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  • Publication | 2022
Misperceiving and misreporting input quality: Implications for input use and productivity
Global Food and Nutrition Security

Highlights

  • We decompose the origins of crop variety misclassification into misreporting and misperception.

  • Crop variety misclassification in our data is mostly driven by misperception.

  • We highlight the inferential challenges of treating misperception as misreporting.

  • Misperception induced input allocations are not necessarily yield-enhancing.

  • Addressing seed market imperfections may improve farmers' investment choices.

Abstract

Farmers in developing countries routinely misperceive or misreport input quality for various reasons, which introduces substantial measurement error in farm survey data. In this paper, we motivate and illustrate, both analytically and empirically, the inferential and behavioral implications of misperception and misreporting using a unique crop variety identification data from Nigeria. Using a non-parametric framework for testing the presence of measurement error, we show that crop variety misclassification in our data is mostly driven by misperception. We then demonstrate the inferential challenges of treating misperception as misreporting and vice versa. Finally, we show that misperception induces crowding-in(out) of complementary agricultural inputs but these misperception-driven input allocations may not necessarily be yield-enhancing. As such, rectifying misperception by addressing agricultural input market imperfections may improve farmers’ investment choices and productivity outcomes.