Rural Development Sociology of Village Seed Multiplication Plot Inspection Thresholds and Smallholder Rejection of Certified Cassava Cuttings in Nigerian Block Farming Schemes: A Regression Discontinuity Analysis

The central problem is that certification systems assume a binary pass/fail logic, yet smallholders exercise discretion in accepting or rejecting cuttings based on their own evaluation of plot performance. A regression discontinuity design is proposed to identify the causal effect of crossing the inspection threshold on subsequent rejection behaviour, using a theoretical framework that integrates street-level bureaucracy with the sociology of rural trust. Because no observational data are available, the paper characterises the operating characteristics of the proposed design under a declared variance structure. The analysis uses a before-after-control-impact estimator with an intraclass correlation of 0.64, between-cluster standard deviation of 6.0 and residual standard deviation of 4.5. Power was estimated across 2000 replications per design cell for cluster counts of 8, 16, 24 and 32 and effect sizes of 3, 5 and 8 percentage points. The design achieves 80% power to detect a 5 percentage point effect with 54 clusters.