American Journal of Agricultural Economics

Browse past and current articles from this publication.

Competition effects of supermarket services.(Report)
Supermarket chains are significantly increasing their scope of services well beyond traditional food distribution by adding food services (such as deli, bakery departments, and eateries) that capita . . .

The varying impacts of agricultural support programs on U.S. farm household consumption.(Survey)
Farm households often receive income from off-