Washington, D.C. 150688, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    18. Gupta, I. & Veettil, P.C. & Speelman, S., 2018. "Caste, Technology and Social Networks," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 277048, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    19. Dev, Pritha, 2018. "Networks of information exchange: Are link formation decisions strategic?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 86-92.
    20. Ma, Xingliang & Spielman, David J. & Nazli, Hina & Zambrano, Patricia & Zaidi, Fatima & Kouser, Shahzad, 2014. "The role of social networks in an imperfect market for agricultural technology products: Evidence on Bt cotton adoption in Pakistan," 2014 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2014, Minneapolis, Minnesota 175276, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    21. Shikuku, Kelvin Mashisia, 2019. "Information exchange links, knowledge exposure, and adoption of agricultural technologies in northern Uganda," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 94-106.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Santos, Paulo & Barrett, Christopher B., 2011. "Persistent poverty and informal credit," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(2), pages 337-347, November.
    2. Kanbur, Ravi & Rajaram, Prem Kumar & Varshney, Ashutosh, 2011. "Ethnic Diversity and Ethnic Strife. An Interdisciplinary Perspective," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 147-158, February.
    3. Sommarat Chantarat & Christopher Barrett, 2012. "Social network capital, economic mobility and poverty traps," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 10(3), pages 299-342, September.
    4. Pritha Dev & Blessing U. Mberu & Roland Pongou, 2016. "Ethnic Inequality: Theory and Evidence from Formal Education in Nigeria," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 64(4), pages 603-660.
    5. repec:dau:papers:123456789/11437 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Dev, Pritha & Mberu, Blessing & Pongou, Roland, 2013. "Communitarianism, Oppositional Cultures, and Human Capital Contagion: Theory and Evidence from Formal versus Koranic Education," MPRA Paper 46234, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 15 Apr 2013.
    7. Bluhm, Richard & Thomsson, Kaj, 2015. "Ethnic divisions, political institutions and the duration of declines," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 112863, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    8. Gerard Padro i Miquel, 2006. "The Control of Politicians in Divided Societies: The Politics of Fear," NBER Working Papers 12573, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Adelman, Sarah, 2013. "Keep your friends close: The effect of local social networks on child human capital outcomes," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 284-298.
    10. Alberto Alesina & Eliana La Ferrara, 2003. "Ethnic Diversity and Economic Performance," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 2028, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
    11. Bluhm, Richard & Thomsson, Kaj, 2015. "Ethnic divisions, political institutions and the duration of declines: A political economy theory of delayed recovery," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-556, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    12. Jean‐Louis Arcand & Dany Jaimovich, 2019. "Does ethnic diversity decrease economic interactions? Evidence from exchange networks in rural Gambia," Economics of Transition and Institutional Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(2), pages 327-353, February.
    13. Leeson,Peter T., 2014. "Anarchy Unbound," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107025806.
    14. Shoji, Masahiro & Aoyagi, Keitaro & Kasahara, Ryuji & Sawada, Yasuyuki & Ueyama, Mika, 2012. "Social Capital Formation and Credit Access: Evidence from Sri Lanka," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(12), pages 2522-2536.
    15. Yonatan Dinku & Dereje Regasa, 2021. "Ethnic Diversity and Local Economies," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 89(3), pages 348-367, September.
    16. Barba, Francisco M. & Jaimovich, Dany, 2022. "Ethnic diversity and forest commons," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    17. Maria Paz Espinosa & Enrique Fatas & Paloma Ubeda, 2015. "Identity, language, and conflict: An experiment on ethno-linguistic diversity and group discrimination in two bilingual societies," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Science (CBESS) 15-14, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    18. Gerring, John & Thacker, Strom C. & Lu, Yuan & Huang, Wei, 2015. "Does Diversity Impair Human Development? A Multi-Level Test of the Diversity Debit Hypothesis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 166-188.
    19. Robin Burgess & Remi Jedwab & Edward Miguel & Ameet Morjaria & Gerard Padró i Miquel, 2015. "The Value of Democracy: Evidence from Road Building in Kenya," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(6), pages 1817-1851, June.
    20. Adnan, Wifag & Arin, K. Peren & Charness, Gary & Lacomba, Juan A. & Lagos, Francisco, 2022. "Which social categories matter to people: An experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 193(C), pages 125-145.
    21. Coyne, Christopher J. & Mathers, Rachel L., 2011. "Rituals: An economic interpretation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 78(1), pages 74-84.

    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:eee:wdevel:v:38:y:2010:i:12:p:1788-1796. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddev .

    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.