Impact of Cassava Producers’ Participation in Inclusive Agribusiness Models on Allocative Efficiency in Benin

This study examines the impact of cassava producers’ participation in inclusive agribusiness models (IAMs) on allocative efficiency in Benin, providing new microeconomic evidence on smallholder market integration in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using a sample of 1167 farmers across seven departments, we combine Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) with an Endogenous Switching Regression (ESR) model to estimate efficiency while correcting for observable and unobservable selection bias. The results reveal moderate average allocative efficiency (0.646), indicating that producers remain about 35 percentage points below the cost-minimizing input allocation. IAM participants display higher allocative efficiency (0.700) than non-participants (0.620). The ESR model yields a positive and statistically significant treatment effect: participation is associated with an increase of 0.150 points in allocative efficiency among beneficiaries (ATT), while the potential effect for non-participants is smaller (ATU = 0.060). These results are corroborated by an Inverse-Probability-Weighted Regression Adjustment (IPWRA) robustness check, which yields a closely comparable treatment effect (ATT = 0.132). This ATT–ATU asymmetry reveals treatment-effect heterogeneity and positive selection on gains, as producers with the largest expected efficiency gains are the most likely to participate. Within IAMs, ordinary cooperative membership and the existence of a sales contract are associated with higher allocative efficiency, whereas extension contact and meeting participation, although the strongest predictors of participation, are associated with lower efficiency among participants, pointing to time-allocation trade-offs. The findings offer actionable evidence for designing inclusive value chain policies targeting the most marginalized smallholders and addressing structural constraints limiting efficiency across producer groups.