Browsing by Author "Larochelle, Catherine"

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    Access to Information, gender relations and access to potato markets in the Jatun Mayu watershed located in Tiraque, Bolivia
    Larochelle, Catherine; Alwang, Jeffrey R. (2012)
    Poster presentation: Access to Information, gender relations and access to potato markets in the Jatun Mayu watershed located in Tiraque, Bolivia
  • Adoption and Impacts of Potato Variety Cooperation 88 (C88) in Yunnan, China: A Multi-dimensional Assessment
    Myrick, Stephanie; Qin, Junhong; Pradel, Willy; Li, Canhui; Suarez, Victor; Cheng, Zhen; Hareau, Guy; Larochelle, Catherine; Alwang, Jeffrey R. (2018-05-29)
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    Adoption Determinants and Economic Benefits of Integrated Pest Management for Nepali Vegetable Farmers
    McGowan, Amanda Leigh (Virginia Tech, 2022-01-19)
    The majority of Nepal's population relies on agriculture, so invasive and native pests' ability to reduce farmers' crop yields is a significant concern. To protect farm households' food security and livelihoods, it is imperative to find effective pest management products and practices. Integrated pest management (IPM) is an arguably cheaper and less harmful alternative to conventional synthetic pesticides and is a way of managing and preventing agricultural pests using different levels of control methods (e.g., biological, cultural, and chemical) that have minimal adverse environmental and human health impacts. This study provides information on the extent of IPM practices by Nepali vegetable farmers, adds to the understanding of factors that influence the IPM adoption decision, and compares the economic benefits and performance of IPM to other conventional pest management practices. Our survey of 346 vegetable farmers in four districts throughout Nepal provides the primary data we use in our analysis. We distinguish practices into two categories: simple IPM practices that are commonly used and require limited knowledge and complex practices that typically require more knowledge and conscious use of IPM itself. We use a probit model to determine the factors that significantly affect the decision to adopt complex IPM practices. Our results find two explanatory variables that consistently affect complex IPM adoption: gender and IPM training. We compare the costs and benefits of using IPM to other conventional pest management practices by analyzing results from experimental field trials conducted in Nepal's Banke and Surkhet districts. Using an economic surplus approach, we estimate the market-level benefits of using IPM practices for three vegetables in Banke and four vegetables in Surkhet. The results predict cumulative IPM benefits of $1.06 to $1.44 million across the two districts.
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    Agricultural Technologies and Economic Development: Three Essays on Technology Adoption and Inequality
    Carrion Yaguana, Vanessa Del Rocio (Virginia Tech, 2016-04-25)
    This dissertation is composed of three essays examining adoption of agricultural technologies in Ecuador and intergenerational mobility in the United States. The first essay entitled 'Does IPM Have Staying Power? Revisiting a Potato-producing Area Years After Formal Training Ended' examines (Integrated Pest Management) IPM spread and adoption several years after formal intensive IPM outreach efforts ceased in a potato-producing region in Ecuador. It describes adoption patterns and sources of IPM knowledge in 2012 and compares them with patterns that existed when outreach ceased in 2003. Results show that IPM adoption continues in the area but with a lower proportion of farmers adopting all practices and a higher proportion adopting low to moderate levels compared to 2003. Farmer-to-farmer spread has supplanted formal training and outreach mechanisms. IPM adoption significantly lowers pesticide use and saves production costs for adopters. The second essay entitled 'Can Text Messages Improve Agricultural Outreach in Ecuador?' seeks to understand how receipt of text messages complements training from a farmer field day. It measures the effect of text message receipt on adoption of (Integrated Crop Management) ICM technologies and knowledge about these technologies. In the first part of the paper, we present a theory of behavioral change and its application to adoption of agricultural technologies. In the second part, we use intention to treat (ITT) and an improved-ITT analyses to measure the impact of the intervention. The results of this essay suggest that as providers of information, text messages have some knowledge building effect leading to the adoption of IPM practices. As reminders, text messages effectively increase adoption of IPM practices, in particular recommended pesticides. The third essay entitled 'Determinants of Absolute Upward Income Mobility: The Hidden Cost of Commuting' focuses on commuting times as a determinant of upward income mobility in the United States. We provide an explanation of the channel through which the effect of commuting times on upward income mobility operates. Additionally, it evaluates empirically the effect of commuting on upward income mobility. The empirical results confirm the theoretical model predictions that commuting times affect negatively upward income mobility.
