Grain Today, Gain Tomorrow: Evidence from a Storage Experiment with Savings Clubs in Kenya

45 Pages Posted: 12 Mar 2018 Last revised: 23 Feb 2023

See all articles by Shilpa Aggarwal

Shilpa Aggarwal

Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad

Eilin Francis

University of California, Santa Cruz

Jonathan Robinson

University of California, Santa Cruz

Date Written: March 2018

Abstract

Many farmers in the developing world lack access to effective savings and storage devices. Such devices might be particularly valuable for farmers since income is received as a lump sum at harvest but expenditures are incurred throughout the year, and because grain prices are low at harvest but rise over the year. We experimentally provided two saving schemes to 132 ROSCAs in Kenya, one designed around communally storing maize and the other around saving cash for inputs. About 56% of respondents took up the products. Respondents in the maize storage intervention were 23 percentage points more likely to store maize (on a base of 69%), 37 percentage points more likely to sell maize (on a base of 36%) and (conditional on selling) sold later and at higher prices. We find no effects of the individual input savings intervention on input usage, likely because baseline input adoption was higher than expected.

Suggested Citation

Aggarwal, Shilpa and Francis, Eilin and Robinson, Jonathan, Grain Today, Gain Tomorrow: Evidence from a Storage Experiment with Savings Clubs in Kenya (March 2018). NBER Working Paper No. w24391, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3138344

Shilpa Aggarwal (Contact Author)

Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad ( email )

Hyderabad, Gachibowli 500 019
India

Eilin Francis

University of California, Santa Cruz

1156 High St
Santa Cruz, CA 95064
United States

Jonathan Robinson

University of California, Santa Cruz ( email )

1156 High St
Santa Cruz, CA 95064
United States

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