Overconfidence in relation to sale prices: a study among coffee producers

Abstract

In general, rural producers manage their properties according to their own experience, a result of factors related to producer char­acteristics, producer preferences for available management instruments, and behavioral reasons. The current study seeks to both verify the existence of overconfidence regarding prices among a group of coffee producers, and to characterize coffee producers according to these attributes. Based on interviews with 244 coffee growers, the results highlight the existence of a group of 95 producers (38.9% of the sample) who exhibited overconfidence when evaluating the historic price variation in seasonal and off­season crops. When considering only seasonal crop prices, our study found overconfidence among 116 coffee producers (47.5% of the sample). Using factorial analysis and the cluster method, we found that the producers who claim that coffee markets are not risky, who possess a high risk propensity, and who have little knowledge of derivatives, tend to be overconfident regarding price.