Estimating the elderly's returns on the farm: evidence from Cote d'Ivoire

It is often said that the elderly in rural developing countries are more va lued by the members of the society. One possible economic reason for the re lative status of the elderly in rural areas is that they are likely to have accumulated substantial farm-specific capital, thus increasing the product ivity of the farm. This paper examines whether the elderly contribute to th e agricultural profits of households in rural Cote d'Ivoire in an uncertain environment. We estimate the returns to having elders on the farm using pa nel data and find that farm-specific experience mitigates the fall in profi ts in adverse environmental conditions, particularly at the lower end of th e profit distribution, thereby contributing to reduce the variance of profi ts. The results hold even after controlling for the level of household asse ts and household fixed effects, and the presence of experienced female memb ers. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. JEL classification : O12; O13; O15.