Time to Change What to Sow: Risk Preferences and Technology Adoption Decisions of Cotton Farmers in China

Elaine Liu

The Review of Economics and Statistics, 2013, vol. 95, issue 4, 1386-1403

Abstract: This paper examines the role of individual risk attitudes in the decision to adopt a new form of agricultural biotechnology in China. I conducted a survey and a field experiment to elicit the risk preferences of Chinese farmers, who faced the decision of whether to adopt genetically modified Bt cotton a decade ago. In my analysis, I expand the measurement of risk preferences beyond expected utility theory to incorporate prospect theory. I find that farmers who are more risk averse or more loss averse adopt Bt cotton later. Farmers who overweight small probabilities adopt Bt cotton earlier. © 2013 The President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Keywords: technology adoption; risk preferences; prospect theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D03 D81 D83 O13 O14 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (315)

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Working Paper: Time to Change What to Sow: Risk Preferences and Technology Adoption Decisions of Cotton Farmers in China (2008)
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