Argentina is the world's second largest exporter of grains, oilseeds, and oilseed products. Traditionally, Argentina's economic policies have taxed the agricultural sector, which produces goods for exports, to subsidize the mostly insulated industrial sector. Despite this unfavorable treatment,...

This study of the firm under uncertainty relaxes the standard single production cycle assumption. Under realistic circumstances, a forward-looking risk-averse firm will produce more than a risk-neutral firm, and an increase in the mean-preserving price spread will increase the risk-averse firm's...

In recent years, the organic sector has grown steadily and significantly. However, little economic research has been performed on risk management in organic agriculture, likely because of the lack of available data. This lack of data may also be why the creation of the current crop insurance...

This paper examines the incentive of atomistic agricultural producers within a specific geographical region to differentiate and collectively market products. We develop a model that allows us to analyze the market and welfare effects of the main types of real-world producer organizations, using...

The paper motivates and proposes a closed-form option-pricing model for markets such as grains or livestock where the price level can be expected to revert to expected production costs. The model suggests that traditional option pricing models will overprice long-term options on these markets.

The welfare implications of intellectual property protection (IPP) for private sector agricultural research are analyzed, focusing on the realistic cases in which countries provide different IPP levels, technology spills over across countries, and the public sector is involved in research. A...

A theory of short-run competitive firm behavior allowing for nonmyopic risk aversion, randomness in input and output prices, as well as forward trading and storage of final good and material input is introduced. If the firm is a forward looking risk-averse expected-utility maximizer, separation...

Decision making under unknown true parameters (estimation risk) is discussed along with Bayes and parameter certainty equivalent (PCE) criteria. Bayes criterion provides the solution for optimal decision making under estimation risk in a manner consistent with expected utility maximization. The...

Estimation risk occurs in the almost universal situation where parameters of importance for decision making are not known with certainty. Bayes' criterion is the procedure consistent with expected utility maximization in the presence of estimation risk. Three interrelated problems in the...

Demand in the marketplace for foods with "natural" attributes, such as organic produce, continues to grow. Similarly, interest has developed in creating a technology that allows "physical" rather than chemical refinement of soybean oil to create a "natural" soy oil product. The physical...