@article{McKinley:305256,
      recid = {305256},
      author = {McKinley, Justin and Santos, Paulo and Meyer, Stefan and  Feu, Yang},
      title = {Joining the Revolution: Executive Functions and the  Transition to the Market},
      address = {2020-09-16},
      pages = {31},
      year = {2020},
      abstract = {This study proposes that some executive functions (EF)s  are likely to play an important role in a producer’s  willingness to adopt a new market activity. If so, EFs will  be important factors in explaining a producer’s willingness  to enter new markets and diversify their livelihoods. This  paper is unique in that it is the first of its kind to  investigate the role of higher-order EFs on entering new  markets, filling a void in the literature identified by  Dean, Schilbach et al. (2019).
 There has long been an  interest in economics of better understanding the factors  that expand the production possibilities frontier, leading  to higher productivity and in some cases, a pathway out of  poverty. Much of this interest has been on individual’s  production management and more specifically on  entrepreneurship. Schumpeter (1947) describes the  entrepreneur as someone who does new things or does old  things in a new way. This study examines the importance of  cognitive function in shaping the “ability to do new things  […]”, using the concept of EFs, which are defined in the  cognitive psychology literature as the top-down mental  processes that control an individual’s attention, dictates  their ability to use information or suppress instinctive  responses when those responses are not optimal (Miller and  Cohen 2001, Espy 2004, Burgess and Simons 2005). EFs have  received increasing attention in understanding economic  behavior. In this study, EFs likely play a role in the  optimization function of agricultural producers in the  uplands of Laos who are seeking to optimize an objective  (e.g. maximize utility, etc.) subject to some constraints.  
 This study uses primary panel data collected from two  periods to investigate the role of EFs on management  decisions for agricultural producers in upland Laos,  particularly producers’ decisions to transition away from  the traditional agricultural practice of growing rice to a  diversified or specialized system focused on producing  cattle for the emerging market. This study uses a binary  choice model to investigate selection into a specific  agricultural activity and then uses the results of this  step to control for selection bias when investigating the  role of EFs on production once an agent has selected into a  specific production system. 
 Using EFs as proxies for  differing management capacities, this study shows that  executive functions matter in a producer’s willingness to  enter new markets and diversify their livelihoods.  Furthermore, higher EFs resulted in larger herd sizes for  producers who entered into cattle production. This study  adds to the literature in better understanding the  underlying role of cognitive function has on adoption. In  the future, EFs may be an important constraint to consider  when designing successful development projects.},
      url = {http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/305256},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.22004/ag.econ.305256},
}