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The Importance of Learning in the Adoption of High‐Yielding Variety Seeds
Author(s) -
Cameron Lisa A.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
american journal of agricultural economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.949
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1467-8276
pISSN - 0002-9092
DOI - 10.2307/1244452
Subject(s) - variety (cybernetics) , panel data , econometrics , process (computing) , variable (mathematics) , instrumental variable , economics , computer science , mathematics , artificial intelligence , mathematical analysis , operating system
To date, due to the lack of panel data, most micro‐level empirical studies of technology adoption have used cross‐sectional data. These studies cannot examine the dynamic processes of adoption such as learning. This article uses panel data to study the adoption of a new high‐yielding variety seed. First, it establishes that learning is an important variable in the adoption process. Second, it establishes that cross‐sectional estimates of a dynamic process are biased but that the extent of this bias may be small. Third, it illustrates the econometric methods needed to estimate a dynamic model when controlling for unobserved household heterogeneity.