Measuring risk aversion among asset poor small-scale farmers in the Western Cape, South Africa

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the contentious issue regarding risk preferences of small-scale farmers in low-income countries. Resource-poor farmers have often been described as being inherently risk averse given their tendency to under-invest in risky yet profitable crop technologies. In contrast to this dominant view we argue that it is unlikely that these farmers have an inherent disposition towards risk aversion. We hypothesize that the observed under-investment in crop technologies is largely due to the financial constraints which these farmers face.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

School of Economics

Year dc:date.issued

2010

Author dc:creator

• Gwata, Feri

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Visser, Martine

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/10524

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/10524