Information Provision Policies for Improving Farmer Welfare in Developing Countries: Heterogeneous Farmers and Market Selection
研究了发展中国家向农民提供市场信息（如种什么、卖到哪）的政策效果，发现免费提供信息对个体有利但未必使整体福利最大，最优策略是向远离市场的农民定向提供，或收取象征性费用以促进自愿采纳。
We examine the impact of information provision policies on farmer welfare in developing countries where farmers lack relevant and timely information for making informed decisions regarding which crop to grow and which market to sell in. In addition to heterogeneous farmers, we consider the case when farmers are price takers and yet the price of each crop (or the price in each market) is a linearly decreasing function of the total sales quantity. When market information is offered free of charge, we show that (a) providing information is always beneficial to farmers at the individual level and (b) providing information to all farmers may not be welfare maximizing at the aggregate level. To maximize farmer welfare, it is optimal to provide information to a targeted group of farmers who are located far from either markets. However, to overcome perceived unfairness among farmers, we show that the government should provide information to all farmers at a nominal fee so that the farmers will adopt the intended optimal provision policy willingly. We extend our analysis to examine different issues including information leakage, social welfare, precision of market information, and information dissemination via a for-profit company. This paper has been accepted for the Manufacturing & Service Operations Management Special Issue on Value Chain Innovations in Developing Economies.