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  • Articles  (3,089)
  • Oxford University Press  (3,089)
  • American Geophysical Union (AGU)
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  • Articles  (3,089)
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  • Oxford University Press  (3,089)
  • American Geophysical Union (AGU)
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  • 1
    Publication Date: 2016-07-09
    Description: There is an increasing perception among policy makers that food stamp benefits contribute positively to adult obesity rates. We show that these results are heavily dependent on one’s assumptions regarding the accuracy of reported food stamp participation. When allowing for misreporting, we find no evidence that Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program participation significantly increases the probability of being obese or overweight among adults. Our results also highlight the inherent bias and inconsistency of common point estimates when ignoring misreporting, with treatment effects from instrumental variable methods exceeding the nonparametric upper bounds by over 200% in some cases.
    Keywords: C11 - Bayesian Analysis, I10 - General, I38 - Government Policy ; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
    Print ISSN: 0002-9092
    Electronic ISSN: 1467-8276
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 2
    Publication Date: 2016-07-09
    Description: Large rural-urban wage gaps observed in many developing countries are suggestive of barriers to migration that keep potential migrants in rural areas. Using long panel data spanning nearly two decades, I study the extent to which migration rates are constrained by liquidity constraints in rural Tanzania. The analysis begins by quantifying the impact of weather variation on household welfare. The results show how household consumption co-moves with temperature, rendering households vulnerable to local weather events. These temperature-induced income shocks are then found to inhibit long-term migration among men, thus preventing them from tapping into the opportunities brought about by geographical mobility.
    Keywords: O12 - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development, O15 - Human Resources ; Human Development ; Income Distribution ; Migration, Q54 - Climate ; Natural Disasters ; Global Warming, R23 - Regional Migration ; Regional Labor Markets ; Population
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 3
    Publication Date: 2016-07-09
    Description: Analysis of nationally representative individual-level panel data from 1980 to 2010 reveals a significant negative trend in the agricultural labor supply from rural Mexico, which is the primary source of hired workers for U.S. farms. These findings offer an explanation for the rise over time in U.S. farm wages. Concomitants of the agricultural transformation, including growth in the non-farm economy, falling birth rates, and an increase in rural education, accelerate the transition of rural Mexicans out of farm work. Higher U.S. farm wages and increased border enforcement slow the transition, but the combined impact of these offsetting variables is relatively small. A diminishing farm labor supply has far-reaching implications for farmers, farm labor organizers, rural communities, and agricultural workers.
    Keywords: J21 - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure, J43 - Agricultural Labor Markets, O15 - Human Resources ; Human Development ; Income Distribution ; Migration, Q12 - Micro Analysis of Farm Firms, Farm Households, and Farm Input Markets
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 4
    Publication Date: 2016-07-09
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 5
    Publication Date: 2015-04-18
    Description: China’s economy is experiencing a regime shift away from a fully elastic supply of labor from a large pool of rural surplus labor and toward a situation of increasing labor scarcity and rising wage rates. Moreover, faster wage increases in the regions of origin of many rural–urban migrants are likely to affect the dynamics of inter-regional migration. These wage trends have implications at the local level, in particular in a setting in which migration connects rural communities to the national labor market and in which migration is of high importance for the livelihoods of rural households. Taking a village perspective, this article develops a village computable general equilibrium model to study local impacts of current wage trends in China. As a central piece of the model, the role of access to migration for household livelihoods is recognized. Access to migration is linked to household demographics and included in the model through a composite utility function that captures household preferences and disutilities associated with alternative off-farm activities. Simulation results illustrate how households’ utility considerations affect migration responses to national wage changes. Statements about possible impacts on village level labor supply, land use, and agricultural production are made. When migration wages and local off-farm wages are simulated to increase, an overall increase in household and village migration and a higher supply of labor to local off-farm labor markets is accompanied by a contraction of farm production. Although land is reallocated between households with different migration responses, total agricultural output declines.
    Keywords: D13 - Household Production and Intrahousehold Allocation, J22 - Time Allocation and Labor Supply, J31 - Wage Level and Structure ; Wage Differentials, J43 - Agricultural Labor Markets, J61 - Geographic Labor Mobility ; Immigrant Workers, O12 - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development, Q12 - Micro Analysis of Farm Firms, Farm Households, and Farm Input Markets, R23 - Regional Migration ; Regional Labor Markets ; Population
    Print ISSN: 0002-9092
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 6
    Publication Date: 2015-04-18
    Description: This work analyzes the research productivity of agricultural and life science faculty in U.S. Land Grant research universities from 1975 to 2005. Production function estimations that control for inputs and demographic characteristics reveal significant improvements after 1980 in faculty research productivity per unit time, especially in the non-top ten universities. Because, however, time available to faculty for research has decreased substantially in the past three decades, overall journal article output per faculty did not increase after the 1980s. Our findings demonstrate large productivity increases but raise concerns about the optimal allocation of faculty time.
    Keywords: I23 - Higher Education Research Institutions, O30 - General, Q10 - General
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 7
    Publication Date: 2015-04-18
    Description: Climate change will most likely confront agricultural producers with natural, economic, and political conditions that have not previously been observed and are largely uncertain. As a consequence, extrapolation from past data reaches its limits, and a process-based analysis of farmer adaptation is required. Simulation of changes in crop yields using crop growth models is a first step in that direction. However, changes in crop yields are only one pathway through which climate change affects agricultural production. A meaningful process-based analysis of farmer adaptation requires a whole-farm analysis at the farm level. We use a highly disaggregated mathematical programming model to analyze farm-level climate change adaptation for a mountainous area in southwest Germany. Regional-level results are obtained by simulating each full-time farm holding in the study area. We address parameter uncertainty and model underdetermination using a cautious calibration approach and a comprehensive uncertainty analysis. We deal with the resulting computational burden using efficient experimental designs and high-performance computing. We show that in our study area, shifted crop management time slots can have potentially significant effects on agricultural supply, incomes, and various policy objectives promoted under German and European environmental policy schemes. The simulated effects are robust against model uncertainty and underline the importance of a comprehensive assessment of climate change impacts beyond merely looking at crop yield changes. Our simulations demonstrate how farm-level models can contribute to a process-based analysis of climate change adaptation if they are embedded into a systematic framework for treating inherent model uncertainty.
    Keywords: C61 - Optimization Techniques ; Programming Models ; Dynamic Analysis, C63 - Computational Techniques, Q12 - Micro Analysis of Farm Firms, Farm Households, and Farm Input Markets, Q54 - Climate ; Natural Disasters ; Global Warming
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 8
    Publication Date: 2015-04-18
    Description: Optimal crop choice and fertilizer applications depend on the stochastic dynamics of commodity prices, fertilizer prices, and the agronomic effects of rotation versus monoculture. The efficient decision rule accounts for real option values associated with maintaining land disposition in an environment with highly uncertain future prices and irreversible past planting decisions. We parameterize a baseline model for a representative acre in Iowa and compare the model's predictions and profits to relatively naive, shorter horizon decision rules, and a field managed with optimal fertilizer applications conditional on corn and soybeans always being rotated. We also examine the effects of a permanently larger premium on corn prices relative to soybean prices, which has been observed in locations near recently established ethanol plants. We then compare the various decision rules to actual crop choices in a panel of over 6,500 Iowa plots during 1979–2007. As compared to less forward-looking objectives, we find the agronomic benefits of rotations coupled with real option values can lead to a more inelastic response of planting decisions to both transitory and permanent price changes. Always rotating, regardless of prices, is close to optimal, but so are shorter-horizon objectives. One implication is that reduced corn monoculture and fertilizer application rates might be implemented with modest incentive payments of $4 per acre or less.
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 9
    Publication Date: 2015-04-18
    Description: In many Sub-Saharan African countries, farmers typically have a choice between selling their products to traders who travel between villages and markets and transporting their products to the nearest market themselves. Because of communities’ remoteness and poor communications with marketplaces, farmers’ uncertainty about market prices is usually high. Traders may take advantage of farmers’ ignorance of the market price and extract a rent from them by offering very low prices for their products. In this article, we model bargaining interactions between farmers and traders meeting at the farmgate and we study how price information affects the bargain and the balance of power. We show the conditions for Market Information Services (MIS) to be profitable for farmers and examine efficiency issues associated with asymmetric information. Finally, we test the model’s prediction that information results in positive individual gain for farmers using original survey data collected in the Northern region of Ghana. Specifically, we estimate the causal effect of a mobile-based MIS program on farmers’ marketing performances and find that farmers who have benefited from the MIS program received significantly higher prices for maize and groundnuts: about 10% more for maize and 7% more for groundnuts than what they would have received had they not participated in the MIS program. These results suggest that the theoretical conditions for successful farmer use of MIS may be met in the field.
    Keywords: C78 - Bargaining Theory ; Matching Theory, D81 - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty, D83 - Search ; Learning ; Information and Knowledge ; Communication ; Belief, O12 - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development, O13 - Agriculture ; Natural Resources ; Energy ; Environment ; Other Primary Products
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 10
    Publication Date: 2015-12-13
    Description: This article uses the 2007 Farm and Ranch Irrigation Survey database developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to assess the impact of water scarcity and climate on irrigation decisions for producers of specialty crops, wheat, and forage crops. We estimate an irrigation management model for major crops in the West Coast (California, Oregon, and Washington), which includes a farm-level equation of irrigated share and crop-specific equations of technology adoption and water application rate (orchard/vineyard, vegetable, wheat, alfalfa, hay, and pasture). We find that economic and physical water scarcity, climate, and extreme weather, such as frost, extreme heat, and drought, significantly impact producers’ irrigation decisions. Producers use sprinkler technologies or additional water applications to mitigate risk of crop damage from extreme weather. Water application rates are least responsive to surface water cost or groundwater well depth for producers of orchard/vineyard. Water supply institutions influence producers’ irrigation decisions. Producers who receive water from federal agencies use higher water application rates and are less likely to adopt water-saving irrigation technologies for some crops. Institutional arrangements, including access to distinct water sources (surface or ground) and whether surface water cost is fee based, also affect the responsiveness of water application rates to changes in surface water cost. The analysis provides valuable information about how producers in irrigated agricultural production systems would respond and adapt to water pricing policies and climate change.
