This paper attempts to understand the linkages between human capital and input choice in agricultural firms. The hypothesis to be tested is that better educated managers choose different input combinations than managers with a lower educational level. In particular, the hypothesis is that the...

Most studies analyzing the impact of human capital in agriculture use the measure of years of schooling of the producer as a proxy for decision-making skills. An alternative measure is used in this paper. The measure was derived by "grading" decision-making and execution skills of a sample of...

Common Agricultural Policy uses a large share of its budget to support and stabilise the income of EU farmers by means of direct payments (DP). This paper assesses how much and how DP reduce the variability of farm income over time. The analysis is developed on a constant sample of 2402 Italian...

This paper provides a unique perspective to the question of why U.S. producers' hedging practices are not consistent with the price-risk management literature. We conduct a formal test of income support program impacts with unique producer survey data from South Africa and the United States,...

Deregulation is a widely suggested strategy to make agricultural markets efficient. In this article, we critically examine the recent reforms undertaken in India aiming to deregulate agricultural markets. Our analysis is from the perspective of the potential of market reforms to benefit farmers....