  • Análisis de la Eficiencia en la Producción de Papa
    Larochelle, Catherine; Alwang, Jeffrey R.; Botello, Rubén C. (Cochabamba, Bolivia: Revista de Agricultura, 2012)
    Este estudio emplea una frontera de producción estocástica para analizar la ineficiencia y las pérdidas en rendimientos asociadas con la ubicación y la diversificación de actividades en la producción de papa en Tiraque, Bolivia. Encontramos que la diversificación de actividades tiene un efecto más perjudicial sobre la eficiencia en la producción. De igual manera, la presencia de clusters espaciales de eficiencia sugiere que los aspectos climáticos, ya sean negativos o positivos, influyen en la producción de papa.
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    Are US consumers willing to pay a premium for bee-friendly beef?
    Larochelle, Catherine; Chishimba, Elizabeth (AgEcon, 2022-08-01)
    The loss in biodiversity has resulted in a decline in bee populations which threatens our food production systems due to the reliance of wild plants and agricultural crops on bee pollination services. Thus, the restoration of pollinator habitats calls for concerted efforts from all actors, including producers, retailers and consumers. This study examines consumer willingness to pay for bee-friendly beef using data from a nationwide choice experiment survey of 2,162 U.S. beef consumers. Using a fully correlated mixed logit regression we show that U.S. beef consumers prefer bee-friendly ground beef compared to conventional ground beef and are willing to pay $1.06 - $2.36 more per pound for bee-friendly ground beef. The willingness to pay value varies depending on whether beef consumers donate or volunteer to an environmental organization, are knowledgeable about pollinator population decline, feel they have a role to play in restoring pollinator populations or if the beef consumer considers the environmental impact of food production when purchasing food. The analysis from this study identifies one incentive that can be used to encourage beef producers to contribute to the restoration of pollinator populations by adopting and maintaining wildflower-enhanced pastures on their ranches.
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    Assessing the Adoption of High Iron Bean Varieties and Their Impact on Iron Intakes and Other Livelihood Outcomes in Rwanda: Listing Exercise Report
    Asare-Marfo, Dorene; Herrington, Caitlin; Birachi, Eliud; Birol, Ekin; Tedla Diressie, Michael; Dusenge, Leonidas; Funes, Jose; Katungi, Enid; Labarta, Ricardo; Larochelle, Catherine; Katsvairo, Lister; Lividini, Keith; Lubowa, Abdelrahman; Moursi, Mourad; Mulambu, Joseph; Murekezi, Abdoul; Musoni, Augustine; Nkundimana, Jean d’Amour; Oparinde, Adewale; Vaiknoras, Kate; Zeller, Manfred (Harvest Plus, International Food Policy Research Institute, 2016-10-01)
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    Assessing the Adoption of High Iron Bean Varieties and Their Impact on Iron Intakes and Other Livelihood Outcomes in Rwanda: Main Survey Report
    Asare-Marfo, Dorene; Herrington, Caitlin; Birachi, Eliud; Birol, Ekin; Cook, Kristy; Tedla Diressie, Michael; Dusenge, Leonidas; Funes, Jose; Katsvairo, Lister; Katungi, Enid; Labarta, Ricardo; Larochelle, Catherine; Lividini, Keith; Moursi, Mourad; Mulambu, Joseph; Murekezi, Abdoul; Musoni, Augustine; Nkundimana, Jean d’Amour; Vaiknoras, Kate; Zeller, Manfred (2016-12-30)
    An impact assessment (IA) study was conducted in Season B 20152 to establish the reach of high-iron bean (HIB) varieties to Rwandan bean farmers since these varieties were released in 2010, and to understand the adoption and diffusion patterns that have occurred so far. The IA was carried out in two parts. The first part was a listing survey, which was conducted at the beginning of Season B 2015, during the planting period. A total of 19,575 households were enlisted in 120 randomly selected villages throughout the country, and 93 percent of those households were bean-producing households. The listing exercise revealed that 28 percent of bean farmers had grown at least one HIB variety in at least one season, since 2010—the equivalent of approximately half a million households. In Season B 2015, 20 percent of bean farmers were reported to be growing an HIB—the equivalent of approximately 350,000 households. Detailed results of the listing exercise are available in a separate report.
