This project explores an intervention to encourage the take-up of M-CADJU in Guinea-Bissau, a live-fair-price mobile phone information service that helps farmers maximise the price they receive for their produce.
Large and regular seasonal price fluctuations in local grain markets appear to offer African farmers substantial intertemporal arbitrage opportunities, but these opportunities remain largely unexploited.
Economic growth requires confidence in the state's ability to enforce secure exchange. But when states selectively enforce rule of law, political considerations can moderate the trust that buyers have in sellers.
This project aims to rigorously identify what type of market arrangements and infrastructure provide the most sustainable environment for agricultural rental markets of equipment to arise, or how the entry of formal rental opportunities impact informal renting arrangements.
A commonly held and highly intuitive view is that intensified competition will improve the allocation of resources in an economy, by shifting resources to more productive firms.
Using innovation survey data on a sample of UK manufacturing firms, Laursen and Salter (2006) documented a non-monotonous relationship between external search strategies and firm-level innovative performance.
Nchake, Edwards and Sundaram (2018) study the relationship between price-setting behavior and the degree of competition in a setting where markets and information flows are relatively imperfect.
Despite the importance of agglomeration externalities in theoretical work, evidence for their nature, scale, and scope remains elusive, particularly in developing countries.