QUANTIFYING ECONOMIC-BENEFITS OF SOW-HERD MANAGEMENT-INFORMATION-SYSTEMS USING PANEL-DATA

Economic benefits of management information systems (MIS) in sow farmi ng were quantified by combining data from two survey studies. Panel an alysis was conducted through estimation of a mixed-effects model by or dinary least-squares. Effects were analyzed both within farms and over farms at the same time, controlling for self-selection bias and chang es over time. Adjusted for other effects in the model, production on f arms adopting MIS increased by 0.56 piglets per sow per year, indicati ng a return on investment of between 220% and 348%. Additional tests a nd checks indicate that this outcome is robust.