Agricultural labour productivity and credit constraints: implications for consumption in rural Ghana

Haruna Issahaku, Ishaque Mahama and Reginald Addy–Morton

African Journal of Economic and Management Studies, 2020, vol. 11, issue 2, 331-351

Abstract: Purpose - The purpose of this study is to assess the impact of credit constraints on agricultural labour productivity as well as the impact of credit constraints and agricultural labour productivity on rural households' consumption in Ghana. Design/methodology/approach - This study uses the Ghana Living Standard Survey round six (GLSS 6) as the main source of data, which happens to be one of the most comprehensive household datasets in Ghana. Quantitative estimation techniques (namely: Endogenous Switching Regression and Two Stage Least Squares) are used to address possible endogeneity and selection into credit markets. Findings - First, large households are prone to credit constraints while age (experience) and compliance with extension advice reduce credit constraints. Second, the determinants of agricultural labour productivity for both constrained and unconstrained households are age, sex, farm equipment, herbicide and farm size. Third, household size, education and livestock rearing influence agricultural labour productivity of constrained households. Fourth, credit constraints, irrespective of how they are measured, impede agricultural labour productivity while access to credit fosters labour productivity. Lastly, credit constraints robustly reduce consumption while agricultural labour productivity strongly enhances rural households' consumption. Originality/value - The first contribution is that, unlike most previous studies, we do not focus on the widely used measure of productivity – output per unit land, but on agriculture labour productivity in particular. Secondly, unlike most previous studies which examine the effect of credit constraints either on productivity alone or consumption alone, our study examines the impact of credit constraints on both. Thirdly, unlike the existing literature which uses one or two measures of credit constraints, we use a wide range of measures of credit constraints – seven different measures of credit constraints. Lastly, our empirical strategy solves at least two critical econometric problems – sample selection bias and endogeneity.

Keywords: Credit constraints; Agricultural labour productivity; Consumption; Endogenous switching regression; Ghana; D13; F66; H31; J01; Q12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

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:eme:ajemsp:ajems-03-2019-0124

DOI: 10.1108/AJEMS-03-2019-0124

Access Statistics for this article

African Journal of Economic and Management Studies is currently edited by Prof John Kuada

More articles in African Journal of Economic and Management Studies from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().