Improving Smallholder Access to Markets: the role of Asymmetric Information, Market Power, and Relational Contracting in Low-Income Countries

Samenvatting

This thesis entitled “Improving Smallholder Access to Markets: the role of Asymmetric Information, Market Power, and Relational Contracting in Low-Income Countries”, examines the role of market-related constraints to smallholder farmers’ access to markets for quality agricultural outputs and quality-enhancing inputs. In particular, it studies the effects of individual quality grading, buyer market power, and the introduction of a high-return agricultural value-chain on incentives to invest in quality agricultural inputs and on relational contracting (i.e., informal arrangements sustained by the value of future cooperation) between small farmers and buyers for input provision and purchase of output. Evidence in this thesis is based on wheat and cowpea sectors in Ethiopia and Togo respectively.