Mechanization and technological advancement has been the cornerstone of agricultural prosperity in the United States and has served as a flagship to the rest of the world. Farm machinery and equipment sales for the three largest manufactures in 2011 reached nearly $60 billion and higher sales...

We consider a political economy where government cares about risk-averse farmers’ loss of income and yet incurs political cost if it provides monetary support to farmers. Government evaluates three options: 1) ex-post disaster aid; 2) ex-ante insurance option with perfect information; 3)...

The first 50 years of the Federal crop insurance program were marked by low enrollment levels. To boost program participation, legislation in 1994 and 2000 increased premium subsidies. In the years since, the jump in enrollment coupled with high commodity prices caused significant increases in...

Economic research on decadal climate variability (DCV) is scarce. DCV refers to ocean-related climate influences of duration from seven to twenty years. The DCV phenomena and their phases are associated with variations in crop and water yields. This paper examines the value of DCV information in...

County-level yield data are used in applied research and crop insurance policy in place of farmlevel yield data, which are likely sparse, not broadly representative, and subject to selection bias. We exploit the fact that county-level yields are the aggregate of farm-level yields to derive...