Evaluations

Rural to urban migration is an integral component of economic development, but there is limited evidence on the decision to migrate and little evidence on how emigration affects rural labor markets. To better understand these, researchers varied the proportion of travel grants offered to landless...

Researchers conducted three randomized evaluations to measure the degree of competition among wholesale maize traders, understand the implications for social welfare, and test whether new traders could make a market more competitive. Researchers found that traders did not pass through much of a...

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the impact of a video-mediated extension approach on the uptake of technologies recommended by the Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture. The video-mediated instruction increased uptake through improved access to extension and farmer knowledge but...

Researchers studied the impact of the gender of communicators on the effects of a program to train farmers to communicate information on agricultural technology to other farmers. While there was no gender gap in communicators’ ability to acquire, retain, and use the information about the technology...

Fertilizer use has been promoted to boost agricultural productivity and increase farmers’ yields and income. Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation among rice farmers in Bangladesh to evaluate the impact of providing leaf color charts and basic training on the quantity and timing of...

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test whether the position of a trained lead farmer within a community’s social network affected other farmers’ decisions to adopt a new agricultural technology in Malawi. Results suggest that having access to multiple lead farmers/central individuals...

In Western Kenya, researchers evaluated an SMS intervention whereby a large-agribusiness sent farmers with whom they contracted timely reminders on agricultural tasks to be completed. The SMS intervention was a cost-effective means of increasing yields, farmer revenue, and company profits. However...