Understanding the determinants of agricultural productivity requires accurate measurement of crop output and yield. In smallholder production systems across low- and middle-income countries, crop yields have traditionally been assessed based on farmer-reported production and land areas in household/farm surveys, occasionally by objective crop cuts for a sub-section of a farmer’s plot, and rarely using

Debate over the implementation of food assistance programs and the role of in-kind food aid has intensified in recent years. Within that context, we study a randomized control trial of rural communities in Yemen. From 2011 to 2012, poor households in half of the communities received assistance in the form of in-kind food (wheat flour and oil), and households in the other half received an equal valued

The Ricardian approach is a popular hedonic method for analyzing climate change impacts on agriculture. The approach typically relies on a cross-sectional regression of farmland asset prices on fixed climate variables, making it particularly vulnerable to omitted variables. I conduct a long-spanning Ricardian analysis of farmland prices in the eastern United States (1950–2012) and find a convergence

Child dietary diversity is poor in much of rural Africa and developing Asia, prompting significant efforts to leverage agriculture to improve diets. However, growing recognition that even very poor rural households rely on markets to satisfy their demand for nutrient-rich non-staple foods warrants a much better understanding of how rural markets vary in their diversity, competitiveness, frequency and

Over the last two decades, the number of honey bee colonies performing pollination services for the California almond industry has grown steadily and now equals a substantial share of all colonies in the United States. Most US beekeeping operations have not expanded their colony numbers at the current levels of almond pollination fees. Thus, as almond acreage has increased, the marginal supplier of

The decline of European honey bees (Apis mellifera) has been a prominent part of supporting pollinator conservation among the public and conservation efforts, even while honey bees are not native to North America and may compete for resources with native insect pollinators. However, little is known about what distinguishes support for native insect pollinators, including solitary bees, the majority

We report new estimates of beekeeper costs and revenues, which include major activities undertaken by beekeepers, including honey producers and pollinators. We use our cost estimates, recent government surveys and other United States Department of Agriculture information to characterize supply functions for (1) pollination services to crops that bloom in the late winter (dominated by almonds), (2)

This paper explores the interplay between the biophysical and economic geographies of climate change impacts on agriculture. It does so by bridging the extensive literature on climate impacts on yields and physical productivity in global crop production, with the literature on the role of adaptation through international trade in determining the consequences of climate change impacts. Unlike previous

The “right to food” has been formally implemented in some countries and, in other contexts, it is used as an exhortation for governments or other entities to take actions to reduce food insecurity. Central to any comprehensive set of policies to reduce food insecurity are food assistance programs directed towards vulnerable households. One example of such a food assistance program is in the United

AbstractThe impact of risk management on farm productivity is still being debated. Using survey data from French and Hungarian farms, we estimate the impacts of different risk management strategies and portfolios under varying levels of risk on total factor productivity. Results from a multinomial endogenous switching regression model show that the impacts can be positive or negative, depending on

We utilize human resources data from The Ohio State University to assess the gender wage gap. We find a persistent gap of 11% among regular, tenure-track faculty after accounting for fiscal year, race, clinical appointments, experience, and department. While the presence of a statistically significant gender wage gap is robust, the magnitude of the gap varies substantially depending on how the sample

Agricultural economists frequently employ hurdle models to estimate the determinants of truncated outcomes such as market participation and adoption. A pervasive belief is that restrictions can be placed on hurdle models to test whether the decisions made in the underlying data-generating process occurred sequentially or simultaneously. This article argues against the ability to draw this conclusion

The text in the article “Policy Shocks and Market-Based Regulations: Evidence from the Renewable Fuel Standard” described all sample quantile (SQ) tests as two-sided hypothesis tests whereas the authors' Stata code implemented one-sided tests. While none of the authors' point estimates change, several of their significance levels do when the code is corrected. The conclusions remain the same. Updated

Price discovery is the incorporation of information to prices through the actions of traders. Previous studies in financial markets have found evidence that informed traders may submit limit orders instead of market orders as part of their trading strategies. If so, the steps of limit order book (LOB) beyond the best bid and best ask spread (BAS) may contain valuable information and contribute to price

Cash transfersimpact evaluationlabor supplylivelihoodsproductive impactsrisk managementsub-Saharan Africa

Grant, C.W. and Mann, J.M. Applied Economics for Agribusiness. John Wiley and Sons 2018.

We construct panel price indexes using retail scanner data that allow comparisons of consumption cost across space and time. Two types of panel indexes are examined: the rolling-window panel extensions of the multilateral Cave-Christensen-Diewert (CCD) index with the Törnqvist index as its elements, and of the multilateral Gini-Eltetö-Köves-Szulc (GEKS) index using the Fisher ideal index as its elements

The rise in drug overdose deaths in the United States since the turn of the millennium has been extraordinary. A popular narrative paints a picture whereby opioid overdoses among white, male, less-educated, rural workers have been caused by reduced economic opportunities borne by such people. In this article, we causally test the validity of this theory by using Bartik-type variables to explore the

We introduce a model that incorporates two important elements to estimating welfare gains from groundwater management: stochasticity and a spatial stock externality. We estimate welfare gains resulting from optimal management under uncertainty as well as a gradual stock externality that produces the dynamics of a large aquifer being slowly exhausted. This groundwater model imposes an important aspect