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    Assessing the Adoption of Improved Bean Varieties in Rwanda and the Role of Varietal Attributes in Adoption Decisions
    Larochelle, Catherine; Asare-Marfo, Dorene; Birol, Ekin; Alwang, Jeffrey R. (2016-09-15)
    Beans are grown by nearly all rural households in Rwanda, provide a large share of calorie intakes, and are a vital source of proteins and micronutrients. Because of the importance of this crop, significant research efforts have been devoted to select, breed, and disseminate bean varieties with superior production, consumption, and market attributes, while addressing challenges related to climate changes and food insecurity. As a result, nearly 100 bean varieties have been released in Rwanda over the last four decades. This study aims at documenting this effort; it assesses adoption of improved bush and climbing bean varieties, identifies determinants of and barriers to adoption, and analyzes farmers' preferred variety attributes. Based on recent household data, 86 and 50 percent of households have adopted improved climbing and bush bean varieties, respectively. Adoption is positively associated with membership in farmers associations and size of landholding devoted to bean cultivation. Agro-climatic factors are strong predictors of adoption in general and of specific popular improved varieties. Varietal attributes most associated with high adoption rates are high yield, early maturity, storability, and taste. Findings from this study can serve to inform future breeding and dissemination efforts of improved bean varieties in Rwanda.
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    Assessing the Potential of a Locally Adapted Conservation Agriculture Production System to Reduce Rural Poverty in Uganda's Tororo District
    Farris, Jarrad (Virginia Tech, 2015-06-26)
    This paper demonstrates the utility of small area estimation (SAE) of poverty methods for researchers that wish to conduct a detailed welfare analysis as part of a larger survey of a small geographic area of interest. Researchers studying context-specific technologies or interventions can incorporate the survey-based SAE of poverty approach to conduct detailed poverty analyzes of their specific area of interest without the expense of collecting household consumption data. This study applies SAE methods as part of an impact assessment of a locally adapted conservation agriculture production system in Uganda's Tororo District. Using SAE, I assess the Tororo District's Foster-Greer-Thorbecke (FGT) rural poverty indices, estimate the effects of per acre farm profit increases to poor households on the district's rural poverty indices, and compare the findings to current estimates of the net returns from conservation agriculture in the Tororo District. The SAE results suggest that increasing the farm profits of the bottom 30% of households by two U.S. dollars per acre per season could reduce the district's rural poverty incidence by one percentage point. The available data on the net returns to conservation agriculture in the Tororo District, however, indicate that these modest increases may only be achievable for adopting households that face high land preparation costs.
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    Climbing bean as a solution to increase productivity in land-constrained environments: Evidence from Rwanda
    Katungi, Enid; Larochelle, Catherine; Mugabo, Josephat; Buruchara, Robin (2018-12-09)
    Climbing bean is a potential solution to increase the agricultural sector productivity and sustainability. Using nationally representative bean-producing household data collected in Rwanda, this study identifies factors that influence the decision to switch from cultivating bush to climbing bean and quantifies the impact of climbing bean adoption on yield. About 50% of bean-producing households grow climbing bean, a substantial increase over the past 15 years. Elevation, population pressure, and drought shocks are important drivers of climbing bean adoption. Adoption of climbing bean increases yield by 23% among adopters and has the potential to increase yield by 48% for non-adopters. Findings from this study provide important information for the development of agricultural policies and programs in Rwanda and elsewhere.
