Gender and Experimental Measurement of Producers Risk Attitude Towards Output Market Price and its Effects on Economic Performance

Agricultural production is typically a risky business. Farm households have to tackle several risks. So, farm households’ risk attitude is an important issue connected with decision making and greatly affects their economic performance. Particularly in Senegal, for horticultural households, output market price is one of the foremost risks. Moreover, within the household, husband and wives may behave differently towards risk. This research provides theoretical and empirical evidence of measures and effects of risk attitude on economic performance and on choice of inputs across gender. More precisely, based on an experimental game implemented in of Senegal, this chapter investigates the gender dimension of risk attitude and the causal relationship between risk attitude and allocative inefficiency of choice of inputs. The results show that on average men and women producers display absolute risk aversion towards output market price, and that women are as risk averse as men. As expected, and in line with the theoretical model, the empirical evidence shows that allocative inefficiency in the use of inputs increases with risk aversion. We identify recommendations for policy decision makers in terms of strategies which may help to dampen men and women producers’ risk aversion towards output market price and repercussions for efficiency.