Paper: The Impact of Voucher Coupons on the Uptake of Fertilizer and Improved Seeds: Evidence from a Randomized Trial in Mozambique

In this paper, we lay out the logic and impact evaluation methodology of this multi-dimensional pilot intervention in Mozambique designed to evaluate the impact of voucher coupons in both in the short and medium terms. We also report first results showing the short-term impacts of the voucher program on farmer use of improved seeds and fertilizer. Using methods that account for the endogenous decision to use a randomly distributed voucher coupons, we find that impact of the voucher coupons on use of seeds and fertilizers are large for those that choose to use them. While this finding indicates that there are real liquidity and other constraints that block the use of the inputs by small-scale farmers, we also puzzlingly find that the uptake and use of the voucher coupons is surprisingly low, well below 50%. These latter finding signals the existence of additional constraints that must be addressed if higher uptake rates are to be obtained even in the short-run.