    Keywords: Q12 - Micro Analysis of Farm Firms, Farm Households, and Farm Input Markets, Q15 - Land Ownership and Tenure ; Land Reform ; Land Use ; Irrigation, Q16 - R&D ; Agricultural Technology ; Agricultural Extension Services, Q18 - Agricultural Policy ; Food Policy, Q54 - Climate ; Natural Disasters ; Global Warming
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 11
    Publication Date: 2015-12-13
    Description: Although water supply diversification has been proposed as a solution to dwindling water reserves, the optimal mix of natural and manufactured sources of water remains largely unexplored. We develop a dynamic portfolio model of water supply that hedges against the supply risks from all potential water sources, by taking into account the size of water reserves, uncertainties of water flows as well as differences in supply costs. The optimal portfolio shares for an existing water supply system are derived and compared with the observed contributions to total water stock, revealing unexploited hedging opportunities between various naturally occurring water sources as well as a general over-reliance on manufactured water. The optimal solution implies that future supply augmentations should target natural sources of water ahead of manufactured water. It is estimated that the optimization of the water supply portfolio for a medium-sized city results in annual cost-savings of up to $463 million.
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 12
    Publication Date: 2015-12-13
    Description: Households' monetary valuation of water quality is a prerequisite for efficient water resource management and the valuation of water quality protection policies. Individuals are commonly questioned about their perception of risk in valuation surveys based on stated-preference methods and revealed-preference methods such as averting-behavior models. These subjective and often discrete measures are commonly used to explain individuals' actions to protect themselves against these risks. Perceptions appear as endogenous variables in traditional theoretical averting-decision models but, quite surprisingly, endogeneity of perceived risk is not always controlled for in empirical studies. In this article, we argue that perceptions have to be treated as endogenous to averting decisions in order to produce accurate and reliable measures of households' valuation of water quality improvements. We present various binary averting decision models featuring an endogenous discrete variable (such as risk perception). In particular, we compare the traditional bivariate probit model with the special regressor model, which is less well-known and relies on a different set of assumptions. In the empirical illustration using household data from Australia, Canada, and France, we study how the perceived health impacts of tap water affect a household's decision to drink water from the tap. Individuals' perceptions are found to be endogenous and significant for all models, but the estimated marginal effect is sensitive to the chosen model. Our empirical application also includes some tests of the special regressor estimator's sensitivity to underlying assumptions.
    Keywords: C25 - Discrete Regression and Qualitative Choice Models, D12 - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis, Q53 - Air Pollution ; Water Pollution ; Noise ; Hazardous Waste ; Solid Waste ; Recycling
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 13
    Publication Date: 2015-12-13
    Description: Estimates of price elasticities of water entitlements (known as permanent water or water rights in the United States) are complicated by data limitations and problems of endogeneity. To overcome these issues, we develop an approach to generate stated preference data and combine them with revealed preference data to estimate price elasticities from various types of water entitlement sales in the southern Murray-Darling Basin, Australia. Our results suggest that price elasticities of demand and supply of high security water entitlements are inelastic in the relevant market price range between AUD ${{\$}}$ 1,700 to ${{\$}}$ 2,100 per mega-liter, and that supply is relatively more inelastic than demand. For lower reliability water entitlements, the price elasticity of demand is estimated to be even more inelastic than high security water entitlements. The price elasticity of supply for general security water entitlements is similar to high security water entitlements, while the supply of low reliability water entitlements is extremely inelastic for our data set. The comparison between the stated and revealed preference data provides strong evidence of support for a data fusion approach; nevertheless, some differences in water sale preferences were found for irrigators choosing not to sell all of their water. The consistency of our results signals support for the use of this methodology in other water basins around the world.
    Keywords: Q21 - Demand and Supply, Q25 - Water
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 14
    Publication Date: 2015-12-13
    Description: Offering matching grants along with extension services is a common tool of agricultural development policy and has the potential to address some of the shortcomings of purely private or public extension. Yet the evidence for the effectiveness of programs that combine extension with matching grants is quite thin. We add to this evidence by evaluating the Uruguayan Livestock Program (ULP), a program that promoted the adoption of intensive management practices by small and medium-sized cattle producers by offering extension from private providers combined with matching grants for investments. Using inverse probability weighting as applied to an eight-year panel data set of cattle producers, we find that the ULP had large impacts on net sales and production of calves, but that program impacts on production and sales translated into modest net economic impacts overall. We examine the mechanisms that may have driven ULP impacts, and conclude that program impacts were likely caused by improved management practices rather than by loosening liquidity constraints on producers.
    Keywords: O13 - Agriculture ; Natural Resources ; Energy ; Environment ; Other Primary Products, O22 - Project Analysis, Q12 - Micro Analysis of Farm Firms, Farm Households, and Farm Input Markets, Q16 - R&D ; Agricultural Technology ; Agricultural Extension Services
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 15
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    Oxford University Press
    Publication Date: 2016-03-31
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 16
    Publication Date: 2016-03-31
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 17
    Publication Date: 2016-03-31
    Description: Thinly traded agricultural commodity markets are a concern for farmers and policy markers due to the belief that prices in these settings will be highly volatile, subject to manipulation, and incapable of efficiently allocating resources. Analysis of thin agricultural markets has to date been impeded by lack of an appropriate analytical framework from which to study their behavior. In this paper we propose the modern agricultural markets (MAM) framework as an appropriate paradigm through which to view and evaluate thin markets. We argue that thinly traded markets that meet key conditions required for a MAM will generate maximum economic surplus and enable farmers to earn at least a competitive return on their investments. In the absence of these conditions, however, the concerns known as the "thin market problem" have validity. We set forth the MAM framework, interpret it in a thin-market context, and conduct several brief case studies of thin markets to illustrate use of the approach and draw some key inferences about these markets' behavior. The analysis indicates that appropriate government policies directed to thin markets are those that facilitate their convergence to MAM status, but in reality key policies under recent consideration would have the opposite effect.
    Keywords: L10 - General, Q13 - Agricultural Markets and Marketing ; Cooperatives ; Agribusiness
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 18
    Publication Date: 2015-07-10
    Description: Analyses of the costs of regulating greenhouse gas emissions from dairy production, which could be used to assess the effectiveness of alternative policy measures, is a missing link in the literature. This article addresses this gap by establishing the economic impact associated with a hypothetical greenhouse gas environmental regulatory regime across major dairy producing counties in the United States. In doing so, the article makes three important contributions to the literature. First, it develops a comprehensive pollution index based on Environmental Protection Agency methodologies, which contrasts with previous studies that rely on partial measures based only on surplus nitrogen stemming from the over-application of fertilizer. Second, the article uses a directional output distance function, an approach that has not been employed previously to evaluate polluting technologies in the U.S. dairy sector. Third, the article incorporates a four-way error approach that accounts for unobserved county heterogeneity, time-invariant persistent technical efficiency, time-varying transient technical efficiency, and a random error. The results indicate that regulating greenhouse gas emissions from dairy farming would induce a 5-percentage point increase in average technical efficiency. In addition, the economic costs of implementing this hypothetical regulatory framework exhibit significant spatial variation across counties in the United States.
    Keywords: D22 - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis, Q15 - Land Ownership and Tenure ; Land Reform ; Land Use ; Irrigation, Q52 - Pollution Control Costs ; Distributional Effects ; Employment Effects
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 19
    Publication Date: 2015-07-10
    Description: Formal property rights are typically established after considerable waste has occurred, despite the effectiveness of such schemes in addressing the inefficiencies of common pool resources. Adoption can be contentious because of the assignment of wealth and political influence that accompany the transition to exclusive property rights. This paper studies how the early involvement of harvesters in policy implementation designed to address the commons’ inefficiency may foster perceived legitimacy and lessen political opposition to the establishment of individual property rights. We demonstrate that it is optimal for a manager facing industry strife and reform delay to allow firms to self-select into the property rights regime. The strategic interaction of harvesters leads to an equilibrium characterized by the global adoption of property rights. Thus, by providing harvesters with a choice between management systems, policy makers can reduce the transaction costs associated with the need to create political consensus, while ensuring an outcome similar to the top-down implementation of market-based management. Evidence is provided from a recent policy change in Maryland fisheries in which the provision of a choice resulted in the overwhelming adoption of individual transferable quotas and the end of the race to fish.
    Keywords: D03 - Behavioral Economics ; Underlying Principles, D23 - Organizational Behavior ; Transaction Costs ; Property Rights, D45 - Rationing ; Licensing, D61 - Allocative Efficiency ; Cost-Benefit Analysis, D62 - Externalities, D86 - Economics of Contract: Theory, Q20 - General, Q22 - Fishery ; Aquaculture
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 20
    Publication Date: 2015-07-10
    Description: In many developing countries, supermarkets are expanding rapidly. This affects farmers’ marketing options. Previous studies have analyzed welfare effects of smallholder participation in supermarket channels from a static perspective, using cross-section data. We develop a conceptual framework and use panel data to better understand participation and impact dynamics. The analysis focuses on vegetable producers in Kenya. Participation in supermarket channels is associated with income gains. However, many farmers have dropped out of the supermarket channel due to various constraints. The initial income gains cannot be sustained when returning to the traditional market. Organizational support may be needed to avoid widening income disparities.
    Keywords: L24 - Contracting Out ; Joint Ventures ; Technology Licensing, O12 - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development, O13 - Agriculture ; Natural Resources ; Energy ; Environment ; Other Primary Products, Q12 - Micro Analysis of Farm Firms, Farm Households, and Farm Input Markets, Q13 - Agricultural Markets and Marketing ; Cooperatives ; Agribusiness, Q18 - Agricultural Policy ; Food Policy
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 21
    Publication Date: 2016-07-09
    Description: Using panel data of retail purchases, we measure the effects of the introduction, and later removal, of a bottled-water tax in the state of Washington. We use a difference-in-differences approach to measure effects of the tax against untreated stores (in comparable control states) and untreated weeks (the pre-period). We further estimate triple-difference specifications comparing bottled water to juice and milk substitute products. Our results show that, when imposed, the tax causes bottled water sales to drop by nearly 6% in our preferred specification. Sales never fully recover, even after the tax removal. In terms of the heterogeneity of this effect, we find larger quantity drops in high tax rate areas and in the lowest and highest quintile income areas.
    Keywords: C23 - Models with Panel Data, D12 - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis, H20 - General, H23 - Externalities ; Redistributive Effects ; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies, Q53 - Air Pollution ; Water Pollution ; Noise ; Hazardous Waste ; Solid Waste ; Recycling
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 22
    Publication Date: 2016-07-09
    Description: The U.S. tobacco market has experienced a shift toward noncigarette tobacco products. We examined the degree of habit formation and the role of advertising for cigarettes, little cigars/cigarillos, large cigars, e-cigarettes, and smokeless tobacco using market-level scanner data for convenience stores from 2009 to 2013. Results based on a dynamic demand system show that while all tobacco products are habitual, e-cigarettes are the most habitual product. More choices of flavors, less restrictions on its use in public places, less documented harmful effects, and a higher upfront cost might explain the higher degree of habit formation for e-cigarettes. We also find that e-cigarettes did not substitute for or complement cigarettes. The results imply that e-cigarettes may serve as a gateway to nicotine addiction but not necessarily to cigarette smoking. Regarding advertising, cigarette magazine advertising did not affect cigarette demand, while e-cigarette TV advertising increased e-cigarette demand with a positive spillover to cigarette demand. Such results may help explain e-cigarettes’ recent success in sales and imply that e-cigarette TV advertising might undermine efforts to reduce cigarette smoking. Advertising was also found to affect the degree of habit formation for cigarettes, large cigars, and e-cigarettes.
