PUBLICATIONS

Abstract: It is now commonly accepted that poverty alleviation and the development of agricultural value chains in developing countries requires farmers to technically innovate. However numerous constrains to innovation adoption have been identified. In this literature, the price received for each unit of output is usually assumed to be homogeneous among all households. We dispute this over-simplification: because of transaction costs, contract farming and other market imperfections, prices and quantities in developing economies are often positively jointly determined. We develop a simple model to discuss how market segmentation induces non-trivial effects on incentive to innovate. Then we test it on farm-level panel data from an extension project in the Peruvian highlands, where the main income source is the production of raw milk and fresh cheese sold on a highly segmented market. Data confirms the propositions derived from the model: producers that were not included in the formal market at baseline but close to it, have more intensively innovated. The indirect consequence of this investment is a higher price increase than the rest of the population, creating heterogeneous effects of the program, social mobility opportunities and a reduction in inequality. The evidences stress how considering the effects of market structures in developing countries leads to a new understanding of the process of agricultural innovation adoption.


Abstract: In the absence of well-developed markets for credit and insurance, extended families play a major role as a traditional system of mutual help. However these arrangements have important consequences on economic choices. In this paper, we use first-hand data from Western Cameroon to explore this question. We find that the large majority of transfers follow a given pattern where by elder siblings support their younger siblings in the early stages of their lives who in turn reciprocate by supporting their elder siblings when they have children. We interpret this pattern as a generalized system of reciprocal credit within the extended family. We propose a simple overlapping generation model to investigate its welfare properties. We then explore the implications of this pattern on labour market outcomes and find evidence of large disincentive effects. This pattern of transfers also implies that younger siblings are more educated but have fewer and less educated children.


BOOK'S CHAPTER

  • Bonjean, Isabelle, « Autonomisation et Responsabilisation de Communautés Isolées au Pérou, le Cas de la Chaine Laitière de Cajamarca », in Histoires d’Appropriation: le Développement participatif à l’Epreuve de la Réalité, ed. M. Remon, Presses Universitaires de Namur, Namur, 2010, pp. 75-101.

  • Grando, S., Bartolini, F., Bonjean, I., Brunori, G., Mathijs, E., Prosperi, P. and Vergamini, D. (2020), "Small Farms' Behaviour: Conditions, Strategies and Performances", Brunori, G. and Grando, S. (Ed.) Innovation for Sustainability (Research in Rural Sociology and Development, Vol. 25), Emerald Publishing Limited, pp. 125-169. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1057-192220200000025008


DISCUSSION PAPERS


Abstract: To analyze the role of the income constraint in slowing innovation adoption, this paper uses a technology diffusion program based on the work of business-oriented grassroots extension agents in the Peruvian Highlands. Taking advantage of a multiplicity of innovations with different characteristics and of information about innovation suppliers who can grant seller credit, we show that the income constraint operates in a limited manner. Moreover, due to higher trust associated with greater familiarity, households are better able to adopt costly and indivisible innovations when a supplier/lender resides in their own community. The story emerging from the program evokes the relatively egalitarian process underlying the Green Revolution as it has taken place in Asian agriculture, in particular. Overall, our conclusion goes against the pessimistic assessment of the impact of extension work in poor areas that emerges from the current literature.


WORK IN PROGRESS (when leading author only)

  • Bonjean, I. (2018), “Who are the loss-averse farmers? Application of Cumulative Prospect Theory to the Flemish apple and pear sector” (R&R in ERAE)

presented in the REECAP Workshop - Vienna 2018 (BOKU) on Sept 28, 2018

presented in Wageningen University Economic Seminar Series on Nov 18, 2019

presented in CEE-M - INRA SupAgro Montpellier Seminar Series on Jan 18, 2019


Abstract: Farmers have to take decisions in an increasingly risky world. Climatic risk induces more frequent and deep negative shocks that farmers and systems will have to internalize. The production risk adds up to the increased exposure of farmers to price volatility following the market liberalization observed in many countries. Even though risk preferences are recognized to be important factors for understanding farmer’s decision-making, research on estimations of risk preferences is scarce and mainly concentrates on low-income countries. Moreover the state of current research does not enable to conclude on individual drivers of risk preferences because of the lack of robust estimations of heterogeneous effects. I conduct an incentivized field experiment with apple and pear producers, free of learning-bias, to structurally derive parameters of risk preferences based on Cumulative Prospect Theory. The risk tasks follow the adaptation to the European context made by Bocquého et al. (2014) of the experiment developed by Tanaka et al. (2010). Farmers are found to be highly risk averse and to distort probabilities by overweighting small probability of desirable outcomes. However, contrarily to the two previous studies conducted within highly subsidized sectors, fruits producers are not found to be loss averse in average. This effect is interpreted as a mechanical self-selection of entrepreneurial farmers into sectors with relatively thinner safety-net. Moreover, I dig into heterogeneous effects and show that about 15% of the sample completely deviate from the representative agent by being extremely loss-averse. Those individuals are relatively young and low educated farmers, having inherited a relatively small farm that they manage alone. The results of this piece of research have strong policy implications and induce the need of considering heterogeneity across and within sectors when it comes to assessing risk preferences.

  • Bonjean, I. and E. Mathijs (2018), “Can cumulative prospect theory explains farmers’ risk management strategies? Evidence from lab-in-the-field structurally estimated parameters”

accepted to the next EAAE Seminar 168 on Behavioural Perspectives in Agricultural Economics and Management - February 6-7, 2019 at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden

  • Bonjean, I. and E. Mathijs (2018), “To cooperate or not, and how? Unravelling Flemish fruit producer’s preferences for coordination’s schemes attributes”

  • Bonjean, I. and A. Papangelou (2017), “Are sustainable and healthy food baskets also more affordable than traditional ones? Reconciling nature, health and household budgets”

  • Mathijs, E., Bonjean, I., Lievens, E. and M. Moeyersoens (2019) "How information provision and informal commitment from consumer to retailer and producer can trigger more efficient resource allocation: new experimental evidence from Belgium "


CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS

  • Lievens E., Bonjean I., Dąbrowski A., Minarelli F., Gorlach K., Raggi M., Nowak P., Viaggi D. and E. Mathijs, (2018) “Cooperatives adapting to market conditions: insights from a comparative study of apple and pear farming in Poland, Italy and Belgium” – conference proceedings of the 13th IFSA Symposium, Chania, Greece, July 1-4, 2018

  • Maye D., Kirwan J., Chiswell H., Vigani M., Muñoz-Rojas J., Mathijs E., Bonjean I., Hvarregaard Thorsøe M., Noe E., Von Münchausen S., Grivins M., Aubert P-M., Nowak P., Minarelli, F, “Farmer strategies to manage market uncertainty: commodity-level analysis and critique” – conference proceedings of the 13th IFSA Symposium, Chania, Greece, July 1-4, 2018

  • Von Münchhausen, S., Knickel, K., Bonjean, I., Grando S., and E. Mathijs (2016). “Exploring Farmer’s Conditions, Strategies and Sustainability Performances with the CSP Model”, German Association of Agricultural Economists (GEWISOLA), 56th Annual Conference, Bonn, Germany, September 28-30, 2016

  • Grando, S., Bartolini, F., Brunori, G., Prosperi, P., Avermaete, T., Bonjean, I. and E. Mathijs (2016), “Strategies for sustainable farming: an overview of theories and practices”, conference proceedings of the 12th IFSA Symposium, Harper Adam University, Telford, UK