The impact of internet use on the performance of agricultural cooperatives in Vietnam

Nguyen, Trung Thanh and Do, Manh Hung and Rahut, Dil and Nguyen, Viet Hung and Chhay, Panharoth (2023): The impact of internet use on the performance of agricultural cooperatives in Vietnam.

Abstract

Supporting agricultural cooperatives might contribute to the livelihood improvement of many small-scale farmers in developing countries. This research examined the factors affecting the internet use of agricultural cooperatives with a focus on female leadership, its effects on cooperatives’ economic, social, and innovative performance, and the distributional effects of internet use on economic performance. Our analysis relied on the data of 3,512 agricultural cooperatives collected in 2021 from Vietnam. We addressed the endogeneity issue of internet use in impact assessment by employing an instrumental variable approach. Our results showed that female leadership was positively and significantly associated with internet use and that internet use had a positive and significant effect on returns on assets, returns on equity, labour productivity, payment per labourer, contribution to labour union and insurance per labourer, and innovation in products of agricultural cooperatives. In addition, unconditional quantile regressions showed that internet use in agricultural cooperatives exacerbated income inequality. Enhancing female leadership and promoting rural education were recommended to improve agricultural cooperatives’ performance.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: internet use; performance; endogeneity; heterogeneity; instrumental variable
• Subjects: D - Microeconomics > D6 - Welfare Economics > D60 - General; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q1 - Agriculture; R - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics > R2 - Household Analysis

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