Recognizing Non-Pecuniary Labor Benefits in Technology Adoption: Evidence from Automatic Milking Systems in U.S. Dairy Farming

This study examines pecuniary (e.g., labor cost savings) and non-pecuniary (e.g., improved flexibility) labor benefits in technology adoption through a discrete choice experiment involving 212 dairy farmers in the U.S. Midwest focusing on automatic milking systems. Results reveal that farmers value flexible time 2.17 times more than hired labor savings, suggesting practitioners differentiate non-pecuniary benefit from pecuniary ones and utilize multiple methods to assess preference heterogeneity for robustness: we consistently found that farmers experienced labor difficulties favor hired labor savings, whereas those with secondary income value both benefits less. For other characteristics (e.g., herd size), preference heterogeneity is ambiguous.