Risk preferences and pesticide use by cotton farmers in China

Elaine Liu and Jikun Huang

Journal of Development Economics, 2013, vol. 103, issue C, 202-215

Abstract: Despite that insect-resistant Bt cotton has been lauded for its ability to reduce the use of pesticides, studies have shown that Chinese Bt cotton farmers continue to use excessive amounts of pesticides. Using results from a survey and an artefactual field experiment, we find that farmers who are more risk averse use greater quantities of pesticides. We also find that farmers who are more loss averse use lesser quantities of pesticides. This result is consistent with our conceptual framework and suggestive evidence where farmers behave in a loss averse manner in the health domain and place more weight on the importance of health over money in the loss domain.

Keywords: Risk preferences; Prospect theory; Pesticide use (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 I15 Q12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (133)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304387813000023
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:deveco:v:103:y:2013:i:c:p:202-215

DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2012.12.005

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
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().