    Keywords: D12 - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis, I18 - Government Policy ; Regulation ; Public Health, M37 - Advertising
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 23
    Publication Date: 2016-07-09
    Description: If agricultural subsidies are largely capitalized into farmland values through their effect on rental rates, then expanding support for agriculture may not benefit farmers who rent the land they farm. Existing evidence on the incidence of subsidies on cash rental rates is mixed. Identification is obscured by unobserved or imprecisely measured factors that tend to be correlated with subsidies, especially land quality and time-varying factors like commodity prices and adverse weather events. A problem that has received less attention is the fact that subsidies and land quality on rented land may differ from owned land. Since most farms possess both rented and owned acreage, farm-level measures of subsidies, land values, and rental rates may bias estimated incidence. Using a new, field-level data set that, for the first time, precisely links subsidies to land parcels, we show that this bias is considerable: where farm-level estimates suggest an incidence of 42–49 cents of the marginal subsidy dollar, field-level estimates from the same farms indicate that landlords capture just 20–28 cents. The size of the farm and the duration of the rental arrangement have substantial effects. Incidence falls by 5–15 cents when doubling total operated acres, and the incidence falls by 0.1–0.8 cents with each additional year of the rental arrangement. Low incidence of subsidies on rents combined with the farm-size and duration effects suggest that farmers renting land have monopsony power.
    Keywords: H22 - Incidence, Q14 - Agricultural Finance, Q15 - Land Ownership and Tenure ; Land Reform ; Land Use ; Irrigation, Q18 - Agricultural Policy ; Food Policy
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 24
    Publication Date: 2016-07-09
    Description: Many countries adjust their trade policies counter-cyclically with food prices, to the extent that the use of restrictions by food-exporting countries has occasionally threatened the food security of food-importing countries. These trade policies are inconsistent with the terms-of-trade motivation often retained to characterize the payoff frontier of self-enforcing trade agreements, as they can worsen the terms of trade of the countries that apply them. This article analyzes trade policy coordination when trade policies are driven by terms-of-trade effects and a desire to reduce domestic food price volatility. This framework implies that importing and exporting countries have incentives to deviate from cooperation at different periods: the latter when prices are high and the former when prices are low. Since staple food prices tend to have asymmetric distributions, with more prices below than above the mean but with occasional spikes, a self-enforcing agreement generates asymmetric outcomes. Without cooperation, an importing country uses its trade policy more frequently because of the concentration of prices below the mean, but an exporting country has a greater incentive to deviate from a cooperative trade policy because positive deviations from the mean price are larger than negative ones. Thus, the asymmetry of the distribution of commodity prices can make it more difficult to discipline export taxes than tariffs in trade agreements.
    Keywords: F13 - Trade Policy ; International Trade Organizations, Q17 - Agriculture in International Trade, Q18 - Agricultural Policy ; Food Policy
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 25
    Publication Date: 2016-07-09
    Description: This paper examines the agglomeration hypothesis, which states that a firm’s productive efficiency is increased by closer proximity to other firms. Using a stochastic input distant function with heteroskedastic inefficiency effects, we find that the density of Ontario dairy farms has a significant positive economic effect on production efficiency. The finding has implications for understanding agricultural firm location and farmer-led efforts to preserve agricultural farming activities in specific locations.
    Keywords: D24 - Production ; Cost ; Capital and Total Factor Productivity ; Capacity, Q12 - Micro Analysis of Farm Firms, Farm Households, and Farm Input Markets, R11 - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, and Changes
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 26
    Publication Date: 2016-07-09
    Description: The generalized expected utility literature typically assumes an absence of judgment bias in the individual perception of probabilities when inferring risk preferences. This assumption is in disagreement with many other studies that document such bias. We show that models of preference anomalies are mathematically equivalent to models of perception anomalies when estimating perceptions and/or preferences based on observable risky choice data. Empirical models admitting both involve multiplicative functions of common variables and are discernible only by assuming specifications that arbitrarily separate the two. This inability to separately identify preferences and probability perceptions is not readily solved by experimental means. Vastly different combinations of preference and perception modifications fit behavioral data identically, implying that Arrow-Pratt risk aversion estimates are arbitrary. In contrast, the risk premium and certainty equivalent are identifiable without unverifiable and untestable separating assumptions, and provide sufficient statistics for policy and welfare analysis regardless.
    Keywords: D03 - Behavioral Economics ; Underlying Principles, D81 - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty, D84 - Expectations ; Speculations
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  • 27
    Publication Date: 2016-07-09
    Print ISSN: 0002-9092
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 28
    Publication Date: 2016-07-09
    Description: We analyze the effects of the interactions that the two pillars of the European Union Common Agricultural Policy—market support and rural development—have on farmers’ uptake of organic farming practices. Special attention is given to the 2003 reform, which substantially altered the relative importance of the two types of support by decoupling direct agricultural payments from the production of a specific crop. In our empirical analysis we study the case of Sweden, making use of the variation in the timing of farmers’ decisions regarding participation in support programs. We estimate a dynamic non-linear unobserved effects probit model to account for unobserved individual heterogeneity and state dependence. Our results indicate the existence of a negative effect of the market support system in place when organic farming techniques were adopted before the 2003 reform. However, this effect is reversed by the introduction of decoupling. Furthermore, the effects of support differ between certified and non-certified organic production: both pillars have significant effects on non-certified organic farming, whereas certified organic farming is exclusively driven by agro-environmental subsidies.
    Keywords: C23 - Models with Panel Data, Q12 - Micro Analysis of Farm Firms, Farm Households, and Farm Input Markets, Q18 - Agricultural Policy ; Food Policy
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 29
    Publication Date: 2016-07-09
    Description: This article investigates the sources of profitability change at the farm level, by farm size and specialization, with an application to a sample of 256 farms in Kansas from 1993 to 2010. Using the Lowe index method, profitability change is decomposed into changes in total factor productivity and terms of trade. The nonparametric data envelopment analysis method is used to further decompose total factor productivity into technical change and different measures of output-oriented efficiency change. Finally, the system-Generalized Methods of Moments approach is employed to investigate the dynamic relationship between different components of productivity on farm profitability. Results indicate that profitability change is mainly driven by total factor productivity change. The main source of total factor productivity change is technical change. The upward-shifting frontier results in declining technical efficiency. Results point towards the need to support research and development without ignoring efforts to encourage the uptake of existing technologies.
    Keywords: D24 - Production ; Cost ; Capital and Total Factor Productivity ; Capacity, O47 - Measurement of Economic Growth ; Aggregate Productivity ; Cross-Country Output Convergence, Q10 - General
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  • 30
    Publication Date: 2016-07-09
    Description: Rapid conversion of private land for agricultural and urban use has raised concern worldwide over the loss of ecological services. To inform conservation policy, we model privately optimal land use decisions using a real options framework that assumes both the ecological and commercial values of land are stochastic and that land conversion is irreversible. We analyze permanent and temporary land conservation policy incentives using this dynamic framework to guide policy makers interested in designing efficient payment mechanisms to achieve ecological preservation goals. We find that while the financial cost of temporary policy incentives is generally much lower than permanent policy incentives, this difference is very small in scenarios with high discount rates and lower uncertainties in conversion returns and lower expected trend in conservation returns. Alternately, the financial cost of temporary conservation is substantially lower than that of permanent conservation when the expected trend in conservation returns and uncertainties in conservation and conversion returns is high and the discount rate is low. Comparison with net present value and single-source uncertainty models indicates that the presence of a second uncertainty increases the option value of delaying conversion, and shows that permanent and temporary policy incentives based on either of the two simpler models can be seriously misguided if multiple uncertainties are present. We illustrate the analytical results with a case study of tropical deforestation in Indonesia where private landowners can either conserve forests and earn carbon credits, or convert to palm oil agriculture and earn profits from the sale of palm oil.
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  • 31
    Publication Date: 2016-07-09
    Description: This article analyzes the demand for a simple rainfall-based weather insurance product among farmers in rural India. We explore the predictions of a standard expected utility theory framework on the nature of demand in terms of price, the basis of the hedge, and risk aversion using data from a randomized control trial. We find that demand behaves as predicted: it falls with price and basis risk and is hump-shaped in risk aversion, with price sensitivity decreasing at higher levels of basis risk. We estimate a negative price elasticity of 0.58 and find that doubling the distance to a reference weather station decreases demand by 18%. These results indicate that improving pricing and quality of insurance products can directly increase demand. In addition, we examine the impact of insurance training relative to other mechanisms designed to increase understanding. The evidence suggests that increased incentives to learn or learning by using are more effective at increasing both understanding and demand. Finally, we contribute to the scarce evidence on the demand for insurance over time. In terms of our main interventions, we find that the effect of premium subsidies persists over time, while the impact of investments in new weather stations diminishes and the effect of increased training in the first season seems to disappear during the second season. Importantly, while having previously purchased insurance does not encourage future uptake, receiving a payout does. This could reflect issues of trust in the product or the insurance company, and constitutes an important topic for future research.
    Keywords: D14 - Personal Finance, O12 - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
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  • 32
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    Oxford University Press
    Publication Date: 2016-07-09
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  • 33
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    Oxford University Press
    Publication Date: 2016-07-09
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  • 34
    Publication Date: 2016-07-09
    Description: Climate change affects agriculture by altering not only output quantity, but also crop quality. We quantify the economic impacts of climate change on agriculture through changes in both quantity and quality, where quality is measured by crop grades. Our model controls for methodological issues regarding sample selection, aggregation, phenology, and nonlinearity. The empirical application to Japanese rice production indicates that temperature effects are asymmetric: quantity is especially vulnerable to cold, whereas quality is vulnerable to extremely high temperature. Using these results, we simulate the effect of global warming, and we find that warming (a 3 °C increase) increases farm revenues by improving yield but decreases revenues as a result of deteriorating quality. The net effect is negative, suggesting that quality matters more than quantity. The negative effect, however, can be mitigated by shifting cultivation periods and/or regions. Overall, our results suggest that the estimated impacts of climate change and adaptation strategies could be severely misleading unless quality is considered.
