The recent adoption of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs, namely mobile phones and radios) in rural areas of Sub- Saharan Africa has brought new evidence that an updated and reliable flow of information can have direct benefits for farmers' welfare. However, if correct market...

This paper examines the effect of variety attributes on adoption of improved sorghum varieties in Kenya. Using data from 140 farmers, the paper uses a multivariate probit to identify variety-specific drivers of adoption. The results on the perception of farmers variety attributes show that...

Manufacturing is intensive in the use of reproducible factors and exhibits greater technological dynamism than primary production. As such its growth is central to long-run development in low-income countries. Sub-Saharan African countries are latecomers to industrialization, and barriers to...

Genetically Modified (GM) technology has been widely adopted by the U.S. farmers within just a recent decade since the first generation GM varieties were commercially planted in 1996. Also, it has provided economists with various controversial issues: food safety, biotech industry concentration,...

We decompose yield difference relative to a reference level into components attributable to (1) efficiency difference, and movements along the frontier due to (2) land quality, to (3) land size, and to (4) other inputs. The production frontier is built using nonparametric methods requiring no...