To anticipate the likely effects of recent trade agreements with Mexico on the environment and food safety, this paper examines changes in agricultural chemical use. Econometric estimation and simulation suggest that the combined effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA),...

To guide formulation of an aggregate model of U.S. agricultural production, this paper reports nonparametric test results for both behavioral objective and aggregation level. Nonparametric tests are implemented as heuristics to determine empirical support for simplified analytical structures....

Expected effects from partially lifting tariff barriers on the Mexican agricultural sector are investigated using a restricted profit function (RPF) approach. Short-run and intermediate-run effects of the implementation of GATT minimum tariff provisions on Mexican agricultural trade are...

Opportunistic behavior in crop insurance can arise due to asymmetric information between producers and the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation. Producers who insure fields using transitional yields based on county average yields or who select options such as buy-up coverage or revenue insurance...

We analyze growth and diversification of U.S. dairy farms by examining changes in ten size cohorts and new entrants through three successive censuses. We reject Gibrat’s law and the mean reversion hypothesis of growth. Growth rates appear bimodal where the smallest and largest farm cohorts...

The impact of an ad valorem pesticide tax on cropping patterns and pesticide use was examined in the South Central Texas Crop Reporting District. Output supply equations were econometrically estimated and used in the simulation. A 25 percent tax on pesticide was estimated to have major impacts...

In a seeming paradox, bluegrass seed production in the State of Washington increased following imposition of a statewide ban on stubble burning in 1996. Despite forecasts that alternative production practices would increase the cost of producing bluegrass seed so much that the industry would be...

Some implications of theory are easily maintained in econometric estimation, but computational costs of maintaining curvature properties (sufficient for existence of an optimal solution) have often proved prohibitive. They also have been violated frequently by unrestricted econometric estimates....