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

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

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

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

Cash transfersimpact evaluationlabor supplylivelihoodsproductive impactsrisk managementsub-Saharan Africa

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

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

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

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

The 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 the risk

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

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

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

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

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)

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

The obesity epidemic and excessive consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages have led to proposals of economics-based interventions to promote healthy eating in the United States. Targeted food and beverage taxes and subsidies are prominent examples of such potential intervention strategies. This paper examines the differential effects of taxing sugar-sweetened beverages by calories and by ounces on

A censored Exact Affine Stone Index incomplete demand system is estimated for 23 packaged foods and beverages and a numéraire good. Instrumental variables are used to control for endogenous prices. A half-cent per ounce increase in sugar-sweetened beverage prices is predicted to reduce total calories from the 23 foods and beverages but increase sodium and fat intakes as a result of product substitution

Nearly 15% of all U.S. households and 40% of near-poor households were food insecure in 2009. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the cornerstone of federal food assistance programs and serves as the first line of defense against food-related hardship. This paper measures the effectiveness of SNAP in reducing food insecurity using an instrumental variables approach to control for

This article presents a statistical model of agricultural yield data based on a set of hierarchical Bayesian models that allows joint modeling of temporal and spatial autocorrelation. This method captures a comprehensive range of the various uncertainties involved in predicting crop insurance premium rates as opposed to the more traditional ad hoc, two-stage methods that are typically based on independent

This article reviews the emerging trends in global food supply and demand up to 2020, and discusses policy challenges and obstacles to meeting this demand. Data were obtained from the International Food Policy Research Institute's International Model for Policy Analysis of Commodities and Trade (Rosegrant et al.). The country-specific data pertains to 37 countries and regions and 17 food commodities

A large and growing body of literature has examined how agricultural households cope with risk. Much of the work has focused on which types of households are better able to smooth consumption, testing whether households with more resources and greater access to income-smoothing institutions, such as credit markets or well-functioning labor markets exhibit greater consumption smoothing. However, income

This study tests the hypothesis that fertility is affected differently by economic growth depending upon the specific sector (agriculture, manufacturing, heavy industry, and services) where growth occurred. The hypothesis is that fertility responses are not identical across sectors. The sample includes 51 World Bank member countries in varying stages of development. The econometric model pertains to

Ejidos are communal holding groups of redistributed land expropriated (generally without compensation) from large private landowners during Mexico's post-1910 land reform. The model in this study of the "ejidal" system's influence on fertility differs from DeVany and Sanchez in providing more current data and including the following more detailed variables: the land area of ejidos and the number of

This article discusses the impact of structural adjustment programs (SAPs) on women farmers in developing countries. SAPs aim to improve economic efficiency and promote more rapid economic growth. SAPs are introduced in two phases. The first phase involves short-term loans with the condition that the country adopt monetary restraints and currency devaluation measures. In the second phase, long-term

The author analyzes the relationship between population and the environment, with a focus on "the role which environmental degradation and natural resources depletion may play in producing the...population pressure which lies behind such degradation and depletion especially in developing countries.... The principal conclusion of this analysis is that the possibilities for a stable equilibrium between

The relation between household income, food intake, and nutritional status in less developed countries is examined, and a framework that explicitly relates household behavior patterns with public policy options designed to improve the nutritional status of the rural and urban poor is presented. For rural areas, nutritional and health status depends largely upon the levels of private inputs provided

An analysis of the impact of migration to the United States on the sending community and on the labor market in the receiving country is presented based on a case study of Las Animas, Mexico. "As the community becomes increasingly involved in migration, tendencies can be identified regarding changing migration patterns, class differentiation among villagers, impact of migration on village economy,

The author discusses the role of residential preferences and the search for a better quality of life as determinants of urban-rural migration in the United States