Flexible contracting and quality upgrading under market volatility: Experimental evidence from Senegal
Journal of Development Economics · 2026 · Joshua Deutschmann、Tanguy Bernard、Ouambi Yameogo
中文摘要
我们对塞内加尔的花生生产者和合作社开展了一项随机实验，以应对食品安全管理和遵守国际质量标准所面临的障碍。我们向生产者提供一揽子契约，将信贷、技术推广服务与价格溢价保证相结合，以鼓励其采用一项新的食品安全技术。该契约在产出销售方面具有灵活性：提供契约的合作社力求汇集成员的产出，但农户可以在出现更高价格机会时加以利用。我们发现，被随机提供该契约的生产者购买该技术的可能性显著更高，通过合作社销售的产出更多；并且，在因农业气候条件导致质量本会较低的地区，他们遵守国际食品安全标准的可能性也更高。实验结束两年后，合作社将一项类似契约推广至所有成员，但不再提供价格溢价，并改用间接沟通策略。相对于实验期间，对该技术的需求有所下降，但此前接受处理的农户对该技术的需求仍持续处于较高水平。
Abstract
We conduct a randomized experiment with groundnut producers and cooperatives in Senegal to address barriers to managing food safety and complying with international quality standards. We offer producers a bundled contract combining credit, extension, and a price premium guarantee to encourage use of a new food safety technology. The contract is flexible regarding sales of output: while cooperatives offering the contract seek to aggregate members’ output, farmers can seize higher price opportunities when available. We find that producers randomly offered the contract are significantly more likely to purchase the technology, sell more output via cooperatives, and are more likely to comply with international food safety standards in areas where quality would otherwise be lower due to agro-climatic conditions. Two years after our experiment, the cooperatives scaled a similar contract to all members but without a price premium and with an indirect communications strategy. Demand for the technology fell relative to the experiment, but remained persistently higher among previously-treated farmers.