Risk and Ambiguity Preferences and the Adoption of New Agricultural Technologies

Download or read book Risk and Ambiguity Preferences and the Adoption of New Agricultural Technologies written by Ward, Patrick S. and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Advances in agricultural development have largely been a direct result of increased usage of new technologies. Among other important factors, farmers’ perceptions of risks associated with the new technology as well as their ability or willingness to take risks greatly influences their adoption decisions. In this paper we conduct a series of field experiments in rural India in order to measure preferences related to risk, potential loss, and ambiguity. Disaggregating by gender, we find that on average women are significantly more risk averse and loss averse than men, though the higher average risk aversion arises due to a greater share of women who are extremely risk averse.