Two well-known hypotheses from the literature on tournaments are that (1) tournaments can filter out common shocks thereby reducing agents risk exposure; and (2) disincentive effects can arise when a tournament scheme is administered on a group of mixed ability agents. While handicapping and/or...

The form and regulation of contracts is of increasing importance to agricultural economists as farmers and agribusinesses increasing rely on contracts rather than markets to acquire inputs and sell outputs. We focus on the differences between the joint and individual surplus achievable under...

We explore the economic linkage between farms and neighboring communities using primary data collected from a state-wide cross section of 461 dairy farms. Empirical results implicate not only farm characteristics such as size, operator tenure and ethnicity but also the characteristics of the...

This research focuses on developing a biannual net revenue forecasting model for hog producers based on Monte Carlo simulation of the joint distribution of hog, corn and soybean meal price series. The relative forecasting power of historical volatility, implied volatility and GARCH-based...

Using data collected by the U.S. Department of Energy we test how price and environmental marketing and labeling affects respondents' uncertainty about product attributes and about their purchase intentions.

A model of vertical quality differentiation is used to analyze the introduction of continuous and binary labeling in a market for credence goods with process attributes under autarky and free trade. The results indicate that continuous labeling increases welfare under autarky and free trade so...

Post-slaughter quality-based pricing of cattle is increasingly common. This quality, however, is dependent upon unobservable quality characteristics of the feeder cattle used as inputs. Through stochastic simulation we construct incentive compatible quality risk-sharing contracts based upon...

Using experimental economics, we compare the efficiency and welfare effects of tournament and fixed standards contracts. Our findings suggest that economic agents are generally better off under fixed standard contracts unless they face substantial common shocks. Administrators of contracts...

Experimental economics is used to compare tournaments (T) and fixed performance contracts (F) when agents have heterogeneous costs. Our primary findings were: (1) There is no statistical difference in average pooled effort (effort by high ability and low ability subjects are pooled together to...

We study the effect of livestock operations on property values using a hedonic analysis in five Ohio townships. Unlike previous studies, we account for endogenous livestock location variables and spatially correlated errors. Results suggest failure to correct for these problems results in biased...