Social Networks, Financial Markets, and Household Organization in a Developing Economy

拟议的研究使用加纳PI收集的数据来检查以快速技术创新和土地资源紧张为特征的农村经济中的社会网络、金融市场和家庭组织。在两年的时间里，我们收集了关于投入、产出、土地所有制和土壤化学的详细地块数据，样本中个人之间学习互动、资金流动和劳动力交易的信息，地块级GIS数据，以及经济活动（包括消费、非农业收入和时间分配的面板数据）和社会经济背景的个人层面数据。拟议的研究包括三个主要部分。首先是对社会学习和网络形成的调查。在调查区域，农业系统正迅速从木薯-玉米间作作物转变为生产菠萝作为新鲜水果出口。这一转变涉及一套新技术，包括改变用于保持土壤肥力的休耕制度，利用新的产出市场，特别是在以前的耕作制度中没有使用过的地方密集使用农业化学品。我提出了一种方法来识别通过社会网络传播的信息，这些信息来自农民使用这些新化学品的实验。初步结果提供的证据表明，农民使用新化学品的程度对该农民在网络中直接或间接联系的其他人使用这些化学品的实验结果很敏感。鉴于这些结果，我建议对这些村庄的网络形成过程进行建模。要验证的假设是，一个人更有可能与那些可能拥有对他有价值信息的人建立网络联系。其次，种植菠萝比种植替代作物更有利可图，成本也高得多。这就提出了一种可能性，即采用过程受到研究领域金融市场特征的影响。初步证据表明，财富的变化（被视为内生的）是菠萝种植的一个重要决定因素。我建议使用关于资金流动的数据，以及支出、资产和时间使用面板数据来探索资本约束影响采用决策的假设。农民同时对土壤肥力的管理作出决定。由于这是一个跨期配置问题，它与每个人相对于资本市场的头寸密切相关。在非正式采访中，一些农民表示，为了扩大生产，他们正在降低土壤肥力。第二个目标是检查与土壤肥力有关的决策（使用土壤化学方面的小组数据），并将其与采用决策和研究地区现有的金融市场联系起来。最后，有证据表明，加纳的家庭内部资源配置机制既不符合单一家庭模式，也不符合更普遍的集体家庭模式。特别是，家庭内部的风险分配不是帕累托效率。有证据表明，配偶之间存在重要的信息不对称。研究计划的这一方面将检验这样一个假设，即家庭内部生产关系的内生结构是家庭内部信息流和家庭内部分配决策的决定因素。

The proposed research uses data collected by the PI in Ghana to examine social networks, financial markets and household organization in a rural economy characterized by rapid technological innovation and stress on land resources. Over a two year period, we collected detailed plot level data on inputs, outputs, land tenure and soil chemistry, information on learning interactions, financial flows and labor transactions between individuals in the sample, plot level GIS data, and individual level data on economic activities (including panel data on consumption, non-farm income and time allocation) and socioeconomic background.The proposed research consists of three major components. The first is an investigation of social learning and network formation. In the survey region, the farming system is rapidly changing from a cassava-maize intercrop to production of pineapples for export as fresh fruit. This shift involves a set of new technologies including a transformation of the fallow system that had been used to maintain soil fertility, the use of new output markets and, particularly, intensive use of agricultural chemicals where none had been used in the previous farming system. I propose a method for identifying the transmission through the social network of information derived from farmers' experiments with these new chemicals. Preliminary results provide evidence that the level of a farmer's use of the new chemicals is sensitive to the outcomes of the experiments with these chemicals by others to whom the farmer is directly or indirectly connected in the network. Given these results, I propose modeling the process of network formation in these villages. The hypothesis to be tested is that an individual is more likely to set up network connections with others who are likely to posses information valuable to that individual.Second, pineapple cultivation is both much more profitable and much more costly than the cultivation of alternative crops. This raises the possibility that the process of adoption is influenced by the characteristics of financial markets in the study area. Preliminary evidence is that variation in wealth (treated as endogenous) is an important determinant of pineapple cultivation. I propose to use the data on financial flows, along with the expenditure, assets and time use panel data to explore the hypothesis that capital constraints influence adoption decisions. Farmers simultaneously make decisions regarding the management of soil fertility. Since this is an intertemporal allocation problem it is intimately related to each individual's position vis-a-vis capital markets. In informal interviews, some farmers stated that they were drawing down soil fertility in order to expand production. The second goal is to examine decision making with respect to soil fertility (using the panel data on soil chemistry) and to relate this to adoption decisions and to the financial markets available in the study area.Finally, there is evidence in Ghana that the mechanism of intrahousehold resource allocation corresponds to neither the unitary household model nor the more general model of a collective household. In particular, the allocation of risk within households is not Pareto efficient. There is evidence of important information asymmetries between spouses. This aspect of the research program will examine the hypothesis that the endogenous structure of production relations within the household is a determinant of intrahousehold information flows and hence intrahousehold allocation decisions.