2021/02/17 by Melissa Hidrobo, Mélissa Hidrobo, Giordano Palloni +4 · 26 citations
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Business, Management and Accounting · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Agricultural Innovations and Practices #Agricultural economics #Agriculture #Business #Economic and Environmental Valuation #Economics #Innovation and Socioeconomic Development #Marketing #Mobile phone #Service (business) #Willingness to pay
paper · open access · doi:10.1086/713974
published in Economic Development and Cultural Change 70(4), 1367-1402 (University of Chicago Press)
openalex publication_date 2021/02/17 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/16
With the widespread growth of mobile phone coverage and adoption over the past decade, there has been considerable enthusiasm over the potential for information and communication technologies (ICTs) to provide a low-cost approach for farmers to overcome information constraints in agricultural initiatives. The commercial viability of ICTs relies on effective demand for these services. This paper assesses farmers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for a digital platform that provides nutrition-sensitive agricultural information in Ghana. Using the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak method to elicit WTP, we randomly vary the framing of the marketing for the service as well as the gender of the person targeted. We find that farmers are highly price sensitive, but most are willing to pay a low monthly price for the service. A nutrition-focused marketing message leads to higher WTP than an agriculture-only message, and women have substantially lower WTP than men, with the latter difference driven by lower WTP for the service among women who report access to alternative sources of nutrition, health, and agriculture information.