Why is agricultural productivity so low in poor countries relative to the rest of the world? Is it due to geography or constrained economic choices? We assess the quantitative role of geography and land quality for agricultural productivity differences across countries using high-resolution...

Using detailed household-level data from Malawi on physical quantities of outputs and inputs in agricultural production, we measure total factor productivity (TFP) for farms controlling for land quality, rain, and other transitory shocks. We find that operated land size and capital are...

Biofuel production is being promoted through various policies such as mandates and tax credits. This paper uses a dynamic, spatial, multi-market equilibrium model, Biofuel and Environmental Policy Analysis Model (BEPAM), to estimate the effects of these policies on cropland allocation, food and...

This paper draws on a new state-level panel dataset and a model of domestic Dutch disease to examine the short-run and long-run effects of oil & natural gas, coal, and agricultural land endowments on state economies during 1936-2015. Using a flexible shift-share estimation approach, where the...

Does credit availability exacerbate asset price inflation? Are there long run consequences? During the farm land price boom and bust before the Great Depression, we find that credit availability directly inflated land prices. Credit also amplified the relationship between positive fundamentals...

The 1930's American Dust Bowl was an environmental catastrophe that greatly eroded sections of the Plains. Analyzing new data collected to identify low-, medium-, and high-erosion counties, the Dust Bowl is estimated to have immediately, substantially, and persistently reduced agricultural land...

Renewable fuel standards, low carbon fuel standards, and ethanol subsidies are popular policies to incentivize ethanol production and reduce emissions from transportation. Compared to carbon trading, these policies lead to large shifts in agricultural activity and unexpected social costs. We...

Land and capital serve not only as factors of production but as assets which households use as stores of value. Standard trade models typically recognize only the first role. In its role as an asset land reduces the amount of national savings available for capital investment. Foreign investment...

Dynamic discrete choice (DDC) models are not identified nonparametrically, but the non-identification of models does not necessarily imply the non-identification of counterfactuals. We derive novel results for the identification of counterfactuals in DDC models, such as non- additive changes in...

We estimate the impact of the tariffs that U.S. export crops face on farmland rental rates. The estimation of the impact of the localized measure on the rents faces two aggregation problems that lead to identification challenges: a) aggregating tariffs across trading partners to obtain...