• 28 Oct 2022
• 2022

CELG Seminar: Misallocation and Shocks: Evidence from Vietnamese villages

Dear Lecturers, Researchers and Students,

The College of Economics, Law and Government would like to respectfully invite lecturers/ researchers to come and share your experiences at the CELG seminar:

Topic: Misallocation and Shocks: Evidence from Vietnamese villages
Presenter: Dr.André Gröger, Autonomous University of Barcelona
Time: 09:00 AM (Vietnam), Friday, 28th October 2022
Location: Room B1-1001, 279 Nguyen Tri Phuong St, Ward 5, Dist 10, HCMC

To receive CELG seminar information, please fill out this form: //go.sbdweb.com/CELGSseminarinformation.

To present and submit a report, please fill out this form: //go.sbdweb.com/CELGseminarpresenter.

Agricultural productivity is low in rural economies compared to that of developed economies, and there is a disparity in measured productivity across farms. The dispersion of measured productivity might reflect (i) volatile conditions and (ii) sluggish adjustments in agricultural production to such conditions, e.g., due to market frictions or technological constraints. We combine exceptionally rich farm and crop panel data from Vietnam, featuring crop-specific inputs and outputs, with exogenous price shocks to each of those crops. This paper sheds light on the existence and nature of such imperfect adjustments by exploiting large shocks affecting the overall returns to production factors across crops, by measuring the adjustment of production (factors, inputs and cropping patterns) across and within farms, and by estimating a dynamic structural model of farm production. We use the model to assess the role of market frictions versus technological constraints. The first results show that farmers engaged in just one crop variety are subject to a 19% income loss compared to multi-crop farmers due to factor misallocation. The findings suggest that factor misallocation may have important implications for the design and targeting of agricultural interventions and extension services.

About presenter:

Dr.André Gröger is an Assistant Professor of Economics (tenure-track) and Serra Húnter Fellow at  (UAB), Affiliated Professor at the  (BSE), and Fellow at  (MOVE). My research interests are in Applied Microeconomics, Data Science, Development, Labor and Political Economy.