This is a draft paper, submitted in advance of presentation at the 2014 Annual Meeting of the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association.

Asymmetry of information is a fundamental problem in agricultural markets. Production contracts remain incomplete if product quality attributes measured by the buying company remain unobservable for the selling farmer. Opportunistic buyers would report lower than actual output quality,...

The valuation of traceable or safety-branded food by consumers in developing countries affected by diseases such as avian influenza, or with food safety issues in general, is very difficult to identify. Products that have safety-branding are not common, and food is usually purchased by...

This paper is based on our ongoing joint work with Ravi Kanbur. Xi Chen is grateful to Ravi Kanbur for invaluable comments, guidance and encouragement. For comments and suggestions, please direct correspondence to Xi Chen at xc49@cornell.edu.