Nothing Special   »   [go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/eaa150/212664.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Impact of Extension Services on Farm Level Outcomes: An Instrumental Variable Approach

Author

Listed:
  • Cawley, A.P
  • Heanue, K.
  • O’Donoghue, C.
  • Sheehan, M.
Abstract
Many studies show that interaction with extension services impact farmer’s technology adoption decisions and profitability levels. However, analysis of extension impact across all farm systems whilst controlling for endogeneity biases is less common. This research attempts to redress that research gap by firstly discussing the various biases related to the motivation to engage with extension services, omitted variable bias and measurement error, and subsequently applying instrumental variable (IV) regression estimation to the relationship between extension engagement and farm level outcomes, namely family farm income over a pooled panel dataset. Distance to the local advisory office and the introduction of a policy change were chosen as valid and relevant instruments. The results indicate a positive impact of extension engagement on farm income, and imply that an ordinary least squares approach underestimates the benefits of extension engagement. Accordingly, increased advisory activity could improve the performance of the sector significantly, and this could be a useful policy tool to achieve the targets as set out by the Irish governments Food Wise 2025 plan.

Suggested Citation

  • Cawley, A.P & Heanue, K. & O’Donoghue, C. & Sheehan, M., 2015. "The Impact of Extension Services on Farm Level Outcomes: An Instrumental Variable Approach," 150th Seminar, October 22-23, 2015, Edinburgh, Scotland 212664, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:eaa150:212664
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.212664
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/212664/files/The%20Impact%20of%20Extension%20Services%20on%20Farm%20Level%20Outcomes%20An%20Instrumental%20Variable%20Approach.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.212664?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Birkhaeuser, Dean & Evenson, Robert E & Feder, Gershon, 1991. "The Economic Impact of Agricultural Extension: A Review," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(3), pages 607-650, April.
    2. Jock R. Anderson, 2004. "Agricultural Extension: Good Intentions and Hard Realities," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 19(1), pages 41-60.
    3. Guido W. Imbens & Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2009. "Recent Developments in the Econometrics of Program Evaluation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(1), pages 5-86, March.
    4. Hunt, Warren & Birch, Colin & Vanclay, Frank & Coutts, Jeff, 2014. "Recommendations arising from an analysis of changes to the Australian agricultural research, development and extension system," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 129-141.
    5. Stock, James H & Wright, Jonathan H & Yogo, Motohiro, 2002. "A Survey of Weak Instruments and Weak Identification in Generalized Method of Moments," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(4), pages 518-529, October.
    6. Peter Howley & Stephen O Neill & Rowland Atkinson, 2015. "Who Needs Good Neighbors?," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 47(4), pages 939-956, April.
    7. Michael P. Murray, 2006. "Avoiding Invalid Instruments and Coping with Weak Instruments," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(4), pages 111-132, Fall.
    8. Wang, Sun Ling, 2014. "Cooperative Extension System: Trends and Economic Impacts on U.S. Agriculture," Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resource Issues, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 29(1), pages 1-8.
    9. Mario Coccia, 2008. "Spatial mobility of knowledge transfer and absorptive capacity: analysis and measurement of the impact within the geoeconomic space," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 33(1), pages 105-122, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Upton, V. & Ryan, M. & Heanue, K. & Ní Dhubháin, Á., 2019. "The role of extension and forest characteristics in understanding the management decisions of new forest owners in Ireland," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 77-82.
    2. Brennan, Noreen & Ryan, Mary & Hennessy, Thia & Cullen, Paula & Dillon, Emma, 2016. "Going beyond FADN: The use of additional data to gain insights into extension service use across European Union Member States," Studies in Agricultural Economics, Research Institute for Agricultural Economics, vol. 118(3), pages 1-9, December.
