This paper examines the Federal quarantine established by USDA in 1996 to prevent the spread of Karnal bunt, a minor disease of wheat. During the early stages of its regulatory strategy, USDA made extensive use of probabilistic risk assessments to determine the efficacy of various quarantine...

We show how to solve the stochastic spatial-temporal price equilibrium model numerically using the Chebychev collocation method. We then use the model to analyze the joint and interactive stabilizing effects of competitive storage and trade.

This research investigates the strategic behavior of private crop insurance firms reinsured by the USDA through the Standard Reinsurance Agreement. This arrangement allows the private firm to strategically allocate individual policies into different risk-sharing arrangements. Thus, firm earnings...

The paper presents an economic analysis of the Standard Reinsurance Agreement (SRA), the contract that governs the relationship between the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation and the private insurance companies that deliver crop insurance products to farmers. The paper outlines provisions of the...

Without affordable reinsurance, private crop insurance markets are doomed to fail because systemic weather effects induce high correlation among farm-level yields, defeating insurer efforts to pool risks across farms. Using an empirical model of the U.S. crop insurance market, we find that U.S....