Using farm-level data from the 1987, 1992, and 1997 Census of Agriculture, this study estimates what effect agricultural payments have had on the likelihood of farm business survival and on farm size. The unique panel data set permits conditioning current farm size on past farm size, which...

Conventional wisdom appears to support the thesis that declines in USDA’s farmer’s share-of-the-retail-dollar (FS) statistics are indicators of low returns to agricultural production. We estimate changes in cattle and hog FS statistics and their relationship with producer surplus...

The forecasting content of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Commitments of Traders (COT) report is investigated. Bivariate Granger causality tests show very little evidence that traders’ positions are useful in forecasting (leading) returns in 10 agricultural futures...

This survey paper explores the literature on decoupling of farm programs that has emerged in the last 10 years. The paper identifies and assesses the various channels of potential coupling of decoupled farm payments and provides a taxonomy of coupling mechanisms found in theoretical and...

Alternative techniques for representing dependencies among variables in multivariate simulation are discussed and compared in the context of rating a whole-farm insurance product. A procedure by lman and Conover (IC) that is common in actuarial applications is compared to a new technique...

Recently developed ethanol futures contracts now allow direct-hedging by ethanol producers. This study examines the effectiveness of one-through eight-week hedges between 2005 and 2008. Our findings show (a) ethanol inventory hedging effectiveness is significant for two-week and longer hedges,...

Contractual arrangements for joint machinery ownership between independent agribusinesses are explored. A two-farm economic simulation model of locations in Texas, Colorado, and Montana is developed to provide insight associated with sharing combines. Important variables include combine size...

This study examines factors affecting tax-deferred retirement savings among farm households. A double-hurdle model is estimated using 2003 Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS) farm-level national data. Results indicate that demographic factors, total household income, off-farm work,...

A method is suggested for modeling uncertainty when there is a lack of information concerning the effect of forest management decisions on tree growth. Dynamic programming is used to investigate the optimality of alternative management strategies. The model is illustrated with an empirical...

The effects of a world oil price shock on U.S. agriculture are analyzed in an economywide environment. We use an input-output model to analyze the direct and indirect cost linkages between energy and other sectors of the economy. Then, to allow sectoral output adjustment and the effects on the...