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PhD Vacancy inDevelopment Economics Development Economics Group, Wageningen University, TheNetherlands We are looking for a PhD candidate (four year AIO) in ourNWO funded Collaboration China project: Organizing Small High Value-added FoodProducers in China: Cooperation, Trust, and Rural Development Summary of theproject Western China is largely hilly or mountainous. The scope formechanisation to increase agricultural productivity is limited. In addition,transportation costs are high because of the long distance to markets ofagricultural products. Producing high value-added agricultural products ispotentially an effective way to increase profit from agricultural production,reduce uncultivated land and protect the environment in these regions. Yet, thecombination of small farm size, land fragmentation and high costs of certifyinghigh value-added products implies farmers have to cooperate to produce and sellhigh value-added products. How well farmers can cooperate depends on many social andeconomic factors, in particular farmers’ attitudes toward trust, public goods,reputation and norms towards deviations in cooperation. Few studies onagricultural production have taken these factors into consideration. We willstudy how these factors among small farm households determine their decision tojointly obtain certifications of high value-added products, maintain thequality of their products, and consequently affect the welfare of the farmersunder different production systems. We will develop theoretical models incorporating attitudesand production decisions in a cooperation model. Econometric methods will beused to further explore the model predictions and provide evidence for policyadvice. We will use both national representative data on agriculturalhouseholds and collect our own data on high value-added food producers in Gansuand Yunnan provinces. The results will provide important lessons for futurepolicies for high value-added food production in particular and for farmerscooperatives, land and agricultural production systems in general. Requirements forcandidates 1. Master in economics, econometrics or otherquantitative fields 2. Good mathematical and econometrics skills 3. Basic knowledge on game theory. Knowledge onbehavioural economics and contract theory is a plus. 4. Willing to travel to China for field work.Chinese language is a great plus. 5. Knowledge on agriculture is not pre-required. The PhD candidate will be supervised by Prof. Erwin Bulte,Dr. Lei Pan and Dr. Qin Tu. Compensation will be based on AIO salary scheme ofDutch Universities. Interested candidates are invited to send their CV andletter of motivation to lei.pan@wur.nl. | 
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