Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/157266 
Year of Publication: 
2017
Series/Report no.: 
Discussion Papers No. 221
Publisher: 
Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Courant Research Centre - Poverty, Equity and Growth (CRC-PEG), Göttingen
Abstract: 
Particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, agriculture is predominantly rain-fed and, therefore, prone to unstable weather conditions and less productive than in other regions of the world. Increasing the efficiency and sustainability of farmer groups and cooperatives is of primary importance to many policy makers in developing countries. Experimental studies have suggested that the privileged person in a group would voluntarily provide the public good in social dilemma situations, while those with lower benefits would free-ride. Using a framed lab-in-the-field experiment complemented by a detailed household survey in rural Ghana, we examine how asymmetries in benefits and real wealth levels impact farmers' behavior and group outcomes. We find that efficiency concerns (i.e. higher group returns) outweigh inequality concerns. Thus, the implication is that higher group benefits and heterogeneous within-group benefits reduce strategic uncertainty and enhance cooperation in agricultural settings of subsistence farmers. Finally, aside from the group-level effects, we show that farmers with smaller potential benefits and those who live in poor households contribute even more than the resource rich. The results indicate that, as much as interventions are aimed at saving the poor, the poor contribute much to save themselves. These results remain robust, controlling for a long list of covariates including socioeconomic characteristics, loss aversion and inequality aversion. The results overall have implications for structuring farmer groups and the provision and maintenance of both public goods and common-pool resources in poor countries.
Subjects: 
asymmetric benefits
lab-in-the-field experiments
group financing
farmer cooperatives
development financing
irrigation in Sub-Saharan Africa
Ghana
JEL: 
C93
D31
D63
O13
Q15
Q2
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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