Members of the ADMI and AgReach teams at University of Illinois had lunch with Professor Jenny Aker, Daniel G. Sisler Professor of Development Economics at Cornell University who was on campus to present her research paper “It’s all Fun and Games? The Persistent Effects of Willingness to Pay Experiments” in the Development Economics Seminar in the Economics Department. Her research presentation addressed the persistent impacts of field experiments to measure the willingness to pay for PICS bags (Purdue Improved Crop Storage bags) on outcomes such as postharvest loss reductions, reduced use of pesticides like rat poisons in stored grains, and use of hermetic bags three years after initial exposure to the technology. She presented research from Niger with thousands of smallholder farmers that measured their knowledge of and willingness to pay for PICS bags. Prof. Aker also presented how willingness to pay field experiments are a cost-effective means of introducing the technology and promoting its sustained adoption in the context of Niger.

In the photo outside of Mumford Hall from Left to Right: Prof. Jenny Aker (Cornell Univ.), Dr. Leon Hounnou (AgReach, UIUC), Ms. Siti Fathimah (ADMI, UIUC), Ms. Anissa Collishaw (ACE PhD student and AgReach), Ms. Jingru Jia (ACE PhD student and AgReach), and Prof. Paul McNamara (Director, ADMI).