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Social Interactions in Growing Bananas: Evidence from a Tanzanian Village

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  • Katleen Van den Broeck
  • Stefan Dercon

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Katleen Van den Broeck & Stefan Dercon, 2007. "Social Interactions in Growing Bananas: Evidence from a Tanzanian Village," CSAE Working Paper Series 2007-05, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    • Handle: RePEc:csa:wpaper:2007-05
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    File URL: https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:ffd89a2c-666b-4e5a-be91-ef0c34ee6e90
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Munshi, Kaivan, 2004. "Social learning in a heterogeneous population: technology diffusion in the Indian Green Revolution," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 185-213, February.
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    Cited by:

    1. 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).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    social interactions; social learning; agricultural information networks;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • O13 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Environment; Other Primary Products
    • O55 - Economic Development, Innovation, 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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