An over-parameterized statistical yield-switching-fraud model is developed. Over-parameterized procedures are reviewed. Five percent of 206,952 producers (thirteen percent in one state) have suspicious yield patterns, elect higher coverage, and increase total multiple-unit indemnifications up to...

We analyze the effects of crop insurance and the Marketing Loan Program on optimal nitrogen use and acreage allocation for a case cotton-sorghum farm in Texas. A mathematical programming model is used to simulate the optimal nitrogen fertilizer rate, crop acreage allocation, coverage level, and...

One of the key factors affecting the crop output is the rainfall volume. For this reason, insurance plans based on the rainfall deviation of the mean have been advanced. This paper provides prospects of rainfall-indexed insurance in Romania considering the tradeoff between moral hazard and basis...

Concerns about contamination of the food supply and the financial losses that would result have limited the promise of certain genetically engineered plants. This article addresses the situation by constructing an insurance pricing model to protect against those losses. The model first estimates...

Using 11 years of experimental crop yields by cropping systems and fertilizer level, a MOTAD frontier was developed. This analysis allowed yield, cost, and stability interactions arising from crop sequences to be implicitly included. Target-MOTAD, Safety-First, and undominated stochastic...

This paper analyzes the potential trade offs and complementarities that exist between intra-year strategies employing annual price and yield risk contracts and inter-year self-insurance strategies involving intertemporal consumption substitution and borrowing, and examines whether standard crop...

We hypothesize that imperfect quality measurement in contracts for fresh fruits and vegetables results in a moral-hazard problem, and that the final price of the produce provides additional information regarding quality. As a consequence, growers are not shielded from all price risk. This...

We investigate the objectives of agricultural bank managers and their impacts on bank efficiency. If managers are non-neutral toward risk, then banks may appear inefficient when they are not. We find non-neutrality toward risk and efficiency gains due to firm size, loan shares, asset shares, and...

Developing new risk management products for all agricultural commodities has increased in importance given recent legislation. Vegetables have been difficult to insure. This paper investigates the use of index contracts for growers belonging to a Kentucky vegetable cooperative. Index contracts...