The purpose of this paper to provide added insight into clustering as it pertains to the United States organic sector. I identify clusters of United States certified organic operations by showing how a formal definition of spatial clusters can emerge from an estimated model that accounts for...

The evidence about the magnitude of scope and scale economies in U.S. cash grain farming is revealed from the empirical estimation of the flexible fixed cost quadratic (FFCQ) model. This framework explicitly disaggregates the crop output vector to take the heterogeneity of output and gives...

Output growth decomposition of the Greek olive-oil sector under technical and allocative inefficiencies, economies of scale and technical change, is performed. The stochastic production frontier model is extended to panel data and FGLS estimation. Conventional inputs are main source of growth:...

We devise a formal test of market power that is applied to the international durum market. The model captures the asymmetric cost structure brought about the initial payment system of the Canadian Wheat Board. The model generates testable hypotheses about market conduct and optimal strategic...

Switching costs affect importer decisions, hence impacts of subsidies over time. Dynamic, game theoretic simulations of EU-US competition for Moroccan wheat imports suggest firms charge lower prices and governments award higher subsidies with switching costs. Policy under alternative...

Recent agronomic research finds that economically optimal seeding densities have likely increased for many Midwestern corn farmers as a result of genetic improvements including new GM traits such as Bt corn and herbicide tolerance. We derive a per acre demand model for hybrid seed corn to...

This research shows that increased concentration in the U.S. wheat milling industry has not led to noncompetive pricing in upstream or downstream markets. Increased concentration has helped to reduce the marketing margin by $0.65 for every 100 pounds of flour produced. This is about 7% of the...

We theoretically examine a farmer’s coverage demand with area and individual insurance plans as either separate or integrated options. The individual and area losses are assumed to be imperfectly and positively correlated. With actuarially fair rates, the farmer will fully insure with the...

Corn yield is determined by soils, weather, seed used and other technology choices. Global population and per capita income growth trends as well as demand from the energy sector have placed great stress on cropland use. Global cropland acres and/or yield per acre will need to increase. Whether...

Agricultural technology adoption is often a sequential process. Farmers may adopt a new technology in part of their land first and then adjust in later years based on what they learn from the earlier partial adoption. This paper presents a dynamic adoption model with Bayesian learning, in which...