Selected Poster for AAEA 2014 annual meetings

We develop a model of the impact of food quality management systems (QMS) on competitiveness and markets. QMS seek to control the quality of a product as determined by the array of individual attributes it possesses. To date only a few studies have attempted to better understand the effect of...

Replaced with revised version of paper 08/31/06.

This paper tries to justify the observation of different return patterns in the upstream and downstream sectors of US beef production. It builds a dynamic rational expectation model separating the cow-calf and feeding sector with the former sector being the residual claimer. The model shows that...

A repeated-purchases model is developed to explore the fundamental economic factors that lie behind the choice of different quality assurance systems and their associated degrees of stringency by firms. Differences in the quality discoverability of a sought-after attribute, market structure,...

The failure of the development of commercially viable traditional crop insurance products and innovations in financial markers has fed a renewed interest in the search for alternatives to help producers in developing countries manage their risk exposure. Salient among these is the proposal of...

Protective covers, such as high tunnels, are being used by specialty crop producers to enhance production quality and yields, expand or growing seasons, and protect crops from some extreme elements. While growing in popularity, one barrier to larger utilization includes the uncertainty regarding...

This work is a first attempt to analyze the effect of weather derivative availability on the risk management strategies in a multi-period setting, when crop activities take place twice a year. Rice production in Ecuador is used as a case study. Numerical solutions show farmers improve their...

Land fragmentation, also known as scattered land holdings, is a common phenomenon in agriculture around the world. In some cases, it has even persisted through government-supported land consolidation programs that aim to improve agricultural productivity. This study evaluates the effect of land...