Rapidly declining gasoline prices from their record high during the summer of 2008, while ethanol prices remained relatively high, made it difficult for many bio-fuel policy modelers to fully explain the impacts of U.S. bio-fuel policies on fuel prices. Using profit-maximization models for...

As part of 1996 legislation, the U.S. began paying farmers production flexibility contract payments designed to be somewhat decoupled from current production decisions. In the labor-leisure model, decoupled payments would be expected to only have a wealth effect, but coupled payments would be...

This paper examines the linkages among agricultural total factor productivity, farm size, and farm household participation in the off-farm labor market for the Southeastern states for the period 1960-1996. We find evidence of a simultaneous relationship between productivity and measures of farm...

We design an experiment to simulate how people make agricultural production decisions under three policy scenarios, each incorporating direct payments (DPs): (a) price uncertainty without countercyclical payments (CCPs); (b) price uncertainty with CCPs; and (c) price uncertainty, CCPs, and...

In the United States the 1996 agricultural policy reform ushered in market-oriented farm policies and also gave farmers a seven-year lump-sum payment that was not tied to production. Some scholars argue that farm program payments have changed the distribution of income among farm households. Our...

To remain viable, agriculture in each location must offer returns that are competitive with those from alternative investments and sufficient to cover producers' financial obligations. Economic theory says that rates of return converge over time as resources flow into more-profitable industries...