Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Series: Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers
Creation-Date: 2018-06-15
Revision-Date: 2022-03-12
Number: 18-055/IVI
Author-Name: Wouter Zant
Author-Workplace-Name: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Title: Mobile Phones and Mozambique Farmers: Less Asymmetric Information and More Trader Competition?
Abstract: We measure how the introduction of mobile phones in Mozambique affected unit values of household maize sales, maize producer prices and tradersŐ margins. Our estimations are based both on representative household surveys for the years 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006 and 2008, and on weekly producer and market prices of white maize grain from July 1997 to December 2009 for 15 major producer markets. We find household sales unit values and producer price decreases, and tradersŐ margin increases between 14% and 22%, indicating benefits for traders. Our results are robust to various threats. We investigate heterogeneity of impacts in order to explore underlying causes: impacts on margins decrease with competitiveness and increase with gains from long-distance trade. Impacts on household selling prices are not significantly correlated with educational attainment, but the fall in prices is much less with larger household wealth. Impacts on household selling prices and producer prices also become less negative over time, suggesting delayed adoption by farmers.
Classification-JEL: G14, O13, O33, Q11, Q13
Keywords: earch costs, transport costs, mobile phones, agricultural markets, maize prices, Mozambique, sub-Sahara Africa
File-URL: https://papers.tinbergen.nl/18055.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
File-Size: 1.809.364 bytes
Handle: RePEc:tin:wpaper:20180055