Technical efficiency and technological gaps correcting for selectivity bias: Insights from a value chain project in Nepal

Florian Neubauer, Tisorn Songsermsawas, Joanna Kámiche-Zegarra, Boris E. Bravo-Ureta

Producción científica: Contribución a una revistaArtículo de revista revisión exhaustiva

7 Citas (Scopus)

Resumen

Strengthening linkages with markets along the value chain is a promising pathway to increase agricultural productivity, welfare, and food security of smallholder producers in developing countries. Our study investigates the impact of an integrated value chain project, which linked producer organizations to markets and provided various types of training to their members. Using primary survey data from Nepal, we apply propensity score matching to ensure common support and statistical balance between project (treatment) and non-project (control) households. We implement the selectivity-corrected stochastic production frontier methodology to control for unobservable characteristics and estimate a simulation-based stochastic metafrontier to account for different technological levels between the two groups of households. Comparing results between the translog and Cobb-Douglas production frontiers, we find that the more flexible translog specification shows no signs of selectivity bias while this bias is present with the Cobb-Douglas, motivating the need to correct for selectivity. Our main results from the metafrontier analysis indicate that project impacts are reflected in substantial technological gaps and significant meta-technical efficiency differences in favor of treatment households. Thus, this study shows that strengthening linkages between producers and markets can have a large positive effect on productivity. Heterogeneity analysis suggests that more vulnerable producers, including those with fewer years of education and smaller farms, receive relatively higher returns from the project compared to their counterparts.
Idioma originalInglés
Número de artículo102364
Número de páginas15
PublicaciónFood Policy
Volumen112
DOI
EstadoPublicada - oct. 2022

Nota bibliográfica

eISSN 1873-5657.

Bibliografía: páginas 13-15.

Funding Information: The authors acknowledge support from IFAD and the University of Connecticut. We thank the Co-Editor David Ubilava and two anonymous referees for comments and suggestions. Furhter, we are grateful to comments and suggestions from William Greene, Fabrizio Bresciani, Daniel Higgins, Kashi Kafle, Aslihan Arslan, Paul Winters, and Berihun Adugna during the earlier stages of this research, as well as participants of the vNAPW 2021. We express our appreciation to the IFAD Nepal country team (Bashu Babu Aryal and Mehri Ismaili), and the High Value Project Hill and Mountain Areas (HVAP) project team for logistical support during field visits in Nepal. Kwabena Krah and Krishna Thapa provided excellent research assistance.

Publisher Copyright: © 2022 Elsevier Ltd.

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