Empirical studies point to negative crop yield skewness, but the literature provides few clear insights as to why. This paper formalizes three points on the matter. Statistical laws on aggregates do not imply a normal distribution. Whenever the weather-conditioned mean yield has diminishing...

Antibiotics are used in fruit production to control fire blight, a bacterial disease of fruit trees that causes yield losses and eventually tree death. Fearing the development of widespread antibiotic resistance, scientists and public health officials are becoming increasingly concerned about...

Suppose a farmer had to apply a herbicide pre-emergence or not at all. The advent of a herbicide-tolerance trait innovation then provides the option to wait for more information before making a state-contingent post-emergence application. This option to wait can increase or decrease average...

Economic assessments of pesticide regulations typically focus on producer impacts and generally ignore possible changes in product demand. These changes may be nonnegligible if real and/or perceived product attributes change. We measure consumersÂ’' willingness to pay (WTP) for the...

Feeder animal prices depend on fed animal prices, the biological growth technology, and feed costs. In addition, daily maintenance costs can be avoided through accelerated feeding. These observations allow us to model optimal feeding under equilibrium feeder animal pricing. Our model enables a...

The use of plausible stochastic price processes in price risk analysis has allowed advances not seen in crop yield risk analysis. This study develops a stochastic process for yield modeling and risk management. The Pólya urn process is an internally consistent dynamic representation of yield...