Econometrica Vol. 61 No. 5 1993
Sequential Labor Decisions Under Uncertainty: An Estimable Household Model of West-African Farmers
Abstract
This paper reports estimates of the primitive parameters of a stochastic control model describing the labor decisions of West African small farmers. Maximum likelihood estimates are computed although optimal labor decision rules cannot be derived analytically. Vuong's non-nested model specification test shows that this method yields estimates superior to those derived by assuming that farmers solve a deterministic control problem. Low levels of labor effort are shown to be a consequence of low labor productivity in archaic rain-fed agriculture and of farmers' awareness that, in the absence of a labor market, overly ambitious production plans lead to seasonal manpower shortages.
- DOI
- 10.2307/2951497
- Volume
- 61
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 1173
- Sources
- bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref