Agricultural Economics (Amsterdam, Netherlands), This paper tests for the influence of advertising on the inter-product distribution of consumer demand for non-durable goods and services in the UK, 1963–1996. The long-run demand for seven categories of non-durable products is modelled through an advertising-augmented version of the almost ideal demand system (AIDS), which is incorporated into an error-correction model to allow for short-run dynamic adjustments to long-run equilibrium positions. Model estimates confirm that the restrictions of price homogeneity and symmetry appear to be consistent with the data, yield measures of the various types of demand elasticity that are in general plausible, confirm the strong influence of prices on the allocation of consumer expenditure, but find little evidence to support the hypothesis that advertising has the power to effect marked changes in the inter-product pattern of consumer demand in the UK.
Barbosa, Mariza (author), Junior, Raimundo Gomes (author), Strauss, John (author), Teixeira, Sonia (author), Thomas, Duncan (author), and Rand Corporation, Santa Monica, CA; EMBRAPA-SEP, Brasilia, Brazil; EMBRAPA Centro Nacional de Pesquisa de Arroz e Fejao (CNPAF), Goiania, Brazil; Yale University, New Haven, CT; EMBRAPA-SEP, Brasilia, Brazil
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
1992-08
Published:
Netherlands
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 87 Document Number: C05924
This paper explores reduced form determinants of the adoption of certain technologies by upland rice and soybean farmers in the Center-West region of Brazil. We merge community level data on the availability and quality of publicly provided infrastructure, principally extension, to the farm level data containing information on farmer human capital as well as land quantity and quality. By using community level measures of availability and quality of extension, we avoid problems of endogeneity of farm level measures of extension use. We find positive impacts of farmer education on the diffusion process, in accordance with other studies. We also isolate effects of the quality in regional extension investment as measured by the average experience of technical extension staff. These results indicate that investments in human capital of extension workers does have a payoff in terms of farmer adoption of improved cultivation practices.
