Gender, information and the efficiency of households' productive decisions: An experiment in rural Togo

Marie Christine Apedo-Amah (1) , Habiba Djebbari (2) , Roberta Ziparo (2)

1 Stanford University
2 AMSE - Aix-Marseille Sciences Economiques

We explore how the capacity of farm households to reach efficiency and share information on production is related to their consumption decision-making process. West African farm households often cultivate several plots, and there is extensive evidence of allocative inefficiencies (Udry, 1996). We design an experiment with Togolese cotton producers, contextualized as an input allocation game, and build a model based on its findings. We further test the model's predictions using our lab-in-the-field data. The cotton producers are found to allocate too few inputs to their wife's plot, failing to maximize household aggregate profits. They do transfer more inputs to their wife's plot when the returns from that plot are increased. Yet, when we experimentally manipulate information on these returns, informational frictions on average do not impact decisions. We attribute these experimental findings to the role that conflict in consumption plays in creating production inefficiencies. The model predicts that both efficiency loss and responses to asymmetric information are heterogenous. Moreover, we show that spouses are unable to communicate on the returns effectively and cannot avoid extra losses, though the damaging effects of private information vanish if information is verifiable ex post. We present evidence consistent with these predictions.

Mots clés: farm households; household production and intra-household allocation; non-cooperative game theory; asymmetric and private information; lab-in-the-field experiment

Domaines: Economies et finances

Marie Christine Apedo-Amah, Habiba Djebbari, Roberta Ziparo. Gender, information and the efficiency of households' productive decisions: An experiment in rural Togo. 2019. ⟨halshs-02462673v1⟩