This article measures the impact of contracting on partial and total factor productivity and the production technology of U.S. hog operations. A sample selection model accounts for the fact that unobservable variables may be correlated with both the operators' decision to contract and farm...

This article measures the impact of contracting on partial and total factor productivity and the production technology of U.S. hog operations. A sample selection model accounts for the fact that unobservable variables may be correlated with both the operators' decision to contract and farm...

United States environmental regulations often vary by operation size, with larger facilities facing more regulatory stringency. However, such legislative structure may have unintended consequences if operations downsize, slow their growth, or enter at a smaller scale in order to avoid...

We develop and estimate a model of supply response when transactions costs create a situation where some producers buy, others sell, and others do not participate in markets. We present two rationales for why producing households may have different relationships to the market: proportional and...

Over the last twenty years, both crop production and agricultural payments have shifted toward larger operations. This study examines whether payments from federal farm programs contributed to increased concentration of cropland and farmland. Using zip code-level data constructed from the...

We develop a household model wherein farmers allocate labor to maximize utility from leisure, consumption, and nonpecuniary benefits from farming. The model shows that farmers with decreasing marginal utility of income respond to higher decoupled payments by decreasing off-farm labor and...

Using farm-level panel data from recent U.S. Agricultural Censuses, this study examines how direct government payments influence the survival of farm businesses, paying particular attention to the differential effect of payments across farm-size categories. A Cox proportional hazards model is...

How much decoupled payments, such as direct payments in the U.S., affect agricultural production remains an open empirical question with implications for policy. Using data from multiple years of the Census of Agriculture, we exploit a provision of the 2002 Farm Act that departed from previous...

Using farm-level panel data from recent U.S. Agricultural Censuses, this study examines how direct government payments influence the survival of farm businesses, paying particular attention to the differential effect of payments across farm-size categories. A Cox proportional hazards model is...