Income risk and allocation of labour time: an empirical investigation

This study investigates the behaviour of risk averse farm operators in response to farm income and employment variability. Economic theory maintains that greater farm income variability should increase off-farm labour supply. On the other hand greater off-farm employment variability should decrease off-farm labour supply. This effect is confirmed for a sample of farm operators in North Carolina and Kansas using fixed and random effects models. Off-farm employment of farm operators is also found to be significantly influenced by age, efficiency, asset value, and off-farm wage rate.