Not Your Average Job : Measuring Farm Labor in Tanzania

Understanding the constraints to agricultural growth in Africa relies on the accurate measurement of smallholder labor. Yet, serious weaknesses in these statistics persist. The extent of bias in smallholder labor data is examined by conducting a randomized survey experiment among farming households...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors:	Arthi, Vellore, Beegle, Kathleen, De Weerdt, Joachim, Palacios-López, Amparo
Format:	Journal Article
Published:	Elsevier 2018
Subjects:	FARM LABOR AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY RECALL ERROR MEASUREMENT ERROR SURVEYS REPORTING BIAS
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29301

id	okr-10986-29301
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-293012021-05-25T10:54:43Z Not Your Average Job : Measuring Farm Labor in Tanzania Arthi, Vellore Beegle, Kathleen De Weerdt, Joachim Palacios-López, Amparo FARM LABOR AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY RECALL ERROR MEASUREMENT ERROR SURVEYS REPORTING BIAS Understanding the constraints to agricultural growth in Africa relies on the accurate measurement of smallholder labor. Yet, serious weaknesses in these statistics persist. The extent of bias in smallholder labor data is examined by conducting a randomized survey experiment among farming households in rural Tanzania. Agricultural labor estimates obtained through weekly surveys are compared with the results of reporting in a single end-of-season recall survey. The findings show strong evidence of recall bias: people in traditional recall-style modules reported working up to four times as many hours per person-plot as those reporting labor on a weekly basis. Recall bias manifests both in the intensive and extensive margins of labor reporting: while hours are over-reported in recall, the number of people and plots active in agricultural work are under-reported. The evidence suggests that this recall bias is driven not only by failures in memory, but also by the mental burdens of reporting on highly variable agricultural work patterns to provide a typical estimate. All things equal, studies suffering from this bias would understate agricultural labor productivity. 2018-02-01T20:53:13Z 2018-02-01T20:53:13Z 2018-01 Journal Article Journal of Development Economics 0304-3878 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29301 CC BY-NC0ND 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo World Bank Elsevier Publications & Research :: Journal Article Publications & Research Africa Tanzania
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
topic	FARM LABOR AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY RECALL ERROR MEASUREMENT ERROR SURVEYS REPORTING BIAS
spellingShingle	FARM LABOR AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY RECALL ERROR MEASUREMENT ERROR SURVEYS REPORTING BIAS Arthi, Vellore Beegle, Kathleen De Weerdt, Joachim Palacios-López, Amparo Not Your Average Job : Measuring Farm Labor in Tanzania
geographic_facet	Africa Tanzania
description	Understanding the constraints to agricultural growth in Africa relies on the accurate measurement of smallholder labor. Yet, serious weaknesses in these statistics persist. The extent of bias in smallholder labor data is examined by conducting a randomized survey experiment among farming households in rural Tanzania. Agricultural labor estimates obtained through weekly surveys are compared with the results of reporting in a single end-of-season recall survey. The findings show strong evidence of recall bias: people in traditional recall-style modules reported working up to four times as many hours per person-plot as those reporting labor on a weekly basis. Recall bias manifests both in the intensive and extensive margins of labor reporting: while hours are over-reported in recall, the number of people and plots active in agricultural work are under-reported. The evidence suggests that this recall bias is driven not only by failures in memory, but also by the mental burdens of reporting on highly variable agricultural work patterns to provide a typical estimate. All things equal, studies suffering from this bias would understate agricultural labor productivity.
format	Journal Article
author	Arthi, Vellore Beegle, Kathleen De Weerdt, Joachim Palacios-López, Amparo
author_facet	Arthi, Vellore Beegle, Kathleen De Weerdt, Joachim Palacios-López, Amparo
author_sort	Arthi, Vellore
title	Not Your Average Job : Measuring Farm Labor in Tanzania
title_short	Not Your Average Job : Measuring Farm Labor in Tanzania
title_full	Not Your Average Job : Measuring Farm Labor in Tanzania
title_fullStr	Not Your Average Job : Measuring Farm Labor in Tanzania
title_full_unstemmed	Not Your Average Job : Measuring Farm Labor in Tanzania
title_sort	not your average job : measuring farm labor in tanzania
publisher	Elsevier
publishDate	2018
url	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29301
_version_	1764469003284119552

Not Your Average Job : Measuring Farm Labor in Tanzania

Similar Items