Assistant Professor of Economics Emily Conover presented a paper titled “The Impact of Receiving SMS Price and Weather Information in Colombia’s Agricultural Sector” at the Northeast Universities Development Consortium (NEUDC) Conference Nov. 12-13 at Yale University. The conference is a major forum in development economics.
Conover’s paper presented the results of her research in which she randomized recipients of price and weather information using text messages. Previous U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) studies indicated that farmers’ lack of information on prices can translate into inefficiencies in commercialization and production decisions. Conover found that farmers who received the text messages were more likely to provide market price information and had a significant reduction in crop loss. However, she found no significant difference between the treated and untreated farmers in the actual sale price, nor changes in farmers’ revenues.
