[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-113218-en":3,"doc-seo-113218-105":29,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":91},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":20,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":20,"is_downloadable":20,"audit_status":20,"page_count":21,"language":22,"language_code":23,"site_id":24,"html_lang":23,"table_of_contents":25,"faqs":26,"seo_title":13,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":27,"read_time":28},113218,137441390410,"Hazel","https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/2000252f4ab5702993?_k=1776741390130283984",8,"Research & Report","Using Individual-Level Randomized Treatment to Learn about Market Structure","Individual-level randomized subsidies can inform market structure even when treatment status of one actor affects outcomes of others. A field experiment in Sierra Leone subsidizes a random subset of cocoa traders buying from farmers, generating variation in traders’ marginal revenue. Using a Cournot competition framework, differences in treatment-control prices and quantities identify low differentiation among traders and estimate supply and price-elasticity parameters. Combining these estimates with quasi-experimental world-price variation indicates the number of competing traders is about 50% higher in villages, implying competitive dynamics for farmers in the first value-chain stage.","Pub lic Disclosure Authorized Pub lic Disclosure Authorized  \nAmerican Economic Journal: Applied Economics 2022, 14(4): 58–90  \n[https://doi.org/10.1257/app.20200306](https://doi.org/10.1257/app.20200306)  \nUsing Individual-Level Randomized Treatment  \nto Learn about Market Structure†  \nBy Lorenzo Casaburi and Tristan Reed*  \nInterference across competing firms in RCTs can be informative about market structure. An experiment that subsidizes a random subset of traders who buy cocoa from farmers in Sierra Leone illustrates this idea. Interpreting treatment-control differences in prices and quantities purchased from farmers through a model of Cournot competition reveals differentiation between traders is low. Combining this result with quasi-experimental variation in world prices shows that the number of traders competing is 50 percent higher than the number operating in a village. Own-price and cross-price supply elasticities are high. Farmers face a competitive market in this first stage of the value chain. (JEL L13, L14, O13, Q12, Q13)  \nAcommon challenge in experimental research is interference across treatment  \nunits, when the treatment status of an individual affects the outcomes of others. For example, a treatment that subsidizes some firms may change prices and quantities of other firms in the same market. In this case, the average differences between treatment and control firms in these outcomes cannot be interpreted as average treatment effects. To deal with this issue, researchers have typically employed market-level randomized treatments, assuming that the stable unit treatment value assumption (SUTVA) holds across markets rather than individuals. This approach however requires one to delineate market boundaries that are sufficiently large to incorporate all competitive spillovers and that enough markets are available to  \n* Casaburi: Department of Economics, University of Zurich (email: [lorenzo.casaburi@econ.uzh.ch](lorenzo.casaburi@econ.uzh.ch)); Reed: World Bank (email: [treed@worldbank.org](treed@worldbank.org)). Benjamin Olken was the coeditor for this article. Previous versions of this paper were circulated with the titles “Interlinked Transactions and Pass-Through: Experimental Evidence from Sierra Leone” and “Competition and Interlinkages in Agricultural Markets: An Experimental Approach.” We thank three anonymous referees for their helpful suggestions and comments, as well as Philippe Aghion, Pol Antràs, David Atkin, Dave Donaldson, Pascaline Dupas, Fred Finan, Matthew Gentzkow, Robert Gibbons, Rachel Glennerster, Oliver Hart, Asim Khwaja, Michael Kremer, Rocco Macchiavello, Ted Miguel, Dina Pomeranz, Orie Shelef, Tavneet Suri, Chris Udry, Eric Verhoogen, Jack Willis, Sili Zhang, Josef Zweimüller, and workshop participants at CEPR/LSE/TCD Development Economics Workshop, CSAE Oxford, the Edinburgh Conference on Agriculture and Structural Transformation, Harvard/MIT, LSE/UCL, the Montreal Workshop on Productivity, Entrepreneurship and Development, NBER Development Meeting, NBER Development and Organizational Economics Workshop, Paris School of Economics, Stanford, Stockholm University, Trinity College Dublin, UC Berkeley, UC San Diego, University of Naples, and University of Zurich, and the World Bank. Derick Bowen, Grant Bridgman, Felix Kanu, Fatoma Momoh and Manil Zenaki provided excellent research assistance. We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the International Growth Centre and the Agricultural Technology Adoption Initiative, and the institutional support of Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) in Freetown. Data and code are available in Casaburi and Reed (2022) . This study is registered in the AEA RCT Registry (\\#0002037), see Casaburi and Reed (2021) . We obtained IRB approval from MIT and IPA.  \n†Go to [https://doi.org/10.1257/app.20200306](https://doi.org/10.1257/app.20200306) to visit the article page for additional materials and author disclosure statements or to comment in the onli","cbCaihmeMT6Xwepz","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaihmeMT6Xwepz","pdf",1683169,1,33,"English","en",105,"# Introduction\n## Interference and identification challenges\n## Individual-level randomized treatment as an alternative\n# Experimental setting\n## Subsidy design for cocoa traders in Sierra Leone\n# Empirical interpretation\n## Cournot model and estimated market-structure parameters\n## Implications for competition along the value chain","[{\"question\":\"Why can individual-level randomized treatments reveal market structure?