By using a stochastic frontier framework, the mutual effect of input use on production risk and inefficiency is investigated. Disentangling this mutual effect proves important for empirical reasons, at least when applied to west Tennessee cotton systems grown after various cover crops. The most...

This paper addresses the challenges facing China in accelerating the pace of rural-urban migration as part of its on-going economic development programme. It explains the push and pull influences on migration and in particular explains why a continuing focus on urbanisation is justified by the...

Topic Relevance Foliar diseases often reduce grain yields of winter wheat in the southern Great Plains, with some individual year yield losses in excess of 10%. At current prices, the gross value of these losses for the region could exceed a quarter of a billion dollars annually. Historically,...

Recent policy and research initiatives aim to make sustainable biofuel crops an important component of the nation’s agricultural and energy sectors, yet few studies have explored potential supply response at the farm level using survey information. This article utilizes contingent valuation...

Satellite-detected luminosity is sometimes used to proxy for economic activity although only recently within the mainstream economics literature (Henderson et al., 2012). If this method works it holds great promise for developing countries with weak statistical systems that face difficulties in...

We exploit variation in the timing of specialty crop insurance supply to different crops and counties in California to assess its effect on output as decomposed into yield and harvested acreage. Four woody-perennial crops and one field-annual crop are used to represent this effect. We find that...

This paper investigates the nonparametric analysis of technology under non-convexity. The analysis extends two approaches now commonly used in efficiency and productivity analysis: Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) where convexity is imposed; and Free Disposal Hull (FDH) models. We argue that, while...

Many studies find that areas more dependent on natural resources grow more slowly – a relationship known as the resource curse. For counties in the south-central U.S., I find little evidence of an emerging curse from greater natural gas production during the 2000s. Increases in population...

Food processing has been widely recognized as a traditional, unskilled-labor intensive production. Yet rapid development in technology drives food processing into more sophisticated and technology-oriented industry. This paper utilizes a fixed effects model to test the hypothesis that the food...