The financial health of the agricultural economy has been excellent for the past few years, especially with farm income reaching record levels. However, the U.S. economy has experienced a recession and a credit crisis. Although the U.S. farm sector has been mostly shielded from the economic...

This study examines the determinants of income diversification of farm households in the United States. Farm households allocate their time between farm and off-farm activities to help stabilized household income (consumption). What characterizes those households who engage in off-farm...

Most of the empirical literature in this area tends to analyze labor allocation decisions of economic agents using cross-sectional data. But such methods implicitly assume that model parameters are stable (constant) across firms and over time. The use of cross-sectional methods is therefore...

In the past three decades, farm families have relied on government payments and off-farm income to reduce income risk and increase total household income. Studies have shown that, as income effect dominates, government payments tend to reduce off-farm labor of farm operators and spouses. But...