Paola Mallia

Two-sided Subsidies to Support Biofortified Crop Adoption in Guatemala (with Karen Macours and Jessica Rudder). More information in AEA RCT registry.

Correcting misinformation and misperception to increase agricultural technology adoption: the case of sweet potato cultivation in Uganda.  More information in AEA RCT registry.

Long-term impacts of dissemination of biofortified crops in Uganda (with Julius Okello and Karen Macours).

• You reap what (you think) you sow? Evidence on farmers’ behavioral adjustments in the case of correct crop varietal identification

  • Abstract :The adoption of improved seed varieties has the potential to substantially increase agricultural productivity. However, only 36 percent of farmers who grow an improved maize variety report doing so in Ethiopia. This paper provides causal evidence of the impact of misperceptions about improved maize varieties on farmers’ production decisions, productivity, and profitability. I employ an Instrumental Variable approach, taking advantage of the roll-out of a governmental program that increases transparency in the seed sector. I find that farmers who correctly classify the improved maize variety they grow experience large increases in input usage (urea, NPS, labor), yields, and profits per hectare. However, there are no statistically significant changes in other agricultural practices. Using machine learning techniques, I develop a model of interpolation to predict objectively measured varietal identification from farmers’ self-reported data, providing a proof-of-concept for scalable approaches to obtaining reliable measures of crop varieties and allowing for the extension of the analysis to a nationally representative sample.

Studying inclusive innovation with the right data: An empirical illustration from Ethiopia (with Solomon Alemu, Frederic Kosmowski, James R. Stevenson, Paola Mallia, and Lemi Taye), 2024, Agricultural Systems, 219 (103988).