Crop yield and revenue insurance products with coverage based on actual production history(APH) yields dominate the U.S. Federal Crop Insurance Program. The APH yield, which plays acritical role in determining the coverage offered to producers, is based on a small sample ofhistorical yields for...

This research develops a mixture regression model that is shown to have advantages over theclassical Tobit model in model fit and predictive tests when data are generated from a two stepprocess. Additionally, the model is shown to allow for flexibility in distributional assumptions while nesting...

Cattle feeding enterprises operate amid variability originating in prices and production. Thisresearch explicitly models yield risks related to cattle feeding by relating the mean and varianceof yield performance factors to observable conditioning variables. The results demonstratethat pen...

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the risks faced by fed cattle producers. With the development of livestock insurance programs as part of the Agricultural Risk Protection Act of 2000, a thorough investigation into the probabilistic measures of individual risk factors is needed. This...

This paper summarizes the results of a survey of a stratified, random sample of 630 hog operations in Indiana and Nebraska. The survey was conducted in March and April, 2000 with support of a research grant to contribute to the development of a knowledge base to guide the design and...

Factors affecting the adoption of crop insurance, forward contracting, and spreading sales areanalyzed using multivariate and multinomial probit approaches that account for simultaneousadoption and/or correlation among the three risk management adoption decisions. Our empiricalresults suggest...

Changes in the risk environment and tools available to manage risk have resulted in an increased need for risk management skills among farmers and ranchers. In response the USDA initiated a risk management education competitive grants program in the spring of 1998. This is the first report from...