Do direct payments alter operators' acreage decisions? The authors use an event study with individual-level data in a panel-data setting to examine how an exogenous change in direct payments affects individual farmers' production decisions. They track changes in acreage across time and examine...

Excess returns to producers insured by the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation can arise due to asymmetric information or from the design of the insurance programs themselves. Using unique, unit-level crop insurance contract data for major crops such as corn, soybeans, and wheat in five growing...