Back to History Current Version

Competitiveness among Intermediaries in Agricultural Markets

Last registered on April 03, 2015
View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Competitiveness among Intermediaries in Agricultural Markets
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0000682
Initial registration date
April 03, 2015

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
April 03, 2015, 9:21 PM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Country
Kenya
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Lauren Bergquist
Affiliation
--None--
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2015-02-16
End date
2015-06-05
Keywords
Agriculture
Additional Keywords
JEL code(s)
L11, L13, O12, O13, Q13
Secondary IDs
Abstract
African agricultural markets are thin and weakly integrated, often resulting in lower revenues for smallholder farmers and higher food prices for consumers. However, the causes of these price disparities are poorly understood. How much is due to transaction costs -- for instance, poor roads and infrastructure, high search costs, and limited contract enforcement -- and how much is due to imperfect competition among private sector actors in these markets -- that is, to the ability of intermediaries to exert market power and drive prices away from competitive equilibria? The answer to this question has important implications for the type of market integration policies that should be promoted in order to have the greatest impact on price convergence and welfare. This study has two aims: first, to quantify how competitive rural agricultural markets are, and, second, to test whether the entry of new intermediaries into markets can enhance competition among traders and increase consumer welfare.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Bergquist, Lauren. 2015. "Competitiveness among Intermediaries in Agricultural Markets." AEA RCT Registry. April 03. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.682-1.0
Former Citation
Bergquist, Lauren. 2015. "Competitiveness among Intermediaries in Agricultural Markets." AEA RCT Registry. April 03. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/682/history/3995
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
The first stage of this experiment (Stage 1) aims to quantify competition among traders in agricultural markets. It does so by offering a marginal cost subsidy and identifying what percentage of this subsidy is passed through to the price at which traders sell to customers. This pass-through is then combined with estimates of demand elasticity to yield a competitiveness parameter. The second stage of the experiment (Stage 2) measures the impact of new traders entering the market on competitiveness. It accomplishes this by offering a subsidy for new traders to enter (randomly selected) markets and measuring resulting price and quantity responses, both by the new trader and incumbents in the market.
Intervention Start Date
2015-02-16
Intervention End Date
2015-06-05

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
The primary outcome measure for both stages of the experiment are prices and quantities of maize sold in the market. These will be collecting in detailed transaction-level surveys. These outcomes will be used to estimate pass-through, demand elasticities, and underlying marginal costs.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Pass-through -- that is, how a reduction in traders' costs is passed-through to a reduction in the price at which they sell to consumers -- can reveal much about the competitiveness of a market. If markets are perfectly competitive, then any reduction in costs faced by all traders should be passed on in full to consumers, as competing traders underbid each other until the price has dropped by the exact reduction in costs. However, if markets are not perfectly competitive, then the reduction in costs will not be perfectly passed through to the price faced by consumers, as traders account for the fact that any reduction in price will affect quantity sold as well. Moreover, the amount by which the pass-through deviates from 100% gives us a quantifiable measure of the level of competition.

The first stage of this study executes exactly this experiment -- offering an exogenous shock to costs in the form of a per-bag subsidy offered to traders -- in order to measure pass-through. If possible, this experiment may simultaneously also allow us to estimate the underlying demand function; if we are underpowered to do this, we will also run a separate experiment to estimate demand directly. From this, we will be able to back out parameters summarizing competition and strategic interaction among intermediaries in the market. To do this, we will take the following specific steps outlined in the design registry document.

The second stage of this experiment attempts to measure the impact of entry on competition. In this stage, we encourage (randomly selected) traders to enter (randomly selected) markets in which they do not currently work, by providing a subsidy that is conditional on entry. Reduced form impacts on prevailing price and quantity sold will be measured by comparison to control market-days. Structural estimation utilizing results from Stage 1 will enable us to back out the impact of entry on underlying competitiveness. Further details on these steps are available in the design registry document.
Experimental Design Details
See design registry document.
Randomization Method
Randomization done in office by a computer
Randomization Unit
The unit of randomization in the market-day, with 48 markets, each observed on 8 days (2 market-days in Stage 1 treatment, 2 market-days in Stage 2 treatment, and 4 market-days as controls). There is also a trader-level randomization to select the traders who will be offered the Stage 2 subsidies for entry.
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
48 markets
Sample size: planned number of observations
384 market-days
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
48 markets, each observed on 8 days (2 market-days in Stage 1 treatment, 2 market-days in Stage 2 treatment, and 4 market-days as controls)
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials

There is information in this trial unavailable to the public. Use the button below to request access.

Request Information
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Maseno University
IRB Approval Date
2014-08-26
IRB Approval Number
MSU/DRPC/MUERC/00081/14
IRB Name
University of California, Berkeley
IRB Approval Date
2014-11-04
IRB Approval Number
2014-08-6612
Analysis Plan

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

There is information in this trial unavailable to the public. Use the button below to request access.

Request Information

Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials