Personality Traits, Technology Adoption, and Technical Efficiency : Evidence from Smallholder Rice Farms in Ghana
Although a large literature highlights the impact of personality traits on key labor market outcomes, evidence of their impact on agricultural production decisions remains limited. Data from 1,200 Ghanaian rice farmers suggest that noncognitive ski...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2017
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/727211486054089844/Personality-traits-technology-adoption-and-technical-efficiency-evidence-from-smallholder-rice-farms-in-Ghana http://hdl.handle.net/10986/26019 |
| Summary: | Although a large literature highlights
the impact of personality traits on key labor market
outcomes, evidence of their impact on agricultural
production decisions remains limited. Data from 1,200
Ghanaian rice farmers suggest that noncognitive skills
(polychronicity, work centrality, and optimism)
significantly affect simple adoption decisions, returns from
adoption, and technical efficiency in rice production, and
that the size of the estimated impacts exceeds that of
traditional human capital measures. Greater focus on
personality traits relative to cognitive skills may help
accelerate innovation diffusion in the short term, and help
farmers to respond flexibly to new opportunities and risks
in the longer term. |
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