Summary This paper examines the impact of formal credit (largely microfinance) on the use of improved technology and on consumption and asset growth across households in different degrees of asset poverty. Using data from rural Ethiopia, the analysis finds no relationship between participation...

Despite the promise of many new farm technologies, technology adoption rates in Ethiopia remain low. This paper studies the impact of social networks on technology adoption through social learning. In addition to geographic networks, intentional relationships are considered. The differential...

Effective poverty reduction programs require careful measurement of poverty status. Several studies have shown conceptually that assets reflecting productive capacity form a more robust basis for identifying the poor than do flow variables such as expenditures or income. Nonetheless, little work...

This paper presents a multi-market model of animal disease control that extends the current literature by accounting for spatial and inter-temporal relations in both epidemiological and economic variables. The model is applied to Foot and Mouth Disease control in Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay,...

This paper develops an option value model to examine the extent to which output price uncertainty creates incentives to adopt two interrelated components of site-specific technologies sequentially. It analyzes how the impact of uncertainty on the sequential adoption decision differs across...

This paper examines the impact of price uncertainty on farmers' adoption decision in site specific crop management using an option value model. It shows that price uncertainty could lead farmers to delay the investment 3 to 25 years as opposed to the net present value rule. Immediate investment...