Scaling Agricultural Policy Interventions

82 Pages Posted: 5 Dec 2022 Last revised: 23 Nov 2024

See all articles by Lauren Bergquist

Lauren Bergquist

Yale University

Benjamin Faber

University of California, Berkeley - Department of Economics

Thibault Fally

UC Berkeley - ARE Department

Matthias Hoelzlein

University of Notre Dame - Department of Economics

Edward Miguel

University of California, Berkeley - Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Andrés Rodríguez-Clare

University of California, Berkeley

Date Written: December 2022

Abstract

Policies aimed at raising agricultural productivity have been a centerpiece in the fight against global poverty. Their impacts are often measured using field or quasi-experiments that provide strong causal identification, but may be too small-scale to capture the general equilibrium (GE) effects that emerge once the policy is scaled up. We propose a new approach for quantifying large-scale GE policy counterfactuals that can both complement and be informed by evidence from field and quasi-experiments. We develop a quantitative model of farm production, consumption and trading that captures important features of this setting, and propose a new solution method that relies on rich but widely available microdata. We showcase our approach in the context of a subsidy for modern inputs in Uganda, using variation from field and quasi-experiments for parameter estimation. We find that both the average and distributional impacts of the subsidy differ meaningfully when comparing a local intervention to one at scale, even for the same sample of farmers, and quantify the underlying mechanisms. We further document new insights on how GE forces differ as a function of saturation rates at different geographical scales, and on the importance of capturing a granular economic geography for counterfactual analysis.

Suggested Citation

Bergquist, Lauren and Faber, Benjamin and Fally, Thibault and Hoelzlein, Matthias and Miguel, Edward and Rodríguez-Clare, Andrés, Scaling Agricultural Policy Interventions (December 2022). NBER Working Paper No. w30704, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4293617

Lauren Bergquist (Contact Author)

Yale University ( email )

493 College St
New Haven, CT CT 06520
United States

Benjamin Faber

University of California, Berkeley - Department of Economics ( email )

549 Evans Hall #3880
Berkeley, CA 94720-3880
United States

Thibault Fally

UC Berkeley - ARE Department ( email )

Berkeley, CA 94720
United States

HOME PAGE: http://are.berkeley.edu/~fally/

Matthias Hoelzlein

University of Notre Dame - Department of Economics ( email )

United States

Edward Miguel

University of California, Berkeley - Department of Economics ( email )

549 Evans Hall #3880
Berkeley, CA 94720-3880
United States

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

Andrés Rodríguez-Clare

University of California, Berkeley ( email )

310 Barrows Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720
United States

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