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This paper aims to analyze the effects of crop specialization on agricultural productivity and commercialization for farmers who produce high-value crops in the Northern Savannah Ecological Zone of Ghana.

The study used the USAID/Ghana Feed the Future (FTF) survey, which collected data on high-value crops (i.e. maize, rice and soya). Data for the analysis consists of 2,903 farm households. The study utilized the three-stage generalized method of moment estimation technique to deal with the potential endogeneity of crop specialization within the context of productivity and commercialization and heteroscedasticity issues in the data.

The study found that crop specialization positively relates to agricultural productivity and commercialization, suggesting that increased crop specialization in the production of high-value stimulates productivity and opens market opportunities for farm households. These findings imply that crop specialization seems more beneficial to farmers as it significantly improves productivity and commercialization.

The study was conducted in the Northern Savannah Ecological Zone of Ghana and not the entire country.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is the first to have jointly modeled crop specialization, agricultural productivity and commercialization. The main advantage of using this system approach is that it uses more information, thereby providing more precise parameter estimates.

This paper aims to evaluate Ghana's National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) on healthcare utilisation by exploring its heterogeneous effects based on residential status and wealth.

The study used the Ghana Socioeconomic Panel Survey (GSPS) datasets. An instrumental variable strategy, specifically the two-stage residual inclusion (2SRI), was employed to control endogenous NHIS membership.

Generally, the results show that NHIS improves healthcare utilisation (i.e. visits to a health facility and formal care). Concerning the heterogeneous effects of health insurance on healthcare utilisation, the results revealed that NHIS members are more likely to seek care, irrespective of their residence status. The results further indicate that the probability of visiting a health facility and utilising formal care increases for the poorest NHIS participants. Based on these, the authors conclude that NHIS provides equitable healthcare access and utilisation for its vulnerable populations, who are beneficiaries.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this paper is the first to explore the heterogeneous effects of NHIS on healthcare utilisation across residential and income subpopulations. Splitting the dataset by residential status to examine healthcare utilisation inequality is worthwhile. In addition, analysing utilisation in terms of health care type would show whether Ghana's NHIS may be viewed as welfare-enhancing through increased formal health care utilisation.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-05-2023-0330

This study examined the influence of income and health insurance on the health-seeking behaviour of rural residents, addressing the concerns of endogeneity and heterogeneity bias.

A two-stage residual inclusion was utilised to correct self-selection-based endogeneity problems arising from health insurance membership.

This study provides support for Andersen's behavioural model (ABM). Income and health insurance positively stimulate rural residents' use of modern healthcare services, but the effect of insurance risks a downward bias if treated as exogenous. Further, the effect of health insurance differs between males and females and between adults and the elderly.

This study advances the literature, arguing that, within the ABM framework, enabling (i.e. income and insurance) and predisposing factors (i.e. age and gender) complement each other in explaining rural residents' use of modern health services.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-03-2023-0223

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of informal credit access on agricultural productivity in rural Ghana.

Data sets from the Ghana Feed the Future baseline survey involving a total sample of 2,437 rural farm households were used. In order to address the problem of endogeneity and sample selectivity bias, the endogenous switching regression (ESR) model was employed to examine whether rural farm households’ with access to informal credit and those without access differ in terms of their productivity levels and whether access to informal credit affects agricultural productivity.

Estimates from the ESR show that access to informal credit significantly promotes agricultural productivity. Specifically, farmers with access to informal credit were able to achieve a yield of 48.42 kg/ha more than their counterparts without informal credit access. In terms of the counterfactual, farmers without informal credit access would have increased their yield by 57.61 kg/ha if they were to have access to informal credit.

The study was restricted to the savannah ecological zone of Ghana. This limits the extent of generalisation of results.

This study provides a rigorous econometric analysis of the impacts of access to informal credit on agricultural productivity in rural Ghana. The study contributes to the current debate on the link between access to informal credit and agricultural productivity and provides valuable input for policymakers.

This study aims to examine the impact of financial inclusion and bank stability on agricultural productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).

The study used 38 countries in the SSA with data spanning between 2004 and 2021. The data were analyzed using the two-step system generalized method of moments (GMM) and the panel-corrected standard error (PCSE) model.

The study found a positive effect of financial inclusion and bank stability on agricultural productivity. The study also discovered that while the access component of financial inclusion has a negative influence on agricultural productivity, the usage dimension has a positive impact.

The study suggests to policymakers that an inclusive and stable financial system improves agricultural productivity. The findings recommend that policymakers should empower farmers to leverage financial inclusion.

This study provides insightful discussion on the impact of financial inclusion and its various dimensions and bank stability on agricultural productivity in SSA.

The purpose of this paper is to examine farmers’ access to credit, credit constraint, and productivity in the Northern Savannah ecological zone of Ghana.

Secondary data from the Ghana Feed the Future baseline survey involving a total sample of 2,968 farm households were used. The conditional mixed process (CMP) framework was applied to estimate access to credit, credit constraint, and productivity simultaneously. As a system estimator the CMP corrects for possible heterogeneity and sample selection bias.

