The Evolution of the California Blueberry Industry: A Social Network Analysis Approach

Zoe T. Plakias

No 166093, 2014 AAEA/EAAE/CAES Joint Symposium: Social Networks, Social Media and the Economics of Food, May 29-30, 2014, Montreal, Canada from Agricultural and Applied Economics Association

Abstract: In this paper, I estimate local and industry peer effects related to the adoption of blueberries as a crop among California growers. I employ publicly available data from the California Department of Pesticide Regulation for the years 2001 through 2011. Geographic and inter-industry network analyses complement the econometric estimation and provide greater insight into the patterns of peer effects. Industry peer effects (i.e. those connections to other growers through growing crops other than blueberries) have a positive and statistically significant effect on the probability of adopting blueberries. Local effects play a significant, though seemingly less important, role. The geographic and social network analyses corroborate these results and provide greater depth. I find this type of analysis can over some insight about crop adoption without the expense necessary for most social network studies.

Keywords: Agricultural and Food Policy; Crop Production/Industries (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26
Date: 2014-04-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/166093/files/A ... 20-%20PlakiasNEW.pdf (application/pdf)

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:ags:aajs14:166093

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.166093

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 2014 AAEA/EAAE/CAES Joint Symposium: Social Networks, Social Media and the Economics of Food, May 29-30, 2014, Montreal, Canada from Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().