In the United States the 1996 agricultural policy reform ushered in market-oriented farm policies and also gave farmers a seven-year lump-sum payment that was not tied to production. Some scholars argue that farm program payments have changed the distribution of income among farm households. Our...

The purpose of the paper is to understand the soci-economic factors affecting the distribution of community reinvestment act loans across four income groups using county level information from 1996-2004 for the delta region. The specific objectives of the paper1) Estimate an seemingly unrelated...

This study was conducted to analyze the direct and indirect effects of ethanol policy on livestock production. Results of the theoretical model indicate the possibility of ethanol policy indirectly affecting livestock production. Econometric results show a possibility of ethanol policy...

Replaced with revised version of paper 06/08/2010.

The returns to scale for nineteen South Asian countries are estimatedusing window and cumulative rolling stochastic frontier regression analysis.The stochastic frontier analysis accounts for technical inefficiency of Hicksnon-neutral technology production function in the estimation of the...

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to use the DuPont expansion to examine those factors underlying differences in (rates of) return on different crop portfolios over space (ten regions) and time (1960-2004). The paper also estimates the impact of government payments on farmland values...

Crop insurance and hedging are two risk management strategies used by farmers to manage risk. Using a discrete choice model and farm-level data, this study investigates the factors influencing farmers' use of hedging and crop insurance as risk management strategies. In the case of crop...

As part of 1996 legislation, the U.S. began paying farmers production flexibility contract payments designed to be somewhat decoupled from current production decisions. In the labor-leisure model, decoupled payments would be expected to only have a wealth effect, but coupled payments would be...

Participation in government programs has a mild impact on the economic well-being of U.S. farm households. Major factors that determine farm household prosperity are the primary operator's education level and ethnicity, education level of the spouse, and other characteristics such as forward...

The United States of America is an indebted nation in the early years of the new millennium, changing from $469 billion in 1973 to $14 trillion in 2010, as spending is justified on the basis that it promotes GDP growth which in turn increases societal benefits. Despite the benefits of debt, its...