Credit and Welfare Across the Lean Season: Farming in Gombe, Nigeria

Ethan Ligon
Professor of Agricultural & Resource Economics
University of California, Berkeley

The agricultural season naturally induces seasonal variation to prices for things like maize. In high income countries this seasonality is mitigated by global markets for both maize and financial instruments, but not everyone is connected to these markets.  Is it possible to make money by "buying low and selling high" in poorly integrated local markets?

Ethan Ligon is a professor of agricultural and resource economics at UC Berkeley.He specializes in applied microeconomics, with a focus on risk-sharing, agricultural contracts, and intrahousehold allocation.