With farm income at record, or near record levels, the overall agricultural production sector has fared well. However, in the current economic climate, instability and volatility in certain agricultural input markets caused by the U.S. macro-economy has put increased pressure on some sub-sectors...

Farmland values have recently increased dramatically in the Midwest, attracting investors from outside of agriculture and causing many inside agriculture to question whether a speculative bubble has formed. This article addresses that question by presenting an economic by presenting an economic...

This paper uses a double hurdle model to help explain one aspect of the changing capital structure of U.S. production agriculture--the increase in the number of debt free farms. Our findings suggest that nonfinancial factors, such as operator age, region, risk aversion, and financial factors...

This study uses a financial approach based on the DuPont expansion to examine the significance of specialization and vertical integration on domestic agriculture. The traditional DuPont Expansion decomposes the rate of return to equity into asset efficiency, gross margins, and solvency. We...