The results from the estimations revealed that age, literacy, farm non-mechanized equipment, and group membership were the variables influencing farmers’ access to credit. Credit constraint conditions were determined by household size, locality, group membership, and household durable assets. Finally, the results showed that productivity of farmers was dependent on marital status, household size, locality, farm size, commercialization, farm mechanized equipment, group membership, and household durable assets.

This paper is the first, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to use the CMP framework to jointly estimate access to credit, credit constraint, and productivity. The results indicate that estimating credit access and constraint models separately would have yielded biased estimates. Thus, this paper informs future research on farmers’ credit access, credit constraint, and productivity for informed policymaking.

Credit is essential in the farm business because it facilitates the adoption of productive technologies such as irrigation. However, access to credit remains a significant hurdle for sub-Saharan Africa, including Ghanaian farmers. Therefore, the authors assessed credit utilization and the intensity of borrowing by irrigated rice farmers in the Upper East region. In addition, how extension moderates the amount borrowed was analysed.

The multistage sampling approach was used in the study. The Tono and Vea irrigation schemes were purposively selected. Proportionally, 318 rice farmers were sampled from the Tono irrigation scheme and 159 from the Vea irrigation scheme. Cragg's double hurdle and moderation analysis were used.

It was uncovered that gender, age, years of farming, total farm size, rice farm size, contract farming and off-farm employment explain farmers' decision to borrow. On the other hand, the intensity of borrowing was influenced by gender, age, years of farming, rice farm size, contract farming and the number of extension contact. The moderation analysis revealed that extension contact improves the amount borrowed by farmers.

While there are irrigated rice farmers in other regions of Ghana, this study was limited to rice farmers under the Tono and Vea Irrigation schemes in the Upper East region.

This study investigated the moderating role of extension contact on amount borrowed in Ghana. This makes a modest addition to the limited literature on the moderating role of extension and credit access.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the impact of microcredit on smallholder poultry production and its subsequent role on domestic protein and food supply.

Cross-sectional farm-level data from 61 farmers with at least two years of microcredit access and 39 farmers without microcredit access in the Dormaa Municipality of Ghana collected in 2016 via semi-structured questionnaire were used. Using the propensity score matching, PSM, and data envelopment analyses approaches, the authors analysed the propensity of farmers’ taking microcredit and its effect on beneficiaries’ technical efficiency, productivity, profitability and domestic production of chicken and eggs, farm performance. The authors addressed selection biases with the PSM and answered the research question of whether farmers with microcredit access perform better than non-microcredit farmers.

Farmers with high years of education, farming experience, technology and machinery as well as micro-savings and female farmers are more likely to take microcredit whereas large farm size reduces farmers’ propensity to take microcredit. Furthermore, farms with microcredit access were more technically efficient, productive and profitable than they would have been in the absence of microcredit.

The paper can be useful to policymakers and microcredit institutions since it provides evidence of microeconomic impacts of microcredit on agricultural production and the determinants of farmers’ participation in microcredit.

The study helps to understand how access to credit can improve smallholders’ technology adoption, production efficiency and productivity and output thereby enhancing domestic food supply.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: to determine the factors contributing to farm income in the Transitional and Savanna zones of Ghana and to ascertain variations between in the same and across the two locations; and to determine the impact of credit on farm income in each of the two zones and to ascertain the variation in impact of credit across the two locations.

In order to address endogeneity and sample selection bias, the authors draw from the theory of impact evaluation in nonrandom experiment, employing the endogenous switching regression (ESR) while using the propensity score matching (PSM) to check for robustness of the results.

The results show significant mean differences between some characteristics of households that have access to credit and those that did not have access. Further, the results revealed farm size, labor; gender, age, literacy, wealth and group membership as the significant determinants of both credit access and income in the two zones. With the ESR, credit access increases households farm income by GH¢206.56/ha and GH¢39.74/ha in the Transitional and Savanna zones, respectively, but with the PSM, credit increases farm income by GH¢201.50 and GH¢45.69 and in the Transitional and Savanna, respectively.

The mean differences in characteristics of the households revealed the presence of selection bias in the distribution of household’s covariates in the two zones. The results further indicate the importance of productive resources, information and household characteristics in improved access to credit and farm income. Also, the results from both methods indicate that credit access leads to significant gains in farm income for households in both zones. However, differences exist in the results of PSM and that of the ESR results.

The presence of selection bias in the samples suggests that the use of ESR and PSM techniques is appropriate. Further, the results suggesting that enhanced credit access and farm income could be attained through improved access to household resources and information. The results also suggest the need for establishing and expanding credit programs to cover more households in both zones. The differential impact of credit between the two methods employed in each zone revealed the weakness of each model. The low values from PSM could indicate the presence of selection bias resulting from unobservable factors whiles the high values from the ESR could stem from the restrictive assumption of the model. This reinforces the importance of combining mixed methods to check robustness of results and to explore the weakness of each method employed.

The novelty of this study lies in the use of a very extensive and unique data set to decompose the determinants of credit access and farm income and as well as the impacts of credit into zones.