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...

The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) pays farmers about $2 billion per year to retire cropland under ten- to fifteen-year contracts. Recent research by Wu found that slippage-an unintended stimulus of new plantings-offsets some of CRP's environmental benefits. Wu does not account for the...

The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) pays farmers about $2 billion per year to retire cropland under ten- to fifteen-year contracts. Recent research by <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="R3">Wu (2000)</xref> found that slippage—an unintended stimulus of new plantings—offsets some of CRP's environmental benefits. In a comment on Wu, we...

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...

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...

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...