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Abstract
This paper investigates the determinants of rice seed variety choice in
Indonesia with respect to a meta-profit function. Varietal choice is
modeled as depending on the profitability of high yielding varieties of seed
relative to traditional varieties of seed, the schooling of cultivators and
factors associated with yield uncertainty and risk aversion. Careful
attention is paid to the stochastic structure of the estimated simultaneous
equations switching regimes model. The maximum likehood method applied to
Indonesian farm-level data is complicated by endogenous regressors and
heteroskedastic errors. Adoption of high yielding varieties was found to be
positively associated with its relative profitability, the likelihood of
flooding, quality of irrigation conditional on its effect on relative
profit, and the availability of credit, and negatively associated with land
owned and the likelihood of drought. Schooling was not found to be a
significant determinant of variety choice. Sources of interregional
differences in cultivator behaviors in Indonesia were calculated as an
application of the estimated model. Interregional differences in employment
in rice cultivation but not HYV adoption were largely due to differences in
wages.