This analysis utilizes farm-level data to evaluate the extent to which U.S. farm program benefits, particularly direct payments, bring about distortions in production. The issue is important in WTO negotiations and in the debate over the distortionary effects of decoupled ("green-box") payments....

This analysis considers two aspects of yield performance using a large sample of data collected from individual U.S. farms. In the first, observable farm and operator characteristics are related to relative yield perofmance. In general, larger, more diversified farms have higher relative yields....

If farmers are risk averse, greater farm income variability should increase off-farm labor supply. This effect is confirmed for a sample of Kansas farmers. Off-farm employment of farmers and their spouses is also found to be significantly influenced by farm experience, off-farm work experience,...

We evaluate participation in the Conservation Reserve Program and its relationship with time allocation and farm structure. We do not find a statistically significant link between enrollment of acreage in the CRP program and off-farm work effort. We do find important linkages among time...