Communication and Production in the Family Farm: Theory and Evidence from Rural Togo

Marie Christine Apedo-Amah, Habiba Djebbari and Roberta Ziparo

Economic Development and Cultural Change, 2026, vol. 74, issue 4, 1589 - 1622

Abstract: We test for cheap talk between husbands and wives in farm households. In a lab-in-the-field experiment, husbands allocate inputs between their own plots and their wives’ higher-return plots. We vary how returns on the wife’s plot are communicated. Across all treatments, husbands underinvest in their wives’ land. We model this with limited enforcement of marital agreements and derive additional predictions. Allocative inefficiencies are greater when women hold private information, especially in households with low resource sharing under full information. Communication only partly offsets inefficiencies, and only when information is verifiable ex post.

Date: 2026
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