  • The curious case of C-88: impacts of a potato variety on farmers in Yunnan, China
    Myrick, Stephanie; Pradel, Willy; Li, Canhui; Suarez, Victor; Hareau, Guy; Larochelle, Catherine; Norton, George W.; Alwang, Jeffrey R. (CABI, 2021-01-04)
    Background Limited analysis has been conducted of the role of agricultural research in promoting Chinese agricultural growth in less-favored areas. This paper analyzes how a particular potato variety generates benefits to producers and discusses how these benefits may have contributed to poverty reduction in Yunnan province. Cooperation 88 (C88) is a high-yielding, late blight-resistant variety that was developed through a partnership between the International Potato Center and Yunnan Normal University in Kunming, China. Methods Qualitative and quantitative methods are used to analyze determinants of adoption of C88, and to estimate impacts of adoption on producer well-being. A unique farm-household database is used to document the determinants of C88 adoption and disadoption. The quantitative assessment is supplemented with a qualitative analysis of the potato value chain to understand how seed availability and concern for processing attributes contributed to and eventually constrained diffusion. Market-level information was used in an economic surplus model to quantify the substantial economic impact of C88 over 20 years since its release. Results C88 spread rapidly in Yunnan following its release and was widely adopted by commercially oriented farmers. Disadoption began after 2010 with limited seed availability driving the shift toward newer varieties. Farmers, however, appreciate the ease of marketing, the 15% higher yields, and late-blight resistance associated with C88 suggesting that seed constraints are countervailing the economic benefits of the variety. Total impact on Yunnan potato farmers of the variety was estimated to be around $2.5 billion for the 1996-2015 period. Conclusions On per-person terms among C88 growing farm households, the economic advantage of the variety is likely to have contributed to poverty reduction. The aggregate impact of C88 diffusion occurred during a period of rapid poverty reduction in Yunnan and yield and disease-resistance benefits of C88 likely contributed to this reduction.
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    The curious case of C-88: impacts of a potato variety on farmers in Yunnan, China
    Myrick, Stephanie; Pradel, Willy; Li, Canhui; Suarez, Victor; Hareau, Guy; Larochelle, Catherine; Norton, George W.; Alwang, Jeffrey R. (2021-01-19)
    Background Limited analysis has been conducted of the role of agricultural research in promoting Chinese agricultural growth in less-favored areas. This paper analyzes how a particular potato variety generates benefits to producers and discusses how these benefits may have contributed to poverty reduction in Yunnan province. Cooperation 88 (C88) is a high-yielding, late blight-resistant variety that was developed through a partnership between the International Potato Center and Yunnan Normal University in Kunming, China. Methods Qualitative and quantitative methods are used to analyze determinants of adoption of C88, and to estimate impacts of adoption on producer well-being. A unique farm-household database is used to document the determinants of C88 adoption and disadoption. The quantitative assessment is supplemented with a qualitative analysis of the potato value chain to understand how seed availability and concern for processing attributes contributed to and eventually constrained diffusion. Market-level information was used in an economic surplus model to quantify the substantial economic impact of C88 over 20 years since its release. Results C88 spread rapidly in Yunnan following its release and was widely adopted by commercially oriented farmers. Disadoption began after 2010 with limited seed availability driving the shift toward newer varieties. Farmers, however, appreciate the ease of marketing, the 15% higher yields, and late-blight resistance associated with C88 suggesting that seed constraints are countervailing the economic benefits of the variety. Total impact on Yunnan potato farmers of the variety was estimated to be around $2.5 billion for the 1996–2015 period. Conclusions On per-person terms among C88 growing farm households, the economic advantage of the variety is likely to have contributed to poverty reduction. The aggregate impact of C88 diffusion occurred during a period of rapid poverty reduction in Yunnan and yield and disease-resistance benefits of C88 likely contributed to this reduction.
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    Determinants of utilization of agricultural technologies among smallholder dairy farmers in Kenya
    Okello, D.; Owuor, G.; Larochelle, Catherine; Gathungu, E.; Mshenga, P. (2021-12-01)
    Utilization of agricultural technologies plays a crucial role in enhancing the productivity and income of smallholder dairy farmers. However, the uptake of these technologies is low among majority of smallholder farmers especially in developing countries. Using survey data from 682 households in Murang'a County in Kenya, this study examines determinants and intensity of use of artificial insemination, deworming, vaccination, curative treatment, improved feeds (hay, silage) and pregnancy diagnosis. We applied a multivariate probit model for the simultaneous multiple utilization decisions, and ordered probit models for assessing the intensity of utilization. The study results revealed that education level of household head, number of cows owned, livestock type, milk yield, land size, access to contract, price of milk, access to credit, access to business plan training, membership to dairy cooperatives, type of service providers, receiving of remittance, distance to veterinary and output market were the major factors that affect the likelihood of utilizing dairy agricultural technologies among smallholder farmers in Kenya. The intensity of utilizing dairy technologies was influenced by number of cows in the household, livestock type, land size, access to contract, access to credit, membership to dairy cooperatives and type of service providers. In conclusion, utilization of agricultural technologies is influenced by different household, farm, market and transaction cost characteristics, which could hinder or facilitate the uptake of these technologies. The findings will equip agricultural policy makers and agribusiness service providers in addressing the major barriers facing smallholder dairy farmers in making informed utilization decisions of dairy technologies.
