A number of agricultural and food policy instruments are predicated on the idea that producers dislike output price risk. We test experimentally some theoretical predictions about the behavior of producers in the face of output price risk, namely Sandmo's (1971) prediction that price risk at the extensive margin causes risk‐averse producers to decrease how much they produce and Batra and Ullah's (1974) prediction that price risk at the intensive margin causes producers whose preferences exhibit decreasing absolute risk aversion to further decrease how much they produce. We do so in labs with US college students as well as in the field with Peruvian farmers. First, as regards price risk at the extensive margin, we find no support for Sandmo's prediction. Second, consistent with Batra and Ullah's prediction, we find that output decreases in response to price risk at the intensive margin when imposing a linear relationship between output and price risk. When relaxing the assumption of linearity between output and price risk, however, we find a nonmonotonic relationship between output and price risk. Taken together, these results are broadly inconsistent with expected utility theory. Alternative models of behavior in the face of risk, such as prospect theory, may explain the behavior we observe.

中文翻译：

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生产者对产出价格风险的态度：来自实验室和现场的实验证据

许多农业和食品政策工具都基于生产者不喜欢产出价格风险的观点。我们通过实验测试了一些关于生产者面对产出价格风险的行为的理论预测，即 Sandmo (1971) 的预测，即广泛边际的价格风险导致规避风险的生产者减少他们的生产量，以及 Batra 和 Ullah (1974)预测集约边际的价格风险会导致偏好表现出降低的绝对风险厌恶的生产者进一步减少他们的生产量。我们在实验室与美国大学生以及在秘鲁农民的领域中这样做。首先，关于广义边际价格风险，我们发现没有支持 Sandmo 的预测。其次，与巴特拉和乌拉的预测一致，我们发现，当在产出和价格风险之间施加线性关系时，产出会随着集约边际的价格风险而减少。然而，当放宽产出和价格风险之间的线性假设时，我们发现产出和价格风险之间存在非单调关系。总之，这些结果与预期效用理论大体上不一致。面对风险的替代行为模型，例如前景理论，可以解释我们观察到的行为。