An analysis of nationally representative panel data from rural Mexico, with observations in years 2002, 2007, and 2010, suggests that the same shift out of farm work that characterized U.S. labor history is well underway in Mexico. Meanwhile, the demand for agricultural labor in Mexico is...

This article addresses the current status of farm buyer market power. We argue that buyer power concerns are often overstated because traditional models of buyer power are incapable of depicting the economic interactions that are fundamental to modern agricultural markets, where exchange is...

Investments into commodity-linked products have grown considerably in recent years. Unlike investments in equities, commodity futures markets produce no earnings; the source of returns is thus unclear. This paper examines returns to static long-only U.S. commodity futures investments over five...

The federal government has issued Dietary Guidelines for Americans seven times since 1980, but the 2005 whole-grain recommendation was the first instance in which consumers were given a specific dietary target, that whole grains should be at least half of their grain consumption. Anecdotal...

Is it necessary for the U.S. Cooperative Extension Service system to maintain an extension office in every county? Using stated choice data from a conjoint analysis experimental design, we examine the tradeoffs that farmers are willing to make when choosing between local offices based on...

Emergency animal vaccination has been used in recent international foot-and-mouth disease outbreaks, but current USDA policy favors emergency vaccination use only if standard culling practices alone may not be enough to control spread of the disease. Using simulation modeling, we examine...

The Indian government imposed a ceiling on the price of Bt cotton seeds in 2006. This paper aims to analyze the effect of such price intervention on the diffusion of Bt cotton in India. Using three variations of dynamic logistic models, diffusion paths in nine major cotton growing states from...

In the past thirty years, China has made great strides in terms of boosting food production while simultaneously reducing the number of its rural poor. This success was largely accomplished through agricultural policy and trade reform, food market liberalization, and public investment in...

Employment transitions have been shown to be an important predictor of the decision to either enter or exit the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). However, little is known about how the associations between losing a job and entering the program, or between obtaining a job and...