    Keywords: L15 - Information and Product Quality ; Standardization and Compatibility, Q10 - General, Q54 - Climate ; Natural Disasters ; Global Warming
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  • 35
    Publication Date: 2016-07-09
    Description: We empirically test four hypotheses regarding differences between agricultural worker earnings (wages and bonuses) during recession and non-recessionary times, between agricultural worker time use during recession and non-recession times, between outcomes for undocumented and documented workers, and between outcomes for agricultural workers versus those working in other sectors of interest. Regression analyses show that the wages of documented (legal) seasonal agricultural workers increased more during the last three recessions than did the wages of undocumented agricultural workers and low-skilled nonagricultural workers. Bonus pay and weekly hours also increased for some workers, suggesting general increases in the financial wellbeing of employed agricultural workers during recessions.
    Keywords: E32 - Business Fluctuations ; Cycles, J43 - Agricultural Labor Markets, J61 - Geographic Labor Mobility ; Immigrant Workers
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  • 36
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    Oxford University Press
    Publication Date: 2015-04-18
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  • 37
    Publication Date: 2015-04-18
    Description: A general global precept is that agglomeration forces lead to migration from rural to urban areas. Yet for much of the time since the early 1970s, more people have moved from metro to nonmetro U.S. counties. The underlying causes of this pattern have changed over time with economic shocks and changing household preferences. For instance, the post 2000 period has seen a significant decline in domestic migration rates, a significant increase in commodity prices that favor rural areas, and potential changes in the valuation of natural amenities that would affect migration. This article investigates the determinants of U.S. gross migration from metro to nonmetro counties and nonmetro to metro counties for the 1995–2000 and 2005–2009 periods in order to compare the differences in rural to urban and urban to rural migration, as well as compare the 1990s to the 2005–2009 periods. More specifically, the present study extends the literature by more broadly examining the underlying factors associated with deconcentration and economic restructuring arguments of metro to nonmetro migration. The article uses (1) extensive county-to-county migration flows and (2) the utility maximization theory that extends the framework of a discrete choice model. The results show that population density, distance to urban areas, industry mix employment growth, natural amenities, and percentage of older people are key factors underlying these migration patterns. We also find a slight fading of effects of natural amenities and population density, and a slight increase in the effects of wage and employment growth from 2005–2009.
    Keywords: J11 - Demographic Trends and Forecasts, J61 - Geographic Labor Mobility ; Immigrant Workers, R11 - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, and Changes
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  • 38
    Publication Date: 2015-04-18
    Description: Applicability of the induced innovation hypothesis—that a change in relative input prices induces innovation to economize use of the increasingly expensive input ( Hicks 1932 )—is examined for U.S. public agricultural research. A reduced-form test is developed using input prices from the agricultural production sector, expenditures from the public research sector aimed at developing new technology to save specific agricultural inputs, and variables to control for innovation marginal cost differences and nonhomotheticity. Unlike recent demand-side studies that soundly reject the induced innovation hypothesis for agriculture, support for the hypothesis is found for several input pairings through these tests of public agricultural research using state-level panel data.
    Keywords: D24 - Production ; Cost ; Capital and Total Factor Productivity ; Capacity, O30 - General
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  • 39
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    Oxford University Press
    Publication Date: 2015-04-18
    Description: The prospects for plant variety protection to deliver improved varieties of self-pollinating crops is assessed using the experience of the Australian wheat breeding sector as a natural experiment. The analysis is based on detailed new data on the agronomic performance of all wheat varieties released by Australian breeders between 1976 and 2011. The results indicate that plant variety protection, and associated reforms, led to a substantial fall in breeder output. Qualitative evidence indicates that this was caused by a combination of fewer research spillovers, lower release standards, and a possible fall in total investment in breeding.
    Keywords: O34 - Intellectual Property Rights, Q16 - R&D ; Agricultural Technology ; Agricultural Extension Services, Q18 - Agricultural Policy ; Food Policy
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  • 40
    Publication Date: 2015-04-18
    Description: The share of agricultural workers who migrate within the United States has fallen by approximately 60% since the late 1990s. To explain this decline in the migration rate, we estimate annual migration-choice models using data from the National Agricultural Workers Survey for 1989–2009. On average, over the last decade of the sample, one-third of the fall in the migration rate was due to changes in the demographic composition of the workforce, while two-thirds was due to changes in coefficients ("structural" change). In some years, demographic changes were responsible for half of the overall change.
    Keywords: J43 - Agricultural Labor Markets, J61 - Geographic Labor Mobility ; Immigrant Workers, J82 - Labor Force Composition, Q19 - Other
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  • 41
    Publication Date: 2015-04-18
    Description: The federal crop insurance program has been a major fixture of U.S. agricultural policy since the 1930s, and continues to grow in size and importance. Indeed, it now represents the most prominent farm policy instrument, accounting for more government spending than any other farm commodity program. The 2014 Farm Bill further expanded the crop insurance program and introduced a number of new county-level revenue insurance plans. In 2013, over $123 billion in crop value was insured under the program. Crop revenue insurance, first introduced in the 1990s, now accounts for nearly 70% of the total liability in the program. The available plans cover losses that result from a revenue shortfall that can be triggered by multiple, dependent sources of risk—either low prices, low yields, or a combination of both. The actuarial practices currently applied when rating these plans essentially involve the application of a Gaussian copula model to the pricing of dependent risks. We evaluate the suitability of this assumption by considering a number of alternative copula models. In particular, we use combinations of pair-wise copulas of conditional distributions to model multiple sources of risk. We find that this approach is generally preferred by model-fitting criteria in the applications considered here. We demonstrate that alternative approaches to modeling dependencies in a portfolio of risks may have significant implications for premium rates in crop insurance.
    Keywords: G22 - Insurance ; Insurance Companies, Q14 - Agricultural Finance
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  • 42
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    Oxford University Press
    Publication Date: 2015-04-18
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  • 43
    Publication Date: 2015-04-18
    Description: Increasing aridity, more frequent and intense drought, and greater degrees of water scarcity create unique challenges for agriculture. In response to these challenges, which often manifest themselves as lower and more variable surface water supplies, as well as depleted and degraded ground water supplies, growers tend to seek opportunities to adapt. One option for growers to reduce their exposure to water scarcity and heightened uncertainty is to diversify. Indeed, access to a portfolio of supplies is one way in which water and irrigation districts, as well as individual growers, are responding to the changing landscape of water resource availability. This article evaluates the benefits to irrigated agriculture from having access to multiple sources of water. With farm-level information on 1,900 agricultural parcels across California, we use the hedonic property value method to investigate the extent that growers benefit from having access to multiple sources of water (i.e., a water portfolio). Our results suggest that while lower quality waters, less reliable water, and less water all negatively impact agricultural land values, holding a water portfolio has a positive impact on land values through its role in mitigating the negative aspects of these factors and reducing the sensitivity of agriculture to climate-related factors. From a policy perspective, such results identify a valuable adaptation tool that irrigation districts may consider to help offset the negative impacts of climate change, drought, and population increases on water supply availability and reliability.
    Keywords: Q10 - General, Q15 - Land Ownership and Tenure ; Land Reform ; Land Use ; Irrigation, Q18 - Agricultural Policy ; Food Policy, Q50 - General, Q51 - Valuation of Environmental Effects
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  • 44
    Publication Date: 2015-04-18
    Description: When surface water and groundwater resources are hydraulically connected, groundwater pumping may reduce surface water flows. In recognition of hydraulic connectivity between surface and groundwater resources, many states in the western United States have begun to develop systems of conjunctive administration in which property rights for surface water and groundwater are jointly managed. Implementing conjunctive administration requires an understanding of when and where surface and groundwater resources are connected. This article analyzes how decisions about water use and changes in irrigation technology influence connectivity across space and time, generating a challenge for policy instrument design. I develop and estimate an econometric model that reflects the simultaneity in surface and groundwater levels that arises due to the two-way flow of water in a hydraulically connected system. The model also traces the effect of changes in irrigation technology on consumptive water use and return flows, and the consequences for changes in water availability. Estimation results using a panel dataset for the Eastern Snake River Plain of Idaho from 1960 to 2011 indicate that connectivity between surface and groundwater resources has decreased over time due to declining groundwater levels. Declining groundwater levels are attributable not only to groundwater pumping, but also to a widespread shift from flood to sprinkler irrigation. This transition in irrigation technology has conserved surface water but depleted groundwater by reducing aquifer recharge. As connectivity declines, reducing groundwater pumping to augment surface water flows, a common approach to conjunctive administration, yields diminishing marginal benefits.
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  • 45
    Publication Date: 2015-04-18
    Description: A major econometric issue in estimating production parameters and technical efficiency is the possibility that some forces influencing production are only observed by the firm and not by the econometrician. Not only can this misspecification lead to a biased inference on the output elasticity of inputs, but it also provides a faulty measure of technical efficiency. We extend the Levinsohn and Petrin (2003) approach and provide an estimation algorithm to overcome the problem of endogenous input choice in stochastic production frontier estimation by generating consistent estimates of production parameters and technical efficiency. We apply the proposed method to a plant-level panel dataset from the Colombian food manufacturing sector for the period 1982–1998. This dataset provides the value of output and prices charged for each product, expenditures, and prices paid for each material used, energy consumption in kilowatt per hour and energy prices, number of workers and payroll, and book values of capital stock. Empirical results find that the traditional stochastic production frontier tends to underestimate the output elasticity of capital and firm-level technical efficiency. The evidence in this research suggests that addressing the endogeneity issue matters in stochastic production frontier analysis.
    Keywords: D21 - Firm Behavior, L25 - Firm Performance: Size, Diversification, and Scope
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  • 46
    Publication Date: 2015-04-18
    Description: The paper estimates the impacts of risk-reducing government programs on the use of conservation tillage (no-till and other conservation tillage) practices in agriculture. Conservation tillage can be used to reduce production risk from weather shocks. However, subsidized crop insurance and disaster payments also reduce risk through financial assistance. The paper examines the extent to which risk-reducing tillage practices and government programs are substitutes for each other. The economic model shows that a decline in average weather conditions increases the use of conservation tillage. The economic model also shows that the impact of weather risk and risk aversion on risk-reducing practices like conservation tillage are ambiguous. The effect depends on the degree that losses are offset by government payments. The paper uses county-level tillage practice data from the Conservation Tillage Information Center for the three-state region of Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota. Results are estimated using instrumental variables and spatial panel data techniques. Instruments for the program participation and payment data include political variables and weather data. The empirical analysis shows that recent disaster and indemnity payments are associated with an increase in the use of no-till and a decrease in the use of other conservation till. Results also show that producers in counties with recent drought and flood events are more likely to use other conservation tillage. The results imply that there may be unintended impacts of changes to agricultural policies like disaster payments and crop insurance on the use of on-farm conservation practices.
