Heterogeneous effects of agricultural technical assistance in Colombia
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The series Borradores de Economía (Working Papers on Economics) contributes to the dissemination and promotion of the work by researchers from the institution. On multiple occasions, these works have been the result of collaborative work with individuals from other national or international institutions. This series is indexed at Research Papers in Economics (RePEc). The opinions contained in this document are the sole responsibility of the author and do not commit Banco de la República or its Board of Directors.
Abstract
Small family farms account for 72 percent of the farms in the world. Most of these farms, in developing countries, face labor productivity gaps. One of the strategies to increase agricultural productivity focuses on implementing technical assistance programs. Using agriculture microdata, we estimate the marginal treatment effect of receiving technical assistance services. We find that technical assistance generates heterogeneous effects. On average, agricultural units receiving technical assistance increased their agricultural production by 50.4 percent. However, there is important heterogeneity of technical assistance’s effects across the production units’ unobserved and observed characteristics.
