We develop a real option model of the irreversible native grassland conversion decision. Upon plowing, native grassland can be followed by either a permanent cropping system or a system in which land is put under cropping (respectively, grazing) whenever crop prices are high (respectively, low)....

Strong demand for agricultural commodities, high crop prices and pressure to reduce government budget deficits heighten the need for land retirement programs to be designed to maximize environmental benefits for any given budget outlay. The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) is the largest land...

When the threat of entry by followers includes cooperative firms, the maximum fixed cost that a profit maximizing leader can endure is endogenous. The aggressive strategy required for entry deterrence curtails the leader's expected profit and can discourage its initial entry. In such...

The U.S. crop insurance market has several features that set it apart from other insurance markets. These include:(a) explicit government subsidies with an average premium subsidy rate of about 60% in recent years; and (b) the legislative requirement that premium rates be set at actuarially fair...

There have long been concerns that federal crop insurance subsidies may significantly impact land use decisions. It is well known that classical insurance market information asymmetry problems can lead to a social excess of risky land entering crop production. We provide a conceptual model to...

This paper develops a spatial equilibrium model suitable to analyze the economic impacts of measures (such as isolation distances and buffer zones) meant to ensure coexistence between GM and non-GM crops. We show that policies that put the cost of such measures exclusively on GM producers lead...

Rate setting procedures for United States crop yield and revenue insurance contracts employ methods that presume correlations to be state invariant. Whether this is true matters. If yield-yield correlations strengthen when crops are subject to widespread stress, then diversification...

Many decisions in agriculture are made over combinations of inputs and/or practices that may be complements. The presence of complementarity among producer decisions can have deep implications for market outcomes and for the effectiveness of policies intended to influence them. Identifying...

The notion of indirect separability is exploited to derive a new multistage demand system. The model allows a consistent parameterization of demand relations at various budgeting stages and it fulfills the requirement of flexibility while satisfying separability globally. Two propositions are...

This paper considers the conversion of import quotas into tariffs, as may arise in the current round of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) negotiations, when the internal market of the country imposing the quota is not perfectly competitive. This case is illustrated by the chicken...