T.W. Schultz (1975) proposed that returns to human capital were highest in economicenvironments where technology, price or production shocks were common and managerial skillsto adapt resource allocations to those shocks were most in need. We hypothesize that variationin returns to human capital...

Sometimes authorities are unable to identify rapidly the origin of a tainted product.In such cases, recalls or warnings often apply to all suppliers, even to those thathad not contributed to the contamination. Traceability enables more targetedrecalls by identifying more specically the product's...

The objective of this paper is to examine whether noncognitive skills explain differences in employment status and hourly wages even after controlling for age, experience, schooling and cognitive skills. Of particular interest is to examine the relative magnitudes of the impacts of the cognitive...

The purpose of the research paper is to characterize biological diversity related to millets in the semi-arid regions of India at various spatial scales of analysis (e.g., farm household versus community levels) and place that evidence in a broader seed systems (includes both formal and...

Child malnutrition is pervasive in almost every developing country. Economic growth can lead to better child nutrition, but the size and nature of this effect can vary widely across countries. This first part of this paper examines the impact of increased household income on children's...

Rural communities compete with each other for firms, but their residents often commute large distances to work. Consequently, rural communities can benefit from economic growth occurring as much as 50 miles away. Data on county population growth shows that counties benefit from growth one or two...

This session focuses on farm level labor supply and demand response using various methods of analysis. Off-Farm Work Participation, Off-Farm Labor Supply and On-Farm Labor Demand of U.S. Farm Operators Wallace Huffman, Iowa State University; Hisham El-Osta, USDA/ERS/RED. Estimating the Off-Farm...

Agribusiness firms are increasingly hiring non-agriculture college graduates. Unclear is whether the demand for non-agriculture graduates is predicated on an undersupply of agriculture graduates or if non-agriculture graduates have skills that are not being developed in traditional agriculture...