What did they do with the money? An analysis of tobacco farmers' expenditure choices

There are many expenditure options available to farmers who received a tobacco buyout check. We used a multinomial logit model to analyze how farmer, business, and household characteristics influenced the choice of expenditure option. We found statistically significant differences in the way farmers chose to spend their buyout money based on age, education, gender, and internet use. We also found that farmer optimism had a statistically significant impact on expenditure choice. Overall, our analysis suggests that it is important for policymakers to take into account this heterogeneity instead of treating all farmers as a homogeneous group of representative agents.