Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

China faces health and environmental problems resulting from the use of agricultural chemicals, including pesticides. While other authors have found that risk aversion affects pesticide use in China, previous studies have focused primarily on commercial cotton farmers. In this study, we consider the case of smaller, semi-subsistence and subsistence farmers in a poor and landlocked province of China (Yunnan). We use a field experiment to measure risk aversion and collect detailed data on farm production and input use to specifically ask whether risk aversion affects pesticide use, and whether this effect differs for subsistence farmers producing exclusively for home consumption …