Asymmetric Information and Middleman Margins: An Experiment with Indian Potato Farmers

doi:10.1162/REST_a_00699

Publication:
Asymmetric Information and Middleman Margins: An Experiment with Indian Potato Farmers

dc.contributor.author	Mitra, Sandip
dc.contributor.author	Mookherjee, Dilip
dc.contributor.author	Torero, Maximo
dc.contributor.author	Visaria, Sujata
dc.date.accessioned	2018-04-11T17:06:37Z
dc.date.available	2018-04-11T17:06:37Z
dc.date.issued	2018-03
dc.description.abstract	West Bengal potato farmers cannot directly access wholesale markets and do not knowwholesale prices. Local middlemen earn large margins; pass-through from wholesale to farmgate prices is negligible. When we informed farmers in randomly chosen villages about wholesale prices, average farmgate sales and prices were unaffected, but pass-through to farmgate prices increased. These results can be explained by a model where farmers bargain ex post with village middlemen, with the outside option of selling to middlemen outside the village. They are inconsistent with standard oligopolistic models of pass-through, search frictions, or risk-sharing contracts.	en
dc.identifier.citation	Review of Economics and Statistics
dc.identifier.doi	10.1596/29657
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/10986/29657
dc.publisher	The MIT Press
dc.rights	CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO
dc.rights.holder	World Bank
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo
dc.subject	WEST BENGAL
dc.subject	MIDDLEMEN
dc.subject	FARMGATE PRICES
dc.subject	POTATO FARMERS
dc.title	Asymmetric Information and Middleman Margins	en
dc.title.subtitle	An Experiment with Indian Potato Farmers	en
dc.type	Journal Article	en
dc.type	Article de journal	fr
dc.type	Artículo de revista	es
dspace.entity.type	Publication
okr.associatedcontent	https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/REST_a_00699 Journal website (version of record)	en
okr.date.disclosure	2019-03-02
okr.doctype	Publications & Research::Journal Article
okr.doctype	Publications & Research
okr.externalcontent	External Content
okr.identifier.doi	10.1162/REST_a_00699
okr.identifier.doi	10.1596/29657
okr.identifier.report	126651
okr.journal.nbpages	1-13
okr.language.supported	en
okr.peerreview	Academic Peer Review
okr.region.administrative	South Asia
okr.region.country	India
okr.topic	Agriculture::Agricultural Knowledge & Information Systems
okr.topic	Agriculture::Agricultural Sector Economics
okr.topic	Agriculture::Food Markets
okr.topic	Rural Development::Rural Development Knowledge & Information Systems
okr.topic	Rural Development::Rural Poverty Reduction Strategies
okr.unit	EDS08
okr.volume	100(1)