\",\"answer\":\"Because price and quantity changes induced by one trader’s treatment can carry information about equilibrium relationships among competing firms. The approach exploits systematic differences between treatment and control outcomes rather than treating them as simple average treatment effects.\"},{\"question\":\"What is the key experimental design in Sierra Leone?\",\"answer\":\"Researchers randomly subsidize a subset of cocoa traders who buy from farmers. The subsidy provides a per-unit bonus linked to delivering high-quality cocoa to major wholesalers.\"},{\"question\":\"How are differentiation and elasticities identified?\",\"answer\":\"A Cournot competition model interprets treatment-control differences in prices and quantities. Closed-form relationships recover the degree of differentiation among traders and allow estimation of own-price and cross-price supply elasticities.\"}]",1784501558,83,{"code":4,"msg":30,"data":31},"ok",{"site_id":24,"language":23,"slug":32,"title":13,"keywords":33,"description":14,"schema_data":34,"social_meta":86,"head_meta":88,"extra_data":90,"updated_unix":27},"using-individual-level-randomized-treatment-to-learn-about-market-structure","",{"@graph":35,"@context":85},[36,53,68],{"@type":37,"itemListElement":38},"BreadcrumbList",[39,43,47,50],{"item":40,"name":41,"@type":42,"position":20},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":44,"name":45,"@type":42,"position":46},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":48,"name":12,"@type":42,"position":49},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":51,"name":13,"@type":42,"position":52},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/using-individual-level-randomized-treatment-to-learn-about-market-structure/113218/",4,{"url":51,"name":13,"@type":54,"author":55,"headline":13,"publisher":57,"fileFormat":60,"inLanguage":23,"description":14,"dateModified":61,"datePublished":62,"encodingFormat":60,"isAccessibleForFree":63,"interactionStatistic":64},"DigitalDocument",{"name":9,"@type":56},"Person",{"url":40,"name":58,"@type":59},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-07-20","2026-07-19",true,{"@type":65,"interactionType":66,"userInteractionCount":20},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":67},"ViewAction",{"@type":69,"mainEntity":70},"FAQPage",[71,77,81],{"name":72,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":74},"Why can individual-level randomized treatments reveal market structure?","Question",{"text":75,"@type":76},"Because price and quantity changes induced by one trader’s treatment can carry information about equilibrium relationships among competing firms. The approach exploits systematic differences between treatment and control outcomes rather than treating them as simple average treatment effects.","Answer",{"name":78,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":79},"What is the key experimental design in Sierra Leone?",{"text":80,"@type":76},"Researchers randomly subsidize a subset of cocoa traders who buy from farmers. The subsidy provides a per-unit bonus linked to delivering high-quality cocoa to major wholesalers.",{"name":82,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":83},"How are differentiation and elasticities identified?",{"text":84,"@type":76},"A Cournot competition model interprets treatment-control differences in prices and quantities. Closed-form relationships recover the degree of differentiation among traders and allow estimation of own-price and cross-price supply elasticities.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":51,"og:type":87,"og:title":13,"og:site_name":58,"og:description":14},"article",{"robots":89,"canonical":51},"index,follow",{"doc_id":7,"site_id":24},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":92},[93,97,101,105,110,115,120,123,128,131,135],{"id":20,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":94,"show_sort_weight":95,"slug":96},"Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":46,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":98,"show_sort_weight":99,"slug":100},"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":102,"show_sort_weight":103,"slug":104},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":106,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":107,"show_sort_weight":108,"slug":109},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":111,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":112,"show_sort_weight":113,"slug":114},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":116,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":117,"show_sort_weight":118,"slug":119},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":11,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":12,"show_sort_weight":121,"slug":122},30,"research-report",{"id":124,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":125,"show_sort_weight":126,"slug":127},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":126,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":129,"show_sort_weight":126,"slug":130},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":132,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":133,"show_sort_weight":132,"slug":134},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":136,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":137,"show_sort_weight":106,"slug":138},19,"General","general"]