    Keywords: Q18 - Agricultural Policy ; Food Policy, Q24 - Land, Q28 - Government Policy
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  • 47
    Publication Date: 2015-04-18
    Description: This article analyzes the efficiency of the intra-household allocation of female and male labor inputs in agricultural production. In a collective household model, spouses’ optimal on-farm labor supply is such that the marginal rate of technical substitution between male and female labor is equated over different crops. Using the Uganda National Household Survey 2005/06, we test whether this condition holds by estimating production functions and controlling for endogeneity using a method proposed by Gandhi, Navarro, and Rivers (2009) . We find that women are less productive than men, that there is more female labor input on low productivity parcels, and that men are relatively more productive on female-controlled plots compared with male-controlled plots. Total farm output could be higher and Pareto improvements could be possible if male labor was reallocated to female-controlled plots and/or female labor was reallocated to male-controlled plots.
    Keywords: D13 - Household Production and Intrahousehold Allocation, J16 - Economics of Gender ; Non-labor Discrimination, O12 - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development, Q12 - Micro Analysis of Farm Firms, Farm Households, and Farm Input Markets
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  • 48
    Publication Date: 2015-04-18
    Description: We propose a new three-step model-selection framework for size distributions in empirical data. It generalizes a recent frequentist plausibility-of-fit analysis (step 1) and combines it with a relative ranking based on the Bayesian Akaike information criterion (step 2). We enhance these statistical criteria with the additional criterion of microfoundation (step 3), which is to select the size distribution that comes with a dynamic micromodel of size dynamics. A numerical performance test of step 1 shows that our generalization is able to correctly rule out the distribution hypotheses unjustified by the data at hand. We then illustrate our approach and demonstrate its usefulness with a sample of commercial cattle farms in Namibia. In conclusion, the framework proposed here has the potential to reconcile the ongoing debate about size distribution models in empirical data, the two most prominent of which are the Pareto and the log-normal distribution.
    Keywords: C12 - Hypothesis Testing, C52 - Model Evaluation and Selection, D30 - General, D31 - Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions, O44 Environment and Growth
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  • 49
    Publication Date: 2015-04-18
    Description: This article explores the reduction potential of greenhouse gases for major pollution-emitting countries of the world using nonparametric productivity measurement methods and directional distance functions. In contrast to the existing literature, we apply optimization methods to endogenously determine optimal directions for the efficiency analysis. These directions represent the compromise of output enhancement and emissions reduction. The results show that for reasonable directions the adoption of best practices would lead to sizable emission reductions in a range of approximately 20% compared with current levels.
    Keywords: C14 - Semiparametric and Nonparametric Methods, D24 - Production ; Cost ; Capital and Total Factor Productivity ; Capacity, Q54 - Climate ; Natural Disasters ; Global Warming
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  • 50
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    Oxford University Press
    Publication Date: 2015-07-10
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  • 51
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    Oxford University Press
    Publication Date: 2015-07-10
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  • 52
    Publication Date: 2015-07-10
    Description: It is well established that exposure to high levels of air pollution in the short term leads to negative health outcomes; yet there exist very few policies intended to address short run spikes in air pollution. In this article we examine a policy implemented by the Government of Chile that uses temporary measures to reduce the severity and negative health impacts of poor air quality in the short run. This policy involves the announcement of "Environmental Episodes" on days forecast to have particularly poor air quality. Such Episode announcements trigger a number of government protocols and public notices intended to both improve regional air quality and encourage avoidance behaviors among the populace. By comparing days on which Episodes were announced to observationally similar days before the policy was fully implemented, we demonstrate that the announcement of an Environmental Episode reduces ambient concentrations of particulate matter in the Santiago Metropolitan Region by approximately 20% on the day of implementation, with effects persisting into subsequent days. We also find that the temporary restrictions, government actions, and informational campaigns that make up an Episode reduce mortality among the elderly on the day-of and days-after Episode implementation. Our findings suggest that the Environmental Episode program effectively addresses poor air quality in the short term and could serve as a valuable model for policymakers seeking to augment long-term air quality strategies with a means of addressing temporary spikes in local or regional air pollution levels.
    Keywords: Q53 - Air Pollution ; Water Pollution ; Noise ; Hazardous Waste ; Solid Waste ; Recycling, Q56 - Environment and Development ; Environment and Trade ; Sustainability ; Environmental Accounting ; , Q58 - Government Policy
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  • 53
    Publication Date: 2015-07-10
    Description: We argue that farm survival is influenced by neighboring farmers’ characteristics and, in particular, by the direct payments neighboring farmers receive. The article shows empirically that these interdependencies are crucial for an assessment of the effects of direct payments on farm survival. Using spatially explicit farm-level data for nearly all Norwegian farms, a spatial probit model is estimated to explain farm survival from 1999 to 2009 controlling for spatial farm interdependence. We show that ignoring spatial interdependencies between farms leads to a substantial overestimation of the effects of direct payments on farm survival. To our knowledge, this article is the first attempt to empirically analyze the importance of neighboring interdependencies for the effects of direct payments on farm survival.
    Keywords: C21 - Cross-Sectional Models ; Spatial Models ; Treatment Effect Models, C25 - Discrete Regression and Qualitative Choice Models, Q12 - Micro Analysis of Farm Firms, Farm Households, and Farm Input Markets, Q13 - Agricultural Markets and Marketing ; Cooperatives ; Agribusiness
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  • 54
    Publication Date: 2015-07-10
    Description: In this article we estimate a state-contingent production frontier for a group of farms while endogenously estimating the number of states of nature induced by unobserved environmental variables. This estimation is conducted by using a birth-death Markov chain Monte Carlo method. State-contingent output is estimated conditioned on an observed input vector and an a priori unknown number of unobserved states, each of which is modeled as a component of a mixture of Gaussian distributions. In a panel data application, state-independent dummy variables are used to control for time effects. The model is applied to 44 rice farms in the Philippines operating between 1990 and 1997. The endogenous estimation procedure indicates a unimodal posterior probability distribution on the number of states, with a median of three states. The estimated posterior coefficient values and their economic implications are compared to those of previous research that had assumed a fixed number of states determined exogenously. Goodness-of-fit testing is performed for the first time for a state-contingent production model. The results indicate satisfactory fit and also provide insights regarding the degree of estimation error reduction achieved by utilizing a distribution for the number of states instead of a point estimate. All of our models show significant improvement in terms of mean squared error of in-sample predictions against previous work. This application also demonstrates that using a state-independent dummy time trend instead of a state-contingent linear time trend leads to slightly smaller differences in state mean output levels, although input elasticities remain state-contingent.
    Keywords: C30 - General, C50 - General, C60 - General, Q10 - General
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 55
    Publication Date: 2015-07-10
    Description: I test empirically the relationship between farmers’ perceptions of the nonpecuniary benefits from farming with a variety of field behaviors such as disinvestment, production, diversification, and off-farm labor market participation. Results suggest that nonpecuniary benefits have an important influence on a wide range of farmer activities. While costs and returns are clearly important, I suggest that nonpecuniary benefits may make some choices more attractive than others which may be more rewarding financially.
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 56
    Publication Date: 2015-07-10
    Description: In this article, I jointly analyze stated willingness to accept values with revealed auction bids from fishing license buybacks in the Chesapeake Bay blue crab fishery in order to better understand the link between participation decisions and conservation outcomes. In contrast with theoretical expectations, I find individuals with the lowest willingness to accept participated in these reverse auctions at lower rates than other eligible individuals, all else being equal. This suggests that who bids in an auction plays an important role in the success of conservation outcomes. These results indicate that market design should expand to consider how, and whether, the economic incentives underlying auction participation align with desired conservation outcomes, both within fisheries and in natural resource management more broadly.
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 57
    Publication Date: 2015-07-10
    Description: Existing analyses of market participation are based on a "double-hurdle" modeling approach. Such models are appropriate only when all members of the population of interest actually produce the good. In some contexts, however (e.g., smallholder farmers), many members of the population do not produce particular goods that they could produce and that their neighbors do produce. Policies influencing market participation among producers may thus also induce additional farmers to become producers. Previous double-hurdle approaches do not allow explicitly for this possibility. To address these limitations, this article presents a "triple-hurdle" approach with an initial stage that includes nonproducers. The model is used to identify the factors associated with Kenyan smallholder farmers choosing to participate in dairy production, and the role that these producers choose to play (or not) in the marketplace. In the midst of debates underway over the privatization of the parastatal Kenya Creameries Company, new knowledge about smallholder participation in dairy could be an important contribution. Results suggest the importance of rural electrification, training, and improved grazing practices. We find that expected net sales are significantly higher when farmers have access to informal private markets. We also describe a version of the ordered tobit model that includes nonproducers and is nested in our triple-hurdle model. A likelihood ratio test shows the latter to be a significantly better fit to our data. We discuss how insights gained from this study differ from the insights that would come from a double-hurdle ordered tobit that also includes nonproducers.
    Keywords: C51 - Model Construction and Estimation, C81 - Methodology for Collecting, Estimating, and Organizing Microeconomic Data, O12 - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development, Q13 - Agricultural Markets and Marketing ; Cooperatives ; Agribusiness, Q18 - Agricultural Policy ; Food Policy
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 58
    Publication Date: 2015-07-10
    Description: This research examines consumer preference and compares their willingness-to-pay for a host of value-added attributes of processed blackberry jam, and focuses on various organic and local production location designations. Instead of being treated as a binary attribute, three levels of USDA organic are considered: 100% organic, at least 95% organic, and made with organic ingredients (at least 70% organic). For local production, three levels are also included in the analysis: cross-state region (the Ohio Valley), state boundary (state-proud logos), as well as sub-state regions. Stated-preference data collected from a choice experiment in a mail survey in Kentucky and Ohio are used. Results from the study confirm positive willingness-to-pay for both organic and local attributes. However, consumers were willing to pay comparatively more for jam produced locally in regions smaller than the border of a state compared to organic jam. Furthermore, substitution and complementary effects between food attributes were investigated. The study found strong substitution effects between organic and local production claims, an issue that has thus far received minimal treatment in the existing literature on organic and local food willingness-to-pay studies. The results indicate a large degree of overlapping values in the willingness-to-pay for these two food attributes. In addition, the "small farm" attribute considered in the study also appears to be a substitute for organic and local attributes, which confirms the previous belief that one of the many reasons consumers purchase organic or local products is to support small or family-owned farms.
