We identify the effects of alternative explanatory variables on the propensity of U.S. farmers to cease farming, with a particular emphasis on understanding the roles of off-farm employment and federal farm program payments. Conventional ordinary least squares analysis using all counties...

Federal farm program benefits accrue disproportionately to large-scale farm operators, and continue largely because of the political influence of their beneficiaries. Some writers argue that these payments stem the movement of labor out of agriculture, ultimately reducing the pace of rural...

Empirical models are developed and estimated to identify economic determinants of food manufacturing establishment growth between 1987 and 1993. Separate growth equations are estimated for states and counties at the three-digit SIC level. Significant agglomeration diseconomies are found to exist...