This study uses a large increase in US Federal crop insurance subsidies as a natural experiment to identify the importance of risk for farm operator labour supply. Subsidy increases induced greater crop insurance coverage, which in turn reduced farmers' financial risks. Crop insurance...

We use data from the administrative les of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Risk Management Agency to examine how the distribution of crop yields changed as individual farmers shifted into and out of the federal crop insurance program. The large panel facilitates use of fixed effects that...

Farmers dramatically increased their use of federal crop insurance in the 2000s. From 2000 to 2013, premium subsidies increased seven-fold and acres enrolled increased by 77 percent. Although designed for non-environmental goals, subsidized insurance may affect the use of land, fertilizer, and...