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 59
    Publication Date: 2015-07-10
    Description: We develop a general equilibrium framework, based on a specific-factors trade model, to quantify the medium-term household welfare impacts of global warming in rural India. Using an hedonic approach grounded in the theory combined with detailed microdata, we estimate that three decades of warming will reduce agricultural productivity in the range of 7%–13%, with the arid northwest of India especially hard hit. Our analysis shows that the proportional welfare cost of climate change is likely to be both modest and evenly distributed across percentiles of the per capita income distribution, but this latter conclusion emerges only when the flexibility of rural wages is taken into account.
    Keywords: Q17 - Agriculture in International Trade, Q54 - Climate ; Natural Disasters ; Global Warming
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 60
    Publication Date: 2015-07-10
    Description: This article argues that the structure of the Vietnamese rice export system is, in political economy terms, a rational response to the volatility present in the international rice market. In particular, it is argued that the Vietnamese Food Agency, along with VINAFOOD-1 and VINAFOOD-2, have been structured so that they can benefit from the domestic demands for export restrictions anticipated to occur as a consequence of international price volatility and the psychological demand of consumers for price stability. In turn, the actions of these agencies also contribute to international price volatility and the resulting demand for export restrictions. Since the political and economic elite in Vietnam obtain both political and economic power from this system, it is unlikely to be replaced with more effective and efficient policies to combat domestic price volatility. Thus, continued volatility in the price of rice can be expected.
    Keywords: N55 - Asia including Middle East, P26 - Political Economy ; Property Rights, Q17 - Agriculture in International Trade, Q18 - Agricultural Policy ; Food Policy
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 61
    Publication Date: 2015-07-10
    Description: The dimensions that define a food product have expanded rapidly to include characteristics of the production process, marketing arrangements, and implications that production and consumption of the product have for the environment. Some market intermediaries have responded by requiring that their suppliers abide by restrictive production practices. We examine the economic effects of such restrictions and apply this analysis to limitations on the use of antibiotics in U.S. pork production. Results from conceptual and simulation analyses show that, in the absence of demand growth, less pork is sold due to higher costs in the restricted segment, and both pork consumers (on average) and producers are harmed. Demand growth of between 6–11% from adding new consumers who will consume the restricted (antibiotic-free) product but not the conventional product is needed to return consumer surplus to the level in the base case, and between 2–4% demand growth was required to return producer surplus to base. When restricted and conventional products are modeled using a vertical differentiation framework, results depend importantly on the ease with which consumers can switch to a seller who offers their desired product type. Significant distributional impacts among consumers are present when switching costs are prohibitive.
    Keywords: I18 - Government Policy ; Regulation ; Public Health, Q13 - Agricultural Markets and Marketing ; Cooperatives ; Agribusiness, Q18 - Agricultural Policy ; Food Policy
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  • 62
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    Oxford University Press
    Publication Date: 2015-09-12
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  • 63
    Publication Date: 2015-09-12
    Description: This article examines bilateral trade patterns in the Asia-Pacific using a new model in which comparative advantage within the agricultural sector is linked to agro-ecological characteristics, and trade costs are product-specific. Bilateral market share is a function of productivity and trade costs. However, countries with similar land and climate characteristics systematically have high productivity in similar products making them disproportionately sensitive to changes in each other's trade costs. We use a random coefficients logit model to estimate a parametric distribution of comparative advantage and trade costs across products and calculate regional trade liberalization elasticities for each exporter in each import market. Unlike most existing models, the value of the elasticity depends on the degree to which liberalization includes competitors with similar comparative advantage within the agricultural sector. We find disproportionately larger trade elasticities under China-led liberalization relative to U.S.-led liberalization among close U.S. competitors compared to countries whose agricultural products are unlikely to compete head-to-head with U.S. exports. For the United States, we find that the "lost opportunity" cost of exclusion from regional liberalization is increasing in the extent to which its close competitors gain new access.
    Keywords: F13 - Trade Policy ; International Trade Organizations, F14 - Country and Industry Studies of Trade, F15 - Economic Integration, Q17 - Agriculture in International Trade, Q18 - Agricultural Policy ; Food Policy
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  • 64
    Publication Date: 2015-09-12
    Description: The 2014 farm bill reduced expected budgetary costs of US farm programs, according to estimates prepared by the Congressional Budget Office. Cost projections are very sensitive to market conditions and program participation assumptions, and stochastic analysis indicates that farm program costs could easily differ from expected values by $5 billion or more in any given year. By replacing direct payments with new policies that make payments tied to market prices and yields, the bill could have important World Trade Organization (WTO) implications. If the new policies are classified as non-commodity specific amber box support, projections indicate that existing WTO limits on the current Aggregate Measure of Support would not be exceeded on average, but could be under some market conditions. Furthermore, the new policies are very likely to exceed some WTO rules proposed by various parties in the Doha Round negotiations.
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  • 65
    Publication Date: 2015-09-12
    Description: This article assesses the political economy of the 2014 U.S. farm bill, with a focus on the farm support safety net. The farm bill secured substantial bipartisan majorities in a politically contentious Congress. Planned outlays are predominately for nutrition assistance programs directed toward a traditional nonfarm constituency in the farm bill coalition, while annual fixed direct payments to farmers are eliminated but replaced with enhanced downside risk protection against low prices or revenue. The new support programs may prove more or less costly than the foregone fixed payments, with farmers offered a choice between a price countercyclical program with increased reference prices and a revised moving-average revenue guarantee program. The role of insurance is enhanced, notably by replacing past support programs with a new upland cotton revenue insurance program and dairy milk-to-feed margin protection program. Open policy issues that are highlighted include the costs and distortionary effects of moving-average revenue benchmarks versus fixed reference prices, the overall level of insurance premium subsidies, the potential for overlap between commodity and insurance programs, and lastly, food, environmental, and biofuels concerns that reflect the diverse portfolio of products demanded from agriculture. In an international context, we conclude that the 2014 farm safety net likely would not have been enacted had multilateral agreement been reached on the 2008 Doha Round World Trade Organization negotiating documents. Conversely, the 2014 farm bill makes achieving those limits more difficult. Research is discussed that can elucidate the ongoing political economy of U.S. farm policy and help shape future program design.
    Keywords: K33 - International Law, N52 - U.S. ; Canada: 1913-, Q17 - Agriculture in International Trade, Q18 - Agricultural Policy ; Food Policy, Q28 - Government Policy
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  • 66
    facet.materialart.
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    Oxford University Press
    Publication Date: 2015-09-12
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  • 67
    Publication Date: 2015-09-12
    Description: Domestically funded (and performed) research and development (R&D) has historically been a major source of productivity gains in U.S. agriculture, and a principal source of R&D spillovers to the rest of the world. In the waning decades of the 20th century, U.S. policymakers opted to ratchet down the rate of growth in public support for food and agricultural R&D. As the 21st century unfolds, slowing growth has given way to real cutbacks, reversing the accumulation of U.S.-sourced public R&D capital over most of the previous century and more. The 2014 Farm Bill did little to reverse these long-run research funding trajectories—politicians failed to heed the economic evidence about the still substantial social payoffs of that research and the consequent slowdown in U.S. agricultural productivity growth associated with the spending slowdown. Meanwhile, R&D spending by other countries has been moving in different directions. We present new evidence that today's middle-income countries—notably China, Brazil, and India— are not only growing in relative importance as producers of agricultural innovations through investments in public R&D, they are also gaining considerable ground in terms of their share of privately performed research of relevance for agriculture. The already substantive changes in global public and private R&D investment trajectories are accelerating. If history is any guide to the future, these changing R&D trajectories could have profound consequences for the competitiveness of U.S. agriculture in the decades ahead.
    Keywords: O38 - Government Policy, Q16 - R&D ; Agricultural Technology ; Agricultural Extension Services
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  • 68
    Publication Date: 2015-09-12
    Description: Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) contracts allow consumers to buy claims on a farm's future production. In turn, the consumer provides working capital to the farm during the growing season. CSA contracts also provide risk management for farmers with limited access to Federal crop insurance by transferring part of the farm's risk to the consumer. We derive a theory of CSA contract pricing for the two most prevalent types of CSA contracts: yield contracts, in which consumers receive a percentage of the farm's production, and weight contracts, in which consumers receive fixed quantities. We develop a two-period model in which expected utility maximizing producers and consumers engage in CSA contracting in the first period based on anticipation of yields and spot prices in the second period. Using the model, we generate several testable hypotheses to be explored in future research. Additionally, we present an overview of the data necessary to test the propositions and potential challenges that might arise in related empirical work.
    Keywords: Q13 - Agricultural Markets and Marketing ; Cooperatives ; Agribusiness, Q14 - Agricultural Finance
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  • 69
    Publication Date: 2015-09-12
    Description: Contracts between farmers and intermediaries and crop insurers are important means for farmers to mitigate risks in modern U.S. agriculture. In this paper, we investigate the effect of crop insurance enrollment on contract terms and farmers’ participation in marketing contracts. Following Ligon (2003) , we set up a mechanism design framework to demonstrate an intermediary's contract design problem, where farmers are assumed to be utility maximizing agents. We depict farmers’ optimal choices of insurance coverage using the specification developed by Babcock (2012) . Our model shows that improved terms of crop insurance (lower premiums, higher subsidies) make contracts less appealing to farmers as mechanisms for mitigating risk. Therefore, intermediaries may revise their contract offers so that they are more attractive. However, improvements in contract terms are limited by their cost to the intermediaries and will not lead to expanded participation in contracts.
    Keywords: Q12 - Micro Analysis of Farm Firms, Farm Households, and Farm Input Markets, Q18 - Agricultural Policy ; Food Policy
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  • 70
    Publication Date: 2015-09-12
    Description: Limited access to healthy food is commonly regarded as a contributing factor to poor dietary choices. The objective of this article is to test this hypothesis in a French context given France's increasing obesity rates and incidence of poor dietary habits. We use data on fruit and vegetable consumption frequency and different food retail availability measures, for example the number of food stores, food surface area, and a dispersion measure based on store numbers, store types, and food area surface, from several data sources in France. We also employ different types of geographic units when measuring the food retail environment and instrumental variable model specifications to test the robustness of our results, which indicate that fewer but larger retail outlets increase the odds of consuming the recommended level of fruit and vegetables. We also find that an increase in food supply dispersion will improve fruit and vegetable consumption in Paris, but not in its suburbs.
    Keywords: D12 - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis, L66 - Food ; Beverages ; Cosmetics ; Tobacco ; Wine and Spirits, P46 - Consumer Economics ; Welfare and Poverty
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  • 71
    Publication Date: 2015-09-12
    Description: This article offers a methodology to address the endogeneity of inputs in the input distance function (IDF) formulation of the production processes. We propose to tackle endogenous input ratios appearing in the normalized IDF by considering a flexible (simultaneous) system of the IDF and the first-order conditions from the firm's cost minimization problem. Our model can accommodate both technical and (input) allocative inefficiencies among firms. We also present the algorithm for quantifying the cost of allocative inefficiency. We showcase our cost-system-based model by applying it to study the production of Norwegian dairy farms during the 1991–2008 period. Among other things, we find both an economically and statistically significant improvement in the levels of technical efficiency among dairy farms associated with the 1997 quota scheme change, which a more conventional single-equation stochastic frontier model appears to be unable to detect.
