Using farm-level data from the 1987, 1992, and 1997 Census of Agriculture, this study estimates what effect agricultural payments have had on the likelihood of farm business survival and on farm size. The unique panel data set permits conditioning current farm size on past farm size, which...

Previous research has found that on-farm income variability helps determine off-farm labor supply. However, unobserved heterogeneity of farms or regions may have biased earlier results. In this study, we use an exogenous increase in Federal crop insurance subsidies as a natural experiment to...

Livestock waste pollutes multiple environmental media along multiple dimensions. This study explores the economic and environmental implications of single-medium and coordinated multi-media policies for reducing manure-related externalities, with particular attention paid to tradeoffs that occur...

A market price for carbon emission reductions would allow livestock producers with methane digesters to earn additional revenue from trapping and burning methane from manure. Greater income from reducing methane emissions could substantially increase the number of livestock producers who would...

Anaerobic digesters that capture and burn manure methane can provide a renewable source of energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Paying producers for these emission reductions—either directly or through a carbon offset market—could substantially increase digester adoption....

Production and marketing contracts govern 36 percent of the value of U.S. agricultural production, up from 12 percent in 1969. Contracts are now the primary method of handling sales of many livestock commodities, including milk, hogs, and broilers, and of major crops such as sugar beets, fruit,...

This study uses matching to evaluate the effect of decoupled payments on the acreage response of Iowa farmers who were in business in 1997 and 2002. Using farm-level panel data from the U.S. Agricultural Census, we examine whether farmers receiving high levels of 1997 agricultural payments per...

We use a large increase in Federal crop insurance subsidies as a natural experiment to identify the impact of risk on acreage and diversification decisions. Subsidy increases induced greater crop insurance coverage, which reduced farmers' financial risks. Did this change in the risk environment...

Growing farm size has generally been explained by technological advances that have allowed farmers to substitute capital for labor. Another possible factor in explaining recent farm size is the demographic shift: the age distribution of farmers has shifted to the right and older farmers...