  • Did You Really Get the Message? Using Text Reminders to Stimulate Adoption of Agricultural Technologies
    Larochelle, Catherine; Alwang, Jeffrey R.; Travis, Elli; Barrera, Victor H.; Dominguez Andrade, Juan Manuel (2017-11-02)
    This article provides evidence from a randomised control trial conducted among potato farmers in Ecuador about the impact of mobile phone text messages on farmer knowledge about and adoption of integrated pest management (IPM) practices. Using psychological constructs, we examine competing explanations for non-standard decision-making leading to low adoption of beneficial agricultural technologies. Farmers who received text messages have significantly higher knowledge and are more likely to adopt most IPM practices than those in the control group. Findings provide evidence that text messages lead to behavioural changes by reducing inattention and sub-optimal heuristics in the face of complex decisions.
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    An Economic Impact Assessment of Cooperation-88 Potato Variety in China
    Myrick, Stephanie Nicole Bernice (Virginia Tech, 2017-01-30)
    Cooperation-88 (C88) is a late blight resistant potato variety that was formally released in China in 2001 and has become popular in China's Yunnan Province. The International Potato Center (CIP) and Yunnan Normal University collaborated to produce the variety, which is one of CIP's most successful varieties. C88 is popular due to its high quality and taste, and it is used commonly in China's expanding potato chip processing market. The purpose of this study is to examine adoption of C88 in the Yunnan Province, its value chain, and economic impacts. The analysis indicates that C88 is still popular with 16.8% of the potato area in Yunnan devoted to this variety in late spring 2015. To examine factors affecting household decisions to adopt and the intensity of their adoption, village adoption, household adoption, and household intensity of adoption were assessed. A village's proximity to a metropolitan county was the most important factor explaining adoption and intensity of adoption. Households in villages closer to a metropolitan county disadopted at higher rates than those farther away. To quantify the economic benefits of C88 adoption, an economic surplus analysis was conducted. Total surplus changes ranged from $2 to 3 billion indicating significant economic benefits to consumers and producers in Yunnan.
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    Effect of agribusiness support services on choice of dairy cooperative market channel in Kenya
    Okello, D.; Owuor, G.; Larochelle, Catherine; Gathungu, E. (African Journals Online (AJOL), 2020)
    Kenya is witnessing an immense increase in number of smallholder dairy agripreneurs sourcing income from the dairy sub-sector. Smallholder dairy agripreneurs who dominate the production sector are forced to sell milk to informal buyers such as middlemen/women, who exploit them by paying less than the market price. As a result of this, the Kenyan Government has made significant efforts to upgrade dairy cooperatives to link the dairy agripreneurs with consumers. In spite of this, milk marketing is still dominated by traditional informal outlets. This study sought to determine the effect of provision of agribusiness support services on choice of dairy cooperative market channel. Data were collected from a cross-sectional survey of 682 respondents from Muranga County in Kenya, using a semi-structured questionnaire. Results revealed that provision of business plan training, group marketing, pregnancy diagnosis and deworming support services had significant and positive effects on the choice of cooperative market channel. In contrast, access to vaccination services and supply of feeds had negative effectson the choice of cooperative market channel. This study recommends strong coordination among the agribusiness support service providers and the dairy cooperatives in order to increase adoption of the cooperative marketing channel. In addition, dairy cooperatives need to redesign their business models to ensure that their members not only receive agribusiness support services, but also get better prices and prompt payments to increase supply of milk to cooperatives by dairy agripreneurs.
