While most Corn Belt farmers consider planting Bt corn to control European corn borer, southwestern Kansas farmers must also take into account an array of other insect pests, including corn rootworm, spider mites, and southwestern corn borer. This research uses a decision analysis framework to...

Planting Bt corn on large areas may lead to European corn borer (ECB) resistance to Bt. Scientists recommend planting a non-Bt corn refuge as part of a resistance management strategy. Different refuge configurations may impact farm profits differently. This paper analyzes the economics of...

Although significant research has been done on managing farmers’ financial risk through federal programs such as federal crop insurance, to date, little attention has been paid to the ability of on-farm management’s potential to mitigate agricultural risk. Federal crop insurance could...

This study compares the effectiveness of two crop insurance plans: an individual farm-yield measurement similar to the current Federal Crop Insurance Corporation multi-peril program and an area-yield measurement method. These methods are examined for reduction in yield and gross farm income...

Systemic weather risk is a major obstacle for the formation of private (nonsubsidized) crop insurance. This paper explores the possibility of spatial diversification of insurance by estimating the joint occurrence of unfavorable weather conditions in different locations. For that purpose copula...

There is growing concern about the impact of climate change on agriculture and the potential need for better risk management instruments that respond to a more risky environment. This is based on the widespread assumption that climate change will increase weather and yield variability and will...

We consider a political economy where government cares about risk-averse farmers’ loss of income and yet incurs political cost if it provides monetary support to farmers. Government evaluates three options: 1) ex-post disaster aid; 2) ex-ante insurance option with perfect information; 3)...

Likely climate change impacts in the U.S. include damages to agricultural production resulting from increased exposure to extreme heat. However, considerable uncertainty remains regarding impacts on the performance of the Federal Crop Insurance Program. Here we utilized a large panel of corn...