Challenges in Recruiting U.S. Farmers for Policy‐Relevant Economic Field Experiments

To develop evidence‐based agricultural policies, researchers increasingly use insights from economic field experiments. These insights are often limited by the challenges of recruiting large and representative samples of farmers. To improve the effectiveness and cost efficiency of farmer recruitment...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inApplied economic perspectives and policy Vol. 43; no. 2; pp. 556 - 572
Main Authors Weigel, Collin, Paul, Laura A., Ferraro, Paul J., Messer, Kent D.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Boston, USA Wiley Periodicals, Inc 01.06.2021
John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Subjects
Agricultural policy
Agricultural research
agriculture
Cost analysis
experimental economics
Experimental methods
Experiments
farmer subjects
Farmers
Field tests
Q16
Q18
Recruitment
Online AccessGet full text
ISSN2040-5790
2040-5804
DOI10.1002/aepp.13066

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Summary:To develop evidence‐based agricultural policies, researchers increasingly use insights from economic field experiments. These insights are often limited by the challenges of recruiting large and representative samples of farmers. To improve the effectiveness and cost efficiency of farmer recruitment, researchers should apply the same experimental methods to the recruitment process that they apply to their main research questions. Here we experimentally evaluate ten recruiting strategies in two large‐scale, high stakes experiments. We find that monetary incentives and reminders are effective, but costly. Costless strategies, such as prominently citing a well‐known institution as the sponsor, had positive but small, effects on recruitment.
Bibliography:Collin Weigel is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Carey Business School at Johns Hopkins University. Paul J. Ferraro is the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor at the Carey Business School at Johns Hopkins University. Laura A. Paul is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Center for Experimental and Applied Economics at the University of Delaware. Kent D. Messer is S. Hallock du Pont Professor and Director of the Center for Experimental and Applied Economics at the University of Delaware.
Editor in charge: Craig Gundersen
Senior authorship is shared by C. Weigel and L. Paul.
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ISSN:2040-5790
2040-5804
DOI:10.1002/aepp.13066