We develop a real option model of the irreversible native grassland conversion decision. Upon plowing, native grassland can be followed by either a permanent cropping system or a system in which land is put under cropping (respectively, grazing) whenever crop prices are high (respectively, low)....

This study seeks to provide a rigorous theoretical and empirical understanding of the effects of exogenous geographic and climate-related factors on the first three moments of crop yields. We hypothesize that exogenous geographic and climate factors that have beneficial effects on crop...

We investigate effects of corn-based ethanol plants on local land uses using county-level panel data for Iowa for 1997 through 2009 and an Arellano-Bond difference-generalized method-of-moments estimator. Our results show that ethanol plants have statistically significant effects on the...

We develop a real option model of the irreversible native grassland conversion decision. Upon plowing, native grassland can be followed by either a permanent cropping system or a system in which land is put under cropping (respectively, grazing) whenever crop prices are high (respectively, low)....

We develop a conceptual model to study the impact of mandate policies on stimulating investment in cellulosic biofuel refineries. In a two-period framework, we compare the first-period investment level (FIL) under three scenarios: laissez-faire, non-waivable mandate (NWM) policy, and waivable...