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

拟议的研究利用公共信息研究所在加纳收集的数据，审查以快速技术创新和土地资源紧张为特点的农村经济中的社交网络、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、土地保有权和土壤化学的详细地块水平数据，关于样本中个人之间的学习互动、资金流和劳动力交易的信息，地块水平GIS数据，以及关于经济活动的个人水平数据（包括关于消费的小组数据，非农收入和时间分配）和社会经济背景。拟议的研究包括三个主要组成部分。第一个是社会学习和网络形成的调查。在调查区域，耕作制度正在迅速从木薯玉米间作转变为菠萝生产，作为新鲜水果出口。这一转变涉及一系列新技术，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任何农业化学品的地方大量使用农业化学品。我提出了一种方法，用于识别来自农民对这些新化学品的实验的信息通过社会网络的传输。初步结果提供的证据表明，农民使用新化学品的水平对网络中与农民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，我建议在这些村庄的网络形成的过程建模。要检验的假设是，一个人更有可能与其他人建立网络联系，这些人可能会传播对他有价值的信息。第二，菠萝种植比种植替代作物利润高得多，成本也高得多。这就提出了一种可能性，即采用的过程受到研究地区金融市场特点的影响。初步证据表明，财富的变化（视为内生）是菠萝种植的一个重要决定因素。我建议使用的数据上的资金流，随着支出，资产和时间使用面板数据，沿着探讨假设，资本约束影响采用决策。农民同时就土壤肥力管理作出决定。 由于这是一个跨期分配问题，它与每个人在资本市场上的地位密切相关。在非正式访谈中，一些农民说，他们正在降低土壤肥力，以扩大生产。第二个目标是研究决策方面的土壤肥力（使用面板数据土壤化学），并将其与通过的决定和金融市场提供的研究area.Finally，有证据表明，在加纳，家庭内部资源分配的机制既不对应于单一的家庭模式，也不是一个集体家庭的更一般的模式。特别是，家庭内部的风险分配不是帕累托有效的。有证据表明，配偶之间存在重要的信息不对称。这方面的研究计划将审查的假设，即家庭内部的生产关系的内生结构是家庭内部的信息流，从而家庭内部的分配决定的决定因素。

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.