Unpacking Side-Selling: Experimental Evidence From Rural Mexico

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

11-2025

Publisher

Wiley

Source Publication

Agricultural Economics

Source ISSN

0169-5150

Original Item ID

DOI: 10.1111/agec.70051

Abstract

With the rise of market-led development, marketing cooperatives have emerged that offer smallholder producers a guaranteed minimum price for their cash crops. Their existence is threatened when members side-sell a part of their harvest to outside buyers. We conduct a framed field experiment with indigenous coffee producers in southern Mexico to examine the effect of four factors on the marketing decision: additional income, the presence of microcredit and/or technical assistance, average outside buyer price, and harvest quantity. Our results show that participants allocate on average 82% of their harvest to the certain-price buyer. Changes in harvest quantity and outside-buyer price have minimal effects. The offer of complementary services has a null effect. Moreover, 22% of the participants always allocate their entire harvest to the certain-price buyer. Extra income increases this probability by 10%. Subgroup analysis reveals that this effect is limited to existing cooperative members.

Comments

Agricultural Economics, Vol. 56, No. 6 (November 2025): 1119-1149. DOI.

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