Sequential Labor Decisions under Uncertainty: An Estimable Household Model of West-African Farmers.

This paper reports estimates of the primitive parameters of a stochastic control model describing the labor decisions of West African small farmers. Maximum likelihood estimates are computed although optimal labor decision rules cannot be derived analytically. Vuong's non-nested model specifica...

সম্পূর্ণ বিবরণ

গ্রন্থ-পঞ্জীর বিবরন
প্রধান লেখক: Fafchamps, M
বিন্যাস: Journal article
ভাষা:English
প্রকাশিত: Econometric Society 1993
বিবরন
সংক্ষিপ্ত:This paper reports estimates of the primitive parameters of a stochastic control model describing the labor decisions of West African small farmers. Maximum likelihood estimates are computed although optimal labor decision rules cannot be derived analytically. Vuong's non-nested model specification test shows that this method yields estimates superior to those derived by assuming that farmers solve a deterministic control problem. Low levels of labor effort are shown to be a consequence of low labor productivity in archaic rain-fed agriculture and of farmers' awareness that, in the absence of a labor market, overly ambitious production plans lead to seasonal manpower shortages.