Re-embedding Market Information Systems: Thoughts on Design

Market Information Systems (MIS) developed for farmers in the Global South with the goal of providing them with different types of agricultural information are failing to be widely adopted. We argue that this is because they are designed on the basis of a universalistic idea of how markets (should) work, and how abstract information circulates (or does not). Drawing from our study of information practices in rural Indian and Chinese agricultural communities, we suggest three dimensions that need to be considered in order to design MIS that are more aligned with the actual needs of their targeted users, and the micro and macro contexts in which they live. The first is the range of roles and policies at play in the functioning of a market; followed by the identity of the actors in these roles; and finally by existing information-sharing practices and media (radio and television) involved in the working of the market.ye

Agricultural advisors' role in the use of ICTs as a tool for a more sustainable Serbian agriculture

The aim of this paper was to show the role and importance of agricultural advisers in the development and implementation of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in a path to the more sustainable agriculture, and achieving the SDG2 Zero Hunger of the UN 2030 Agenda. There are a lot of challenges in the efforts to develop so-called "hi-tech agriculture" and smart farming in the Republic of Serbia. This research is conducted on the territory of the Nisava district in three municipalities: Merošina, Gadžin Han and Niš. The obtained data were statistically processed and presented through tables and charts. Agricultural advisors play an important role in the digital literacy of agricultural producers on their pace to implement in practice principles of hi-tech agriculture. The most important is the funding of permanent education of advisers, as well agricultural producers to acquire the state of art knowledge and experience needed to become more competitive in the EU and global market

Networks, markets, and inequality

The interaction between community and markets remains a central theme in the social sciences. The empirical evidence is rich: in some instances, markets strengthen social ties, while in others they undermine them. The impact of markets on inequality and welfare also varies widely. This paper develops a model where individuals in a social network choose whether to participate in their network and whether to participate in the market. We show that individual behavior is defined by the q-core of the network and the key to understanding the conflicting evidence is whether the market and the network are complements or substitutes. (JEL D63, D85, J15, L82, O15, Z13, Z31) Julien Gagnon thanks the Gates Cambridge Trust for financial support. Sanjeev Goyal is grateful to the Keynes Fellowship and the Cambridge-INET Institute for financial support.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from the American Economic Association via https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.2015063

Learning from Neighbors about a Changing State

Agents learn about a changing state using private signals and past actions of neighbors in a network. We characterize equilibrium learning and social influence in this setting. We then examine when agents can aggregate information well, responding quickly to recent changes. A key sufficient condition for good aggregation is that each individual's neighbors have sufficiently different types of private information. In contrast, when signals are homogeneous, aggregation is suboptimal on any network. We also examine behavioral versions of the model, and show that achieving good aggregation requires a sophisticated understanding of correlations in neighbors' actions. The model provides a Bayesian foundation for a tractable learning dynamic in networks, closely related to the DeGroot model, and offers new tools for counterfactual and welfare analyses.Comment: minor revision tweaking exposition relative to v5 - which added new Section 3.2.2, new Theorem 2, new Section 7.1, many local revision

Social Structure, Markets and Inequality

The interaction between social structure and markets remains a central theme in the social sciences. In some instances, markets can build on and enhance social networks' economic role; in other contexts, markets appear to be in direct competition with social networks. The impact of markets on inequality and welfare is also varying: while markets can sometimes offer valuable outside options to marginalised individuals, in other situations only well connected and better off individuals can benefit from them. In this paper, our goal is to understand the economic mechanisms that can explain these different empirical patterns. We develop a simple model that combines social networks and a mix of network-exchange and market-exchange activities. The key to understanding the empirical patterns and phenomena lies in the relation between the two activities i.e., whether they are (strategic) complements or substitutes. Social connectedness facilitates the adoption of the market action if the two activities are complements; the converse is true in case of substitutes. Inequality in a social structure is typically reinforced by the market in case the two actions are complements; the converse holds true if they are substitutes

The Impact of Digital Technology on Economic Growth and Productivity, and its Implications for Employment and Equality: An Evidence Review

As digital technology has begun to ‘eat the world’ it has also influenced the way that humans interact and transact with each other. Thus, it has inevitably had an effect on global, regional, national and local economies. This Evidence Report reviews the literature assessing the economic impact of digital technologies – namely information communication technology (ICT) – on economies and people. In terms of the economic effects of digital technology on economies, this literature review summarises its relationship with economic growth and productivity. Although increases in ICT infrastructure/equipment investment and increased ICT adoption tend to be strongly correlated with economic growth and productivity, causality is yet to be resolved, and the potential for endogenous, simultaneous and reverse causality remains. In other words, there is still the possibility that the economic impacts of the internet are caused by a third variable, that the economic impacts lead to internet adaption at the same time that internet adaption leads to economic impacts, and that it is economic growth that causes internet adaption rather than vice versa. Furthermore, the correlations tend to be highly heterogeneous – different across space and time – suggesting that the relationship is not always given. The review also summarises the literature concerning the effects of digital technology on employment and inequality.UK Department for International Developmen

The impact of technology on data collection: Case studies in privacy and economics

Technological advancement can often act as a catalyst for scientific paradigm shifts. Today the ability to collect and process large amounts of data about individuals is arguably a paradigm-shift enabling technology in action. One manifestation of this technology within the sciences is the ability to study historically qualitative fields with a more granular quantitative lens than ever before. Despite the potential for this technology, wide-adoption is accompanied by some risks. In this thesis, I will present two case studies. The first, focuses on the impact of machine learning in a cheapest-wins motor insurance market by designing a competition-based data collection mechanism. Pricing models in the insurance industry are changing from statistical methods to machine learning. In this game, close to 2000 participants, acting as insurance companies, trained and submitted pricing models to compete for profit using real motor insurance policies --- with a roughly equal split between legacy and advanced models. With this trend towards machine learning in motion, preliminary analysis of the results suggest that future markets might realise cheaper prices for consumers. Additionally legacy models competing against modern algorithms, may experience a reduction in earning stability --- accelerating machine learning adoption. Overall, the results of this field experiment demonstrate the potential for digital competition-based studies of markets in the future. The second case studies the privacy risks of data collection technologies. Despite a large body of research in re-identification of anonymous data, the question remains: if a dataset was big enough, would records become anonymous by being "lost in the crowd"? Using 3 months of location data, we show that the risk of re-identification decreases slowly with dataset size. This risk is modelled and extrapolated to larger populations with 93% of people being uniquely identifiable using 4 points of auxiliary information among 60M people. These results show how the privacy of individuals is very unlikely to be preserved even in country-scale location datasets and that alternative paradigms of data sharing are still required.Open Acces

Cultural Landscapes Preservation and Social–Ecological Sustainability

Cultural landscapes are the result of social-ecological processes that have co-evolved throughout history, shaping high-value sustainable systems. The current processes of global change, such as agricultural intensification, rural abandonment, urban sprawl, and socio-economic dynamics, are threatening cultural landscapes worldwide. Whereas this loss is often unstoppable due to rapid and irreversible social-ecological changes, there are also examples where rationale protection measures can preserve cultural landscapes while promoting the sustainability of social-ecological systems. However, not all conservation policy-making processes consider the value of cultural landscapes, which makes their preservation even more difficult. Indeed, conservation policies focused on the wilderness paradigm are often counterproductive to conserving highly valuable cultural landscapes. The chapters in this book cover a wide spectrum of topics related to the preservation and sustainability of cultural landscapes, using different methodological approaches and involving regions from all over the world. This book can be useful for both researchers and professionals interested in using the socio-ecological framework in their scientific and applied work