In 2011 and 2012 severe droughts caused extensive damage in crops throughout the Midwest. These conditions combined with concerns for climate change have led to a growing focus on risk management in agriculture. The increasing emphasis on risk management is reflected in the 2014 Farm Bill, which...

It seems paradoxical that until recently, developed countries have continued subsidizing agriculture even though their agricultural sectors had been declining in relative importance since the middle of the 20th century. What drives support for agricultural protection—the broad array of...

Rural communities have had less Internet service accessibility than their urban counterparts and, as a consequence, have been perceived as disadvantaged. Federal government policy makers have recognized the shortfall in service provision with its perceived disadvantage and have been trying to...

The Federal Crop Insurance program has expanded dramatically over the past two decades---from $140 million in subsidies and 84 million acres covered to nearly $10 billion in subsidies and 260 million acres covered. The effect this has had on farmers' overall risk exposure and profitability is...

The recent priority given to Federal Crop Insurance as an agricultural policy instrument has increased the importance of rate making procedures. Actuarial soundness requires rates that are actuarially fair: the premium is set equal to expected loss. Formation of this expectation depends, in the...

Rate setting methods for crop yield and revenue contracts employ methods that presume that correlations are state invariant. Whether this is true matters. If yield-yield correlations strengthen when crops are subject to widespread stress then diversification opportunities for private insurers...

Climatic conditions and weather play an important role in production agriculture. Using district level panels for 42 years from India and dynamic panel estimation procedure we estimate the impact of weather risk on cropping intensity. Our non-stationary and dynamic panel model results suggest...

The present study formalizes and quantifies the importance of uncertainty, irreversibility, and managerial flexibility for investment in a corn-stover based cellulosic biofuel plant. Using a real options model, we recover prices of gasoline that would trigger entry into the market and compare it...