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  • 72
    Publication Date: 2015-09-12
    Description: The objective of this research is to estimate and analyze the gap between in-trial yield potential, on-farm yield potential, and actual on-farm wheat yields. Yield gaps are quantified by measuring how varietal mean yields have changed over time, due to productivity increases generated by public and private wheat breeding programs. Variety performance trial data for Kansas winter wheat are used to summarize the evolution of wheat yields over the time period 1985 to 2011. A measure of yield potential is compared to actual on-farm yields to derive implications for wheat industry stakeholders. Persistent and expanding yield gaps between potential yield and actual on-farm yield are measured and analyzed. Producers’ variety adoption decisions explain a relatively small portion of this gap, and producers have become more effective at identifying and adopting yield-enhancing varieties over time. The largest portion of these gaps was explained by on-farm production decisions.
    Keywords: O33 - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences ; Diffusion Processes, Q16 - R&D ; Agricultural Technology ; Agricultural Extension Services
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  • 73
    Publication Date: 2015-09-12
    Description: Market integration has been widely studied in the past to gain a better understanding of how different markets for the same good interact with one another. Traditional cointegration tests have been used to perform these analyses; however, these tests can only reveal the presence of stable or average long-term relationships. To evaluate market dynamics over time, we modify a time-varying smooth transition autoregressive (TV-STAR) model to examine pine stumpage markets in the US South. The proposed model incorporates an economic indicator and allows us to evaluate market integration as it changes throughout a specified time period. The potential significance of this work is twofold. First, market integration can be observed as a function of an economic indicator, and secondly, the proposed model will allow us to draw inference about market integration at specific time points.
    Keywords: C22 - Time-Series Models, E30 - General, Q23 - Forestry, R30 - General
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  • 74
    Publication Date: 2015-09-12
    Description: In economic models of behavior, consumers are assumed to value the goods and services they purchase based on stable preferences over externally identifiable attributes such as quality. These models predict that consumers will respond to changes in price in a way that is independent of the source of the price change. Yet research in the behavioral sciences indicates that consumers that are emotionally attached to a consumption good or other behavior might respond with resistance when policies threaten their consumption or behavior. Moreover, policies that in fact validate some emotional attachments can stir a stronger preference for the good or behavior. Reviewing both survey and experimental data from the literature, we demonstrate how such emotional responses can create hidden costs to policy implementation that could not be detected using standard welfare economic techniques. Building upon Rabin's work on fairness in games, we propose a partial equilibrium model of emotional response to policy whereby preferences are endogenous to policy choices. In accordance with evidence both from our own analysis and the field, we propose that confrontational policies (such as a sin tax) increase the marginal utility for a good, and that validating policies (such as a subsidy) also increases the marginal utility for a good. A social planner that ignores potential emotional responses to policy changes may unwittingly induce significant dead weight loss. Using our model, we propose a feasible method to determine if emotional deadweight costs exist, and to place a lower bound on the size of these costs.
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  • 75
    Publication Date: 2015-09-12
    Description: Sugarcane in Brazil is processed into sugar and/or ethanol, often in flex plants that can switch between the two products. We develop an economic model of flex plants, export demands, and two domestic fuel demand curves for a blend of ethanol with gasoline consumed by conventional cars, and ethanol consumed only by flex cars. We analyze the market impacts of the following policies: the blend mandate; fixing gasoline prices below world prices; the high gasoline tax; and a higher tax exemption for ethanol blended with gasoline. Because Brazilian and U.S. ethanol prices have become linked, a change in Brazilian ethanol policy or a shock in world sugar markets can now impact U.S. ethanol and corn prices. We show that in theory, each policy analyzed has an ambiguous impact on ethanol and sugar prices. Empirically, however, a low gasoline tax and a high tax exemption for ethanol used in the fuel blend reduce ethanol and sugar prices; this contradicts conventional wisdom. Overall, we find that policy reforms implemented in 2010 offset the ethanol price increase by about 27% due to outward shifts in fuel transportation and sugar export demand curves, and due to a reduced sugarcane supply caused by bad weather. Our model illustrates the importance of Brazil's ethanol policies on world commodity markets; it also provides insight into how the Brazilian government can adjust policies to better control domestic inflation while minimizing impacts on investment.
    Keywords: Q18 - Agricultural Policy ; Food Policy, Q28 - Government Policy, Q42 - Alternative Energy Sources, Q48 - Government Policy
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  • 76
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    Oxford University Press
    Publication Date: 2015-09-12
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  • 77
    Publication Date: 2015-09-12
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  • 78
    Publication Date: 2015-09-12
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  • 79
    Publication Date: 2015-09-12
    Description: Farmers’ decisions about how much crop insurance to buy are not generally consistent with expected utility maximization. Taking into account both marginal risk benefits and marginal subsidy effects suggests that most farmers have chosen lower coverage levels than would be predicted by standard models. By modeling financial outcomes as gains and losses, cumulative prospect theory offers an alternative framework to perhaps better understand farmers’ purchase decisions. The role of the reference point that defines outcomes as either a gain or a loss, the degree of loss aversion, curvature of the value function, and the probability weighting function in determining optimal crop insurance coverage levels are explored for three representative farms calibrated to 2009 conditions. Loss aversion and how crop insurance is framed through choice of the reference point are shown to be the key factors that determine whether predictions from prospect theory are consistent with observed crop insurance coverage choices. When crop insurance is framed as a tool to manage farm risk then optimal choices under prospect theory are not consistent with observed choices. If crop insurance is framed as a stand-alone investment where a loss is felt if the indemnity received is less than the premium paid, then prospect theory can generate optimal coverage level choices that are largely consistent with observed decisions. This result is shown to be robust to changes in parameterizations as long as loss aversion is maintained and if curvature of the value function is accompanied by decision weights that overweight low probability outcomes.
    Keywords: D81 - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty, G20 - General, Q12 - Micro Analysis of Farm Firms, Farm Households, and Farm Input Markets
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  • 80
    Publication Date: 2015-09-12
    Description: Food commodity price fluctuations have an important impact on poverty and food insecurity across the world. Conventional models have not provided a complete picture of recent price spikes in agricultural commodity markets, and there is an urgent need for appropriate policy responses. Perhaps new approaches are needed to better understand international spill-overs, the feedback between the real and the financial sectors, as well as the link between food and energy prices. In this article, we present the results from a new worldwide dynamic model that provides the short and long-run impulse responses of the international wheat price to various real and financial shocks.
    Keywords: C12 - Hypothesis Testing, C15 - Simulation Methods, G14 - Information and Market Efficiency ; Event Studies, Q14 - Agricultural Finance
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  • 81
    Publication Date: 2015-09-12
    Description: We study how beliefs affect individuals’ willingness to contribute to prevention expenditure through a two-type, N-person public good game and test several results empirically. We show analytically that pessimistic agents will invest more in prevention expenditure than optimists. We also demonstrate how small differences in beliefs may induce substantial differences in type-related prevention expenditure. The more atomistic agents are, the less they will contribute to the public good. Pessimistic beliefs then lead to a "double deprivation," and we discuss potential issues and remedies. The more optimistic a society is, the lower will be its total green expenditure. We then use a large international survey to study how beliefs and additional controls determine prevention expenditure. We rely on several proxies for beliefs and the willingness to contribute to prevention expenditure, which we combine through principal component analysis. In addition, we investigate the role of environmental education for the relationship between beliefs and the willingness to contribute. Because of potential endogeneity bias due to unobserved variables that are likely to affect both beliefs and the willingness to contribute, we follow the theoretical analysis and resort to a recursive bivariate model. Our main findings are very much in line with the theoretical predictions. We find, across all specifications, that more optimistic beliefs lead to a lower willingness to contribute. Environmental education affects the willingness to contribute only indirectly through its impact on beliefs.
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  • 82
    Publication Date: 2015-09-12
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 83
    Publication Date: 2015-09-12
    Print ISSN: 0002-9092
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 84
    Publication Date: 2015-09-12
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 85
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    Oxford University Press
    Publication Date: 2015-12-13
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 86
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    Oxford University Press
    Publication Date: 2015-12-13
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 87
    Publication Date: 2015-12-13
    Description: Families in low-income neighborhoods sometimes lack access to supermarkets that provide a broad range of healthy foods. We investigate whether these so called "food deserts" play a role in childhood obesity using a statewide panel data set of Arkansas elementary schoolchildren. We use fixed-effects panel data regression models to estimate the average food desert effect. We next compare children who left (entered) food deserts to children who were always (never) in food deserts and homogenize samples for those whose food desert status changed as a result of a change in residence and those whose status changed only as a consequence of the entry or exit of a supermarket. We present evidence that exposure to food deserts is associated with higher z-scores for body mass index. On average, this is in the neighborhood of 0.04 standard deviations. The strongest evidence and largest association is among urban students and especially those that transition into food deserts from non-deserts. Our food desert estimates are similar in magnitude to findings reported in earlier work on diet and lifestyle interventions targeting similarly aged schoolchildren. That said, we are unable to conclude that the estimated food desert effect is causal because many of the transitions into or out of food deserts result from a change in residence, an event that is endogenous to the child's household. However, there is evidence that food deserts are a risk indicator and that food desert areas may be obesogenic in ways that other low-income neighborhoods are not.
    Keywords: I14 - Health and Inequality, I19 - Other, Q18 - Agricultural Policy ; Food Policy
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 88
    Publication Date: 2015-12-13
    Description: Residents of neighborhoods with limited access to grocery stores may face barriers to obtaining adequate food for a healthy diet. Low-income elderly may be uniquely affected by these so-called "food deserts" due to limited transportation options, strong attachments to local neighborhoods, fixed incomes, and physical limitations for food shopping. Using 2006 and 2010 Health and Retirement Study data linked to census tract-level measures of food deserts, this study measures whether living in a food desert affects food and material hardship, participation in food assistance programs, and the food spending of elderly adults. In both cross-sectional and fixed effects regressions of elderly residents of urban counties, we find little evidence that living in a food desert affects these outcomes. We find, however, that individuals residing in a food desert without a vehicle are 12 percentage points more likely to report food insufficiency. Those SNAP recipients living in food deserts are 11 percentage points more likely to receive subsidized meals, while nonparticipants in food deserts and SNAP recipients outside of food deserts are less likely to receive subsidized meals. Our findings suggest that seniors without vehicles and SNAP recipients in food deserts may be the most vulnerable to limited food store access.
