According to New Institutional Economics, transactional activities, governance structures, institutions and beliefs and values are related hierarchally. Williamson (2000) formalizes this framework to show that each governing level must be aligned with the adjacent level for transaction costs to...

This paper distinguishes between two types of ethical Problems. A Type I ethical problem is one in which there is no consensus as to what is ethical. A Type II ethical problem is one in which there is a consensus as to what is ethical, but incentives exist for individuals to behave unethically....

The industrialization of agriculture not only alters the ways in which agricultural production occurs, but also impacts the decisions farmers make in important ways. First, constraints created by the economic environment of farming limit what options a farmer has available to him. Second,...

There are two competing approaches sustainability in agriculture. One stresses a strict economic approach in which market forces should be allowed to guide the activities of agricultural producers. The other advocates the need to balance economic with environmental and social objectives, even to...

In this paper I consider the question of whether ethical decision-making affects a person’s happiness. Using cross-country data from the World Values Survey, I find that people who agree that it is never justifiable to engage in ethically-questionable behaviors report that they are more...

In this paper we consider the question of whether middle-scale farmers, which we define as producers generating between $100,000 and $250,000 in sales annually, are better agricultural stewards than small and large-scale producers. Our study is motivated by the argument of some commentators that...