ARE at AAEA: Jonathan G. Malacarne: The Farmer and The Fates: Locus of Control and Investment in a Stochastic Production Process
July 31, 2018
Time: 10 a.m. Monday, Aug. 6
Location: Washington Room 3
Abstract
This paper studies the psychological notion of locus of control from an economic perspective. Locus of control refers to the extent to which a decision-maker believes that her actions determine outcomes relative to forces outside of her control. I demonstrate that locus of control affects the perceived returns to investment under conditions consistent with a broad range of investment activities. I then use data on the adoption of improved maize varieties by smallholding farmers to study the relationship between locus of control and investment empirically.
*This is information about one of the 17 people from ARE with a presentation at the 2018 AAEA Annual Meeting Aug. 5–7 in Washington, D.C.