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    Essays on Agricultural and Regional Development
    Cheng, Zhen (Virginia Tech, 2019-08-02)
    In a world of imbalance, food consumption exhibits great diversity among regions and countries. Although farmers in developed economies benefit from up-to-date agricultural technology and produce much more than they consume, households in the developing world are still combating food insecurity. This dissertation is composed of two manuscripts. One is about consumption in developing countries, while the other is related to promoting agricultural production in a developed economy. Chapter 1 applies a three-stage demand system to nationally representative household survey data to identify food demand behavior with an emphasis on food staples in two West Africa countries ‒ Niger and Nigeria. The third stage of the demand system offers demand elasticities of specific staple items. Instead of treating the population as a whole, the study distinguishes rural and urban households and households of different welfare status. Results confirm the complexity of the food and staples demand between rural/urban areas and among welfare quintiles. Therefore, researchers and policymakers should consider not only the average demand response but also its distribution among households. In addition to demand elasticities, the effects of household demographic characteristics on the structure of food consumption are also obtained. Chapter 2 estimates the rates of return to Virginia's public expenditure on agricultural research and extension (RandE) during 1949-2016 and attempts to address the ad hoc model selection problem common in previous studies. Among the econometric modeling strategies in previous literature, Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) and Bayesian Hierarchical Model (BHM) are two promising methods to solve the issue of model uncertainty. The rate-of-return estimates by BHM are preferable because BHM imposes fewer restrictions on lag structures and offers more reasonable lag shapes. By BHM, the internal rates of return (IRR) of Virginia's public expenditures on agricultural RandE are 26% and 42%, respectively. Nineteen percent of Virginia's agricultural productivity growth during 1949-2016 results from its RandE investments, and the contribution of research to that growth is about twice of that of extension. One extra million dollar expenditure on research in 1992 would have brought a benefit of $4.5 million, and the same expenditure in 1983 would have brought $5.4 million in additional benefits. If the extra expenditure is spent on extension, it would have brought a benefit of $6.1 million and $6.3 million if the expenditure occurs in 1992 and 1983, respectively. Besides the modeling strategy, this study is distinguished from previous studies in that distributions of rates of return instead of only point estimates are obtained, which is missing in most studies.
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    Essays on Development in Sub-Saharan African Countries
    Zhang, Zeya (Virginia Tech, 2021-01-14)
    As one of the fastest growing regions in the world, crop production and education remain two of the most important topics for the development of sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. This dissertation is composed of three chapters that investigate the economic returns to education (Chapter 1 and 2) and assess the policy influence on fertilizer usage (Chapter 3) in two SSA countries, Zimbabwe and Ethiopia. Chapter 1 investigates the casual impact of improved educational attainment on household well-being as reflected by consumption level in Zimbabwe. We use the age-specific exposure to the 1980 education reform as the instrument for the household head educational attainment to identify the economic returns to education. We find that an extra year of household head schooling leads to an 8% increase in per capita household consumption on average when using the multiple rounds of the Income, Consumption and Expenditure Survey (ICES). The impact of enhanced education on household consumption is larger for rural and female-headed households and we also find some evidence that head educational attainment could affect consumption patterns, where additional schooling leads to slightly lower consumption share in food and higher share in non-durable goods. Chapter 2 extends this topic by utilizing a pseudo panel data constructed with multiple waves of repeated cross-sectional data, which allows us to use fixed-effect and other panel data methods to address the problem of unobserved "ability" bias. For pseudo panel, we use age, gender and some other time-persistent criterions to define the cohorts and replace the individual observations with the intra-cohort means. Individual time-invariant factors that influencing both education and consumption are transformed into cohort time-invariant factors, within transformation on the pseudo panel would eliminate such factors leads to achieve unbiased and consistent estimates on the returns to education. We find on average there is a 14% increase in monthly household per capita consumption for each one more year of education for the household head. By further disaggregating our population, we find female-headed households exhibit a return to education of around 15.3%, much higher than its corresponding OLS/IV estimates. On the other hand, we fail to detect such large discrepancy for the male-headed households, suggesting that the overall downward bias of OLS/IV estimates mostly come from female-headed households. Facing significant higher opportunity cost, Zimbabwean females are much less likely to furthering their education when compared to males with similar unobserved ability level which can be one of the major underlying reasons. Chapter 3 investigates the potential effect of fertilizer promotion polices on crop acreage and input intensities in Ethiopia. We use a fully calibrated multi-input and -output model based on the principle of positive mathematical programming (PMP) to assess the policy impact in four major agricultural states in the country. I analyze two policies designed to promote fertilizer use, namely fertilizer import expansion and a universal subsidy program. The results from the simulation model suggest that local farmers actively respond to these promotion policies by adjusting crop acreage and investing more in fertilizer input. However, when the availability of fertilizer in one region is fixed and local farmers face a binding constraint, the behavior responses to the subsidy program alone would be limited.