Impact of Third‐party Contract Enforcement in Agricultural Markets—A Field Experiment in Vietnam
通过越南乳农的实地实验，发现让农民独立验证牛奶质量检测结果能缓解信息不对称，使投入增加12%并显著提高产量，对合同农业政策有启示。
We study the effect of alleviating the information asymmetry regarding product quality that is widespread in contracts between agricultural producers and buyers in developing countries. Opportunistic buyers may underreport quality levels to farmers to reduce the price that they have to pay. In response, farmers may curb investment, thereby negatively affecting farm productivity. In an experiment, we entitle randomly selected smallholder dairy farmers in Vietnam, who are contracted by a large company, to independently verify milk testing results. Results indicate that treatment farmers use 12% more inputs, and they also increase their output significantly. Some wider research and policy implications are discussed.