Land-use changes involve important economic and environmental effects with implications for international trade, global climate change, wildlife, and other policy issues. We use an econometric model to identify factors driving land-use change in the United States between 1982 and 1997. We...

Between 1928 and 1960 U.S. cotton production witnessed a revolution with average yields roughly tripling while the quality of the crop increased significantly. This paper analyzes the key institutional and scientific developments that facilitated the revolution in biological technologies,...

The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) caused a population shift in the United States in the 1930s. Evaluating the effects of the AAA on the incidence of malaria can therefore offer important lessons regarding the broader consequences of demographic changes. Using a quasi-first difference model...

US crops face higher losses as growing season temperatures rise and destructive disasters become commonplace. The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) easement programs offer an adaptation strategy to improve agricultural resilience. Easements impact agricultural production directly by...

U.S. farms, and with them agricultural lending institutions, are currently experiencing their most severe stress since the 1930s. As international trade in farm products has expanded, so has the sensitivity of farm incomes to fluctuations in domestic and world economic conditions. Thus, while...

Agricultural productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) lags far behind all other regions of the world. A long list of policy experiments has yielded more evidence on what fails than on what works. We analyze a randomized control trial of a rare scaled-up success story: One Acre Fund's small...

To understand the impacts of support programs on global emissions, this paper considers the impacts of domestic subsidies, price distortions at the border, and investments in emission-reducing technologies on global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture. In a step towards a full...

This paper examines interactions between market power and agricultural policy in the U.S. wheat flour milling industry using a non-parametric approach. The analysis focuses on marketing loan and pre-1986 deficiency payment programs; farmers' payments from these programs are dependent on whether...

While many developing-country policymakers see heavy fertilizer subsidies as critical to raising agricultural productivity, most economists see them as distortionary, regressive, environmentally unsound, and argue that they result in politicized, inefficient distribution of fertilizer supply. We...