Low productivity in agriculture is a major cause of poverty and food insecurity in Africa. One explanation for low productivity is the widespread presence of low-quality inputs on local markets (“lemon technologies”), which causes uncertainty among farmers and erodes incentives for adoption. We report the results from a field experiment in Tanzania to study the impact of improved maize seeds in a context where we exogenously vary seed quality and uncertainty about seed type. The analysis is at the level of experimental plots owned and managed by farmers (not the entire farm). While improved seed positively affects harvests and reduces the probability of crop failure among fully informed farmers, these benefits are attenuated significantly when farmers are uncertain about the seed type they receive. The main channel linking uncertainty to lower harvest levels is the reallocation of labor—a complementary input. The presence of lemon inputs on the market for modern inputs impedes learning about the profitability of these inputs and increases the yield gap by slowing adoption in subsequent periods.

Do Women Supply More Public Goods Than Men? Preliminary Experimental Evidence from Matrilineal and Patriarchal Societies by Steffen Andersen, Erwin Bulte, Uri Gneezy and John A. List. Published in volume 98, issue 2, pages 376-81 of American Economic Review, May 2008

We implement a public goods game and a social intervention modeled after a public goods game in rural Sierra Leone near the Gola Forest Reserve. We also collect demographic, economic and forest conservation data on households in the area. We use this data to assess the mapping of social preferences from the artefactual field experiment (AFE) into real world behavior. We find evidence of heterogeneity in shifting factors between the AFE, the field experiment, and conservation outcomes. We also find evidence that social controls like war violence and witchcraft may explain some of this correlation.

We use a series of field experiments in rural Burundi to examine the impact of exposure to conflict on social, risk, and time preferences. We find that conflict affects behavior: individuals exposed to violence display more altruistic behavior towards their neighbors, are more risk-seeking, and have higher discount rates. Large adverse shocks can thus alter savings and investments decisions, and potentially have long-run consequences—even if the shocks themselves are temporary. (JEL C93, D12, D74, 012, 017, 018)