    3. repec:aer:wpaper:379 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Kassem, Hazem S. & Alotaibi, Bader Alhafi & Muddassir, Muhammad & Herab, Ahmed, 2021. "Factors influencing farmers’ satisfaction with the quality of agricultural extension services," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    5. Zhijie Guan & Jim Kwee Fat Ip Ping Sheong, 2020. "Determinants of bilateral trade between China and Africa: a gravity model approach," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 47(5), pages 1015-1038, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Anthony Cawley & Cathal O’Donoghue & Kevin Heanue & Rachel Hilliard & Maura Sheehan, 2018. "The Impact of Extension Services on Farm‐level Income: An Instrumental Variable Approach to Combat Endogeneity Concerns," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 40(4), pages 585-612, December.
    2. Anthony Cawley & Kevin Heanue & Rachel Hilliard & Cathal O’Donoghue & Maura Sheehan, 2023. "How Knowledge Transfer Impact Happens at the Farm Level: Insights from Advisers and Farmers in the Irish Agricultural Sector," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-24, February.
    3. Davis, K. & Nkonya, E. & Kato, E. & Mekonnen, D.A. & Odendo, M. & Miiro, R. & Nkuba, J., 2012. "Impact of Farmer Field Schools on Agricultural Productivity and Poverty in East Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 402-413.
    4. Jeffrey Smith & Arthur Sweetman, 2016. "Viewpoint: Estimating the causal effects of policies and programs," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 49(3), pages 871-905, August.
    5. Purna Chandra Tanti & Pradyot Ranjan Jena & Raja Rajendra Timilsina & Dil Bahadur Rahut, 2024. "Enhancing crop yields and farm income through climate-smart agricultural practices in Eastern India," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 29(5), pages 1-28, June.
    6. Brenna Ellison & Nicholas D Paulson & Mykel R Taylor & Glynn T Tonsor & Jonathan Coppess & Gary D Schnitkey, 2017. "Evaluation of Educational Offerings Associated with the 2014 Farm Bill," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 39(4), pages 547-558.
    7. Doko Tchatoka, Firmin Sabro, 2012. "Specification Tests with Weak and Invalid Instruments," MPRA Paper 40185, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. George W. Norton & Jeffrey Alwang, 2020. "Changes in Agricultural Extension and Implications for Farmer Adoption of New Practices," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 42(1), pages 8-20, March.
    9. Shaun M. Dougherty, 2018. "The Effect of Career and Technical Education on Human Capital Accumulation: Causal Evidence from Massachusetts," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 13(2), pages 119-148, Spring.
    10. Subha Mani, 2012. "Is there Complete, Partial, or No Recovery from Childhood Malnutrition? – Empirical Evidence from Indonesia," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 74(5), pages 691-715, October.
    11. Guilhem Bascle, 2008. "Controlling for endogeneity with instrumental variables in strategic management research," Post-Print hal-00576795, HAL.
    12. Tito Belchior Silva Moreira & Benjamin Miranda Tabak & Mario Jorge Mendonça & Adolfo Sachsida, 2016. "An Evaluation of the Non-Neutrality of Money," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(3), pages 1-20, March.
    13. Benjamín Villena-Rodán & Cecilia Ríos-Aguilar, 2011. "Causal Effects of Maternal Time-Investment on Children's Cognitive Outcomes," Documentos de Trabajo 285, Centro de Economía Aplicada, Universidad de Chile.
    14. Kondylis, Florence & Mueller, Valerie, 2012. "Seeing is Believing? Evidence from a Demonstration Plot Experiment in Mozambique:," MSSP working papers 1, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    15. Mari Rege & Kjetil Telle & Mark Votruba, 2012. "Social Interaction Effects in Disability Pension Participation: Evidence from Plant Downsizing," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 114(4), pages 1208-1239, December.
    16. repec:mpr:mprres:6286 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Di Liberto, Adriana & Sideri, Marco, 2015. "Past dominations, current institutions and the Italian regional economic performance," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 12-41.
    18. Bettin, Giulia & Sacchi, Agnese, 2020. "Health spending in Italy: The impact of immigrants," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    19. Gomes, Fábio Augusto Reis & Paz, Lourenço S., 2013. "Estimating the elasticity of intertemporal substitution: Is the aggregate financial return free from the weak instrument problem?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 63-75.
    20. Papineau, Maya, 2017. "Setting the standard? A framework for evaluating the cost-effectiveness of building energy standards," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 63-76.
    21. Margaux Lapierre & Alexandre Sauquet & Julie Subervie, 2019. "Providing technical assistance to peer networks to reduce pesticide use in Europe: Evidence from the French Ecophyto plan," Working Papers hal-02190979, HAL.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Agricultural and Food Policy;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:eaa150:212664. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eaaeeea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.