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on Information and Communication Technologies |
| By: | Aker, Jenny; Fafchamps, Marcel |
| Abstract: | Expansion in mobile phone coverage has improved access to information throughout the developing world, particularly within sub-Saharan Africa. The existing evidence suggests that information technology has improved market efficiency and reduced consumer prices for certain commodities. There are fewer studies assessing the impact of the technology on producers. Using market-level data we estimate the impact of mobile phone coverage on producer prices in Niger. We find that mobile phone coverage reduced the spatial dispersion of producer prices by 6 percent for a semi-perishable commodity, cowpea. These effects are strongest for remote markets and lowest at harvest time. Mobile telephony, however, has no effect on price dispersion for millet and sorghum, two storable crops. There is also no impact on the average producer price, but mobile phone coverage is associated with a reduction in the intra-annual price risk, primarily for cowpeas. These findings are confirmed by data from a farmer-level survey: we find that farmers owning mobile phones obtain more price information but do not engage more in spatial arbitrage and hence do not receive higher prices – except for peanuts. The additional evidence presented here helps understand how mobile phone coverage affects agricultural market efficiency in developing countries. It suggests that the impact differs across agents – depending on whether they use the information for arbitrage or not – and across crops – depending on whether inter-temporal arbitrage is possible or not. |
| Keywords: | Africa; Information; Information Technology; Market Performance; Niger; Search Costs |
| JEL: | O1 O3 Q13 |
| Date: | 2013–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:9491&r=ict |
| By: | Stefania Aceto (MENON Network); Spiros Borotis (MENON Network); Jim Devine (DEVINE Policy|Projects|Innovation (and former President, IADT)); Thomas Fischer (MENON Network) |
| Abstract: | EU policies call for the strengthening of Europe’s innovative capacity and it is considered that the modernisation of Education and Training systems and technologies for learning will be a key enabler of educational innovation and change. This report brings evidence to the debate about the technologies that are expected to play a decisive role in shaping future learning strategies in the short to medium term (5-10 years from now) in three main learning domains: formal education and training; work-place and work-related learning; re-skilling and up-skilling strategies in a lifelong-learning continuum. This is the final report of the study ‘Mapping and analysing prospective technologies for learning (MATEL)' carried out by the MENON Network EEIG on behalf of the European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Institute for Prospective Technological Studies. The report synthesises the main messages gathered from the three phases of the study: online consultation, state-of-the-art analysis and a roadmapping workshop. Eight technology clusters and a set of related key technologies that can enable learning innovation and educational change were identified. A number of these technologies were analysed to highlight their current and potential use in education, the relevant market trends and ongoing policy initiatives. Three roadmaps, one for each learning domain, were developed. These identified long-term goals and specific objectives for educational change, which in turn led to recommendations on the immediate strategies and actions to be undertaken by policy and decision makers. |
| Keywords: | Prospective technologies for learning, Formal education and training, work-place and work-related learning, Re-skilling and up-skilling strategies in lifelong-learning continuum, Europe 2020 Strategy, educational change, Innovation & Creativity in Education and Training, ICT-enabled innovation for learning, roadmapping |
| JEL: | I20 I21 I28 I29 |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:iptwpa:jrc81935&r=ict |
| By: | Iossa, Elisabetta; Martimort, David |
| Abstract: | A risk averse agent gathers information on productivity shocks and produces accordingly on behalf of his principal. Information gathering is imperfect so that the agent has either complete or no knowledge at all of those shocks. The model allows for moral hazard in information gathering, private information on productivity shocks and moral hazard on operating effort. Two polar scenarios of the agency literature with either pure hidden action (the agent exerts operating effort not knowing yet the realization of the shock) or pure hidden information (the agent knows that shock when exerting operating effort) arise endogenously with positive probability. An optimal menu of linear contracts mixes high-powered, productivity-dependent screening options following “good news” with a fixed low-powered option that solves a pure moral hazard problem otherwise. |
| Keywords: | hidden action; hidden information; Incentive mechanisms; information gathering |
| JEL: | D82 H41 |
| Date: | 2013–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:9552&r=ict |