@article{d2e7ac9764f947c587339cba6ea4fed1,
title = "Aspirations, risk preferences, and investments in agricultural technologies",
abstract = "We investigate the relationship between aspirations, risk preferences, and investment in agricultural technologies using data collected among cacao farmers in Ecuador. We first find that an inverted U-shaped relationship between the income aspirations gap and investments exists when considering relatively long-term investments (e.g., farm renovations) but not when considering relatively short-term investments (e.g., fertilizer use). Next, using lab-in-the-field experiments and survey instruments designed to elicit risk preferences, we show that the observed inverted U-shaped relationship is robust to the inclusion of risk preference parameters in our regression specification—a potentially important omitted variable in previous studies. Our empirical results are consistent with existing theory suggesting that aspirations that are ahead, but not too far ahead, of current levels provide the best incentives for investments in the future, and suggest the presence of psychological constraints to investments in agricultural technology.",
keywords = "Agriculture, Aspirations, Cacao, Investment, Risk",
author = "Villacis, {Alexis H.} and Bloem, {Jeffrey R.} and Mishra, {Ashok K.}",
note = "Funding Information: The authors thank Robert Garlick, Matthew MacLachlan, Keenan Marchesi, Stephen Morgan, Alexander Stevens, Dylan Turner, Sabrina Young, two anonymous reviewers, and Pallavi Shukla, our editor at Food Policy, for constructive comments on a previous draft of this manuscript. We are also grateful to participants at the 2022 Special Economic Science Association (ESA) meeting sponsored by the The University of Chicago-UCEMA Joint Initiative for Latin American Experimental Economics (JILAEE), the 2022 Western Economic Association International (WEAI) conference, the 2022 Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA) Annual Meeting, the 2022 American Society of Hispanic Economists (ASHE) Research Seminar, and the 2022 Economics Seminar Series at the University of Siegen, Germany for constructive feedback that helped us improve this paper. The authors also acknowledge support from personnel from the Ecuadorian Institute of Agricultural Research (INIAP) for help in the data collection. This research was sponsored by the Marley Foundation at Arizona State University, United States. All errors are our own. Funding Information: The authors thank Robert Garlick, Matthew MacLachlan, Keenan Marchesi, Stephen Morgan, Alexander Stevens, Dylan Turner, Sabrina Young, two anonymous reviewers, and Pallavi Shukla, our editor at Food Policy, for constructive comments on a previous draft of this manuscript. We are also grateful to participants at the 2022 Special Economic Science Association (ESA) meeting sponsored by the The University of Chicago-UCEMA Joint Initiative for Latin American Experimental Economics (JILAEE), the 2022 Western Economic Association International (WEAI) conference, the 2022 Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA) Annual Meeting, the 2022 American Society of Hispanic Economists (ASHE) Research Seminar, and the 2022 Economics Seminar Series at the University of Siegen, Germany for constructive feedback that helped us improve this paper. The authors also acknowledge support from personnel from the Ecuadorian Institute of Agricultural Research (INIAP) for help in the data collection. This research was sponsored by the Marley Foundation at Arizona State University, United States . All errors are our own. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2023 Elsevier Ltd",
year = "2023",
month = oct,
doi = "10.1016/j.foodpol.2023.102477",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "120",
journal = "Food Policy",
issn = "0306-9192",
publisher = "Elsevier BV",
}