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...

An option-value model is developed to analyze the impacts of output price uncertainty, high sunk costs of adoption, and site-specific conditions on the optimal timing of adoption of two interrelated site-specific technologies, soil testing and variable rate technology (VRT). The model...