    Keywords: I30 - General, Q18 - Agricultural Policy ; Food Policy, R12 - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity, R40 - General
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 89
    Publication Date: 2015-12-13
    Description: The authors incorporate brain activation data in an analysis of decision time and choices for milk labeled as produced with growth hormone or cloning technologies, or labeled as conventional milk. Non-hypothetical choices and decision time are correlated with blood oxygenation level-dependent extractions in brain regions previously found to be involved in valuation. The significance of the activations related to price and production technology differs in models of decision time and choice. More areas influence the time it takes to make a decision. The final decision appears to be most correlated with localized areas in the medial prefrontal cortex, with a higher correlation when the choice is about growth hormones than cloning technology.
    Keywords: D87 - Neuroeconomics, Q16 - R&D ; Agricultural Technology ; Agricultural Extension Services
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  • 90
    Publication Date: 2015-12-13
    Description: The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has grown rapidly in recent years—by about 50% in the seven years between 2000 and 2007, and by another 70% in the four years between 2007 and 2011—such that in 2011, SNAP served 14% of the U.S. population. Contributing to our understanding of the causes of this very rapid increase in the caseload, this article extends the time period of analysis through and past the official end of the Great Recession, analyzes more geographically disaggregated caseloads and the impact of substate economic conditions, and considers the impact of recent major, state-level SNAP policy changes. In models that exploit substate-level data, we find consistent evidence of significant impacts of both the substate level and statewide economy on local area SNAP caseloads. Surprisingly, while one might have expected more geographically disaggregated data to improve the alignment of the measurement with the concept of interest (i.e., the labor market opportunities of an individual), and therefore lead to larger estimates of the impact of the economy, in fact estimates fall—perhaps due to measurement error. We find at best mixed evidence of policy impacts. Simulations indicate that the economy can account for most of the 2007 to 2011 increase in the caseload, although relatively less of the 2000 to 2007 increase. Nonetheless, the role of the economy in driving caseloads appears to be substantial in both periods.
    Keywords: I38 - Government Policy ; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs, J40 - General
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 91
    Publication Date: 2015-12-13
    Description: The paper determines how the value-added created by an organic label is shared in a vertical chain among manufacturers and retailers. Using purchase data on the French fluid milk sector, we develop a structural econometric model of demand and supply that takes into account the bargaining power between manufacturers and retailers. Our results suggest that the organic label segment is more profitable, as it permits the existence of higher margins. Moreover, an organic label allows manufacturers to achieve more bargaining power relative to retailers, and hence to obtain a higher share of total margins. The econometric model is then used to assess the impact of an environmental policy in favor of the organic segment based on a mechanism of price support. Our results suggest that while a subsidy policy towards organic products benefits both manufacturers and retailers, a tax policy toward conventional products benefits manufacturers of national brands at the expense of retailers and manufacturers that provide the private labels. The benefits of such policies on the environment is relatively small. All such policies tend to increase the impact on global warming and land use, but reduce the impact on eutrophication, acidification, and energy use.
    Keywords: L10 - General, Q19 - Other, Q51 - Valuation of Environmental Effects
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 92
    Publication Date: 2015-12-13
    Description: This paper investigates spatial variations in product prices using an exhaustive micro dataset on fish transactions. The data includes all transactions between vessels and wholesalers that occurred within local fish markets in France during 2007. Spatial disparities in fish prices are sizable even after taking into account fish quality, time, and unobserved seller and buyer heterogeneity. The price difference between local fish markets can be explained to some extent by distance, but mostly by a coast effect related to market locations on the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts. We also propose a new approach for identifying groups of interconnected local fish markets based on the activity of sellers and buyers within these markets. We show that most markets on the Atlantic coast are well connected, and that variation in prices across these markets is very small and in line with the law of one price.
    Keywords: L11 - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure ; Size Distribution of Firms, Q22 - Fishery ; Aquaculture, R32 - Other Production and Pricing Analysis
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 93
    Publication Date: 2015-12-13
    Description: It is widely believed that oil prices impact food prices in developing countries. Yet rigorous evidence on this relationship is scarce. Using maize and petrol price data from east Africa, we show that global oil prices do affect food prices but primarily through transport costs, rather than through biofuel or production cost channels. We find that global oil prices transmit much more rapidly to the pump and then to local maize prices than do global maize prices, suggesting that the immediate effects of correlated commodity price shocks on local food prices are driven more by transport costs than by the prices of the grains themselves. Furthermore, we present suggestive evidence that, for markets furthest inland, changes in world oil prices have larger effects on local maize prices than do changes in world maize prices.
    Keywords: F15 - Economic Integration, O13 - Agriculture ; Natural Resources ; Energy ; Environment ; Other Primary Products, Q11 - Aggregate Supply and Demand Analysis ; Prices
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 94
    Publication Date: 2015-12-13
    Description: This article estimates a worldwide aggregate supply response for key agricultural commodities— wheat, rice, corn, and soybeans—by employing a newly-developed multi-country, crop-calendar-specific, seasonally disaggregated model with price changes and price volatility applied accordingly. The findings reveal that, although higher output prices serve as an incentive to improve global crop supply as expected, output price volatility acts as a disincentive. Depending on the crop, the results show that own-price supply elasticities range from about 0.05 to 0.40. Output price volatility, however, has negative correlations with crop supply, implying that farmers shift land, other inputs, and yield-improving investments to crops with less volatile prices. Simulating the impact of price dynamics since 2006, we find that price risk has reduced the production response of wheat in particular—and to a lesser extent, rice—thus dampening price incentive effects. The simulation analysis shows that the increase in own-crop price volatility from 2006–2010 dampened yield by about 1–2% for the crops under consideration.
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  • 95
    Publication Date: 2015-12-13
    Description: We investigate the effect of crop price and climate variables on rainfed corn and soybean yields and acreage in the United States using a large panel dataset for the 1977–2007 period. Instrumental variables are used to control for endogeneity of prices in yield and acreage regressions, while allowing for spatially auto-correlated errors. We find that an increase in corn price has a statistically significant positive impact on corn yield, but the effect of soybean price on soybean yields is not statistically significant. The estimated price elasticities of corn yield and acreage are 0.23 and 0.45, respectively. Of the increase in corn supply caused by an increase in corn price, we find that 33.8% is due to price-induced yield enhancement and 66.2% is due to price-induced acreage expansion. We also find that the impact of climate change on corn production ranges from $-$ 7% to $-$ 41% and on soybean ranges from $-$ 8% to $-$ 45%, depending on the climate change scenarios, time horizon, and global climate models used to predict climate change. We show that the aggregate net impact of omitting price variables is an overestimation of the effect of climate change on corn yield by up to 9% and on soybean yield by up to 15%.
    Keywords: Q11 - Aggregate Supply and Demand Analysis ; Prices, Q15 - Land Ownership and Tenure ; Land Reform ; Land Use ; Irrigation, Q54 - Climate ; Natural Disasters ; Global Warming
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    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition , Economics
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  • 96
    Publication Date: 2015-12-13
    Description: Natural resource abundance is a blessing for some countries, but a curse for others. We show that differences across countries in the degree of fiscal decentralization can contribute to this divergent outcome. Using a large panel of countries covering several decades and various fiscal decentralization and natural resource measures, we provide empirical support for the novel hypothesis. We also study a model that combines political and market mechanisms under a unified framework to illustrate how natural resource booms may create negative effects in fiscally decentralized nations.
    Keywords: H77 - Intergovernmental Relations ; Federalism ; Secession, O13 - Agriculture ; Natural Resources ; Energy ; Environment ; Other Primary Products, O18 - Regional, Urban, and Rural Analyses, Q32 - Exhaustible Resources and Economic Development, Q33 - Resource Booms
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  • 97
    Publication Date: 2015-12-13
    Description: We examine the revealed preference theory underlying the welfare analysis of public goods (e.g., environmental quality) by observing the consumption of related commodities. Inspired by Larson (1991) and Ebert (1998) , and extended from Eom and Larson (2006) , an empirical strategy is formulated, consistent with the theory of uniquely deriving use and nonuse values for a change in the public good. We show that the weak complementarity assumption and the Willig condition, the common preference assumptions used to support the revealed preference methods for non-market valuation, may be tested as parameter restrictions. A study of water quality valuation is presented to illustrate the proposed empirical strategy. Results show that the weak complementarity assumption and the Willig condition generally do not hold in the case study, and the consumer surplus derived from the indirect valuation method deviates largely from the exact welfare measures.
    Keywords: H41 - Public Goods, Q26 - Recreational Aspects of Natural Resources, Q51 - Valuation of Environmental Effects, Q53 - Air Pollution ; Water Pollution ; Noise ; Hazardous Waste ; Solid Waste ; Recycling
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  • 98
    Publication Date: 2015-12-13
    Description: This article examines whether or not a reduction in consumer search cost for nutritional information increases the probability that heterogeneous consumers will choose healthier food products. Empirical results from the ready-to-eat breakfast cereal (RTEC) market confirm the conceptual analysis that lowering information cost via simplified nutritional labeling increases the healthfulness of consumer choices. The healthfulness attribute weighs 28.44% more heavily in consumers' decision-making with simpler labeling systems. On average, introducing front-of-package labeling increased the probability of a consumer choosing a healthy RTEC by 3.49% and reduced the probability of choosing an unhealthy RTEC by 3.81%. Calories, sugar, saturated fat, and sodium consumption decrease by 0.31%, 2.63%, 6.94%, and 1.97%, respectively. Fiber intake increases by 3.24%. Further results show that less-educated and smaller households with less frequent purchases benefit the most from a reduction in information cost. Overall, this article shows the potentially positive role that voluntary, more convenient labeling could play in improving market and public health outcomes.
    Keywords: D12 - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis, I19 - Other, L66 - Food ; Beverages ; Cosmetics ; Tobacco ; Wine and Spirits, M30 - General
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  • 99
    Publication Date: 2015-12-13
    Description: In this article, we employ a hypothetical discrete choice experiment to examine how much consumers are willing to pay to use technology to customize their food shopping. We conjecture that customized information provision can aid in the composition of a healthier shop. Our results reveal that consumers are prepared to pay relatively more for specific information as opposed to the generic nutritional information that is typically provided on food labels. In arriving at these results, we have examined various model specifications including those that use ex post de-briefing questions on attribute non-attendance and attribute-ranking information, and those that consider the time taken to complete the survey. Our main results are robust to the various model specifications we examine.
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  • 100
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    Oxford University Press
    Publication Date: 2015-03-14
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