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Social Interactions in Growing Bananas: Evidence from a Tanzanian Village

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Author Info
Katleen Van den Broeck (Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen)
Stefan Dercon (University of Oxford)

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Abstract

This paper analyses whether agricultural information flows give rise to social learning effects in banana cultivation in Nyakatoke, a small Tanzanian village. Based on a village census, full information is available on socio-economic characteristics and banana production of farmer kinship members, neighbours and informal insurance group members. This allows a test for social learning within these groups and the identification of different types of social effects. Controlling for exogenous group characteristics, the effect of group behaviour on individual farmer output is studied. The results show that social effects are strongly dependent on the definition of the reference group. It emerges that no social effects are found in distance based groups, exogenous social effects linked to group education exist in informal insurance groups, and only kinship related groups generate the endogenous social effects that produce positive externalities in banana output.

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Paper provided by University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics in its series Discussion Papers with number 07-08.

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Length: 28 pages
Date of creation: Apr 2007
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Handle: RePEc:kud:kuiedp:0708

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Related research
Keywords: social interactions; social learning; agricultural information networks;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
O12 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
O13 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Environment; Other Primary Products
O55 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Africa
Q12 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Micro Analysis of Farm Firms, Farm Households, and Farm Input Markets

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