Three recent reports have estimated the market impacts of domestic offset programs, including afforestation, contained in the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES). The magnitude of these estimated impacts motivates this study. We show that with carbon prices as low as $30 per metric...

On average, U.S. farmers choose to apply nitrogen fertilizer at a rate that exceeds the ex post agronomically optimal rate. The technology underlying the yield response to nitrogen rewards producers who over apply in years when rainfall is excessive. The overapplication of nutrients has negative...

Estimation risk occurs in the almost universal situation where parameters of importance for decision making are not known with certainty. Bayes' criterion is the procedure consistent with expected utility maximization in the presence of estimation risk. Three interrelated problems in the...

A model of the corn, soybean, and wheat markets calculates welfare effects of the U.S. ethanol tax credit. Crop yields are uncertain, and demand consists of feed, food, energy, and exports. Modeling uncertainty in crop yields allows the valuation of deficiency payments as options. Disaggregating...

The study presents a conceptual model of an aggregator who selectively pays farmers for altering farming practices in exchange for carbon offsets that the change in practices generates. Under the assumption that the offsets are stochastic and that the aggregator maximizes the sum of the offsets...

In a marketing environment, the demand conditions, the costs of shipping and storing grain varieties, the interest rate on farm loans, and the distribution of cropland in the area are important determinants of growers' planting decisions. In this article, I focus on a market for two...

The geographic concentration of production of main field crops in several growing regions is a distinctive feature of U.S. agriculture. Among many possible reasons for spatial concentration, I study here the effects of the distribution of end users and terminal markets on acreage allocation. The...

This paper analyzes economic issues that arise in devising a credible and enforceable system of identity preservation and labeling for genetically modified (GM) and non-GM products. The model represents three stages in the supply chain: farm production, marketing handlers, and final users. The...

Marketing assistance loan (MAL) and loan deficiency payment (LDP) programs differ in their treatment of basis. This paper analyzes marketing decisions under these programs when producers are differentiated by location with respect to the terminal market. The developed model may help explain the...