New technologies must be developed in sub-Saharan Africa which are sustainable and economically viable. This paper discusses a methodology for measuring the agricultural sustainability and economic viability of tropical farming systems for new technology evaluation. The approach is based on the...

Accurate assessment of farmers' credit constraint condition is important in order to understand the circumstances under which credit would have its greatest impact. In this study a switching regression model was used to determine the impact of credit on smallholder dairy farms in the East...

This paper demonstrates that, in situations in which a cumulative externality exists, the basic nature and extent of resource misallocation may be substantially less than we imagine. This conclusion stems from deriving consistent conjectures in a unified framework in which congestion is present....

The estimation of allocative and technical inefficiency has grown to an enormous body of literature, both theoretical and empirical. Ideally, one would estimate time-varying firm and input-specific parameters describing allocative inefficiency in order to minimize aggregation bias. However, this...

Econometric models to estimate allocative and technical inefficiency include stochastic shadow distance frontiers, shadow cost frontiers, and shadow profit frontiers. In these models, the cost savings from eliminating both sources of inefficiency is often reported in total and then decomposed...

We study the difference in the volatility dynamics of CBOT corn, soybeans, and oatsfutures prices across different delivery horizons via the smoothed Bayesian estimatorof Karali, Dorfman, and Thurman (2010). We show that the futures price volatilitiesin these markets are affected by the...

Econometric models to estimate allocative and technical inefficiency include stochastic shadow distance frontiers, shadow cost frontiers, and shadow profit frontiers. In these models, the cost savings from eliminating both sources of inefficiency is often reported in total and then decomposed...

Managers of businesses that involve agricultural commodities need price forecasts in order to manage the risk in either the sale or purchase of agricultural commodities. Sometimes the most important forecasting component is simply whether the price will move up or down. Such binary forecasts are...

We examine the role that habit plays when producers determine their hedge ratio. Data were collected from U.S. cotton growers in which they indicated their hedging position in 2001 and 2002 as well as their perceived profitability, land ownership structure, and income. To account for...

We study the difference in the volatility dynamics of CBOT corn, soybeans, and oats futures prices across different delivery horizons via the smoothed Bayesian estimator of Karali, Dorfman, and Thurman (2010). We show that the futures price volatilities in these markets are affected by the...