We examine the impact of temperature during the growing season on household diets in the subsequent year in rural India, a setting with a high prevalence of small family farms. High growing season temperatures reduce crop yields, which would presumably reduce incomes and home-grown food for...

Crop farmers have few short-run options for reducing downside production risk from changes in drought frequency and intensity due to ongoing climate change. However, one recently available option is drought-tolerant (DT) varieties. We determine how recent drought exposure, drought risk, and...

Besides a variety of production and environmental benefits, cover cropping has been advocated as a mean to increase resilience to drought. We explored factors influencing farmer's adoption of cover crops and examined the effects of cover crops on soybean yield and its risk using USDA's 2018 ARMS...

The expansion in farm size is an important contributor to agricultural productivity in developed countries, but the reallocation process is hindered in less developed economies. How do distortions to factor reallocation affect farm dynamics and agricultural productivity? We develop a model of...

While cash transfers consistently show large effects on immediate outcomes like consumption, limited access to markets may mute their impact on productive investment. In an experiment in Malawi, we cross-cut cash transfers with an "input fair," designed to reduce transport costs to access...

Many countries subsidize agricultural inputs but require farmers to travel to retailers to access inputs, just as for normal purchases. What effect do travel costs have on subsidy take-up and input usage, particularly for remote farmers? We analyze Malawi's Farm Input Subsidy Program (FISP), and...

We link census records for millions of farm children to identify owner-operators of the family farm in adulthood, providing the first population-level evidence on intergenerational farm transfers. Using our panel of U.S. census data from 1900 to 1940, our analysis supports the primogeniture...

Climate change increases weather variability, exacerbating agricultural risk in poor countries. Risk-averse farmers are unable to tailor their planting decisions to the coming season, and underinvest in profitable inputs. Accurate, long-range forecasts enable farmers to optimize for the season...

We develop and test a theory of firm size and scope centered on standardization: the extent to which a firm's products are similar. Heterogeneous firms choose the number, quality and standardization of their products. Standardizing makes expanding scope less costly, which then increases the...

We present new facts about the largest American companies over the past century. In manufacturing, top firms in the 1910s, 1950s, and 2010s predominantly date back to around 1900. Even as this special generation persists, turnover among top firms has been substantial. In contrast, in retail and...