IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/aaea17/258135.html

Supply-side Crowding-out and Crowding-in Effects of Malawi’s Farm Input Subsidy Program on Private-sector Input Marketing: A Quasi-experimental Field Study

Author

Listed:
  • Kaiyatsa, Stevier
  • Jumbe, Charles
  • Ricker-Gilbert, Jacob

Abstract

The present article estimates the extent to which participation in Farm Inputs Subsidy Program (FISP) crowds-out/in fertilizer sales among private sector retailers in Malawi. Malawi implemented FISP reforms during 2015/16 season that allowed certain larger-scale fertilizer distributors to sell FISP fertilizer at their retail outlets in select districts on a pilot basis while smaller-scale agro-dealers were excluded. We use a unique panel dataset of fertilizer retailers collected before and after the policy change to measure supply-side crowding-in/out impacts of the FISP. Using a difference-in-differences estimator we are able to obtain a causal measurement of how the policy change affects fertilizer sales for retailers who participated in the program and those who did not. Results indicate that distributors who sold the FISP fertilizer experienced a 299 Mt increase in the volume of total fertilizer sales, on average. Conversely, agro-dealers who were excluded from participating in the pilot program experienced a 28 Mt decline in their fertilizer sales, on average. This suggests that the reforms have mainly benefited distributors who sell 90% of the fertilizer in Malawi, but caused some harm to the many agro-dealers who sell 10% of Malawi s fertilizer, but also conduct their businesses in more remote areas. Acknowledgement : The research team gratefully acknowledges the Gates Foundation Global Development Programme for the financial support towards research on issues surrounding Malawi s Farm Input Subsidy Programme (FISP) under a project titled Guiding Investments in Sustainable Agricultural Intensification in Africa (GISAIA). This was a collaborative research project involving the Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (LUANAR-Malawi), Purdue University (USA) and Michigan State University (USA) that has provided useful policy information for the Government of Malawi. Views expressed herein do not represent that of the Gates Foundation and all er
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Kaiyatsa, Stevier & Jumbe, Charles & Ricker-Gilbert, Jacob, "undated". "Supply-side Crowding-out and Crowding-in Effects of Malawi’s Farm Input Subsidy Program on Private-sector Input Marketing: A Quasi-experimental Field Study," 2017 Annual Meeting, July 30-August 1, Chicago, Illinois 258135, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:aaea17:258135
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.258135
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/258135/files/Abstracts_17_05_19_09_45_50_05__172_16_20_110_0.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.258135?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
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Grover,Arti Goswami & Imbruno,Michele, 2020. "Using Experimental Evidence to Inform Firm Support Programs in Developing Countries," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9461, The World Bank.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:ags:aaea17:258135. 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: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaeaaea.html .

    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.