 Information and behavior: Evidence from fertilizer quantity recommendations in BangladeshSabrin Beg, Mahnaz Islam and Khandker Wahedur Rahman Journal of Development Economics, 2024, vol. 166, issue C Abstract: We use a field experiment in Bangladesh to test if two types of variety-specific fertilizer recommendations – government provided, community-level recommendations and plot-specific recommendations based on individual soil tests – affect fertilizer use, yield, and profits. The treatments have a limited effect on quantity of most fertilizer types used by farmers. One exception is the case of TSP (phosphate fertilizer), which is recommended for all varieties but recommended quantities are significantly lower than the baseline average usage. A minority of treatment farmers over-react to the recommendations by stopping TSP use after the intervention. In the soil-testing treatment arm farmers also shift their seed choice to varieties for which their baseline fertilizer consumption aligns with the recommendation. Opting out of using TSP, an essential fertilizer, ultimately hurts productivity as farmers in the community-based recommendation arm experience a 4% yield reduction. Keywords: Fertilizer recommendations; Information experiment; Farm inputs; Bangladesh (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:deveco:v:166:y:2024:i:c:s0304387823001517 DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2023.103195 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Development Economics is currently edited by M. R. Rosenzweig More articles in Journal of Development Economics from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.