Effects of Peers on Agricultural Productivity in Rural Northern India

Using a unique dataset from a household survey containing explicit social relationships among individual farmers, this study estimate the effect of peers on the revenue from cash crop sales among small-scale farmers in Northern India. We explore the learning mechanism through which peer effect occurs through improved input use and higher degree of commercialization. The significant and positive peer effects support the evidence of social learning. We control for the reflection problem using the technique proposed by Bramoulle, Djebbari, and Fortin (2009). Additionally, the positive evidence of peer effects do not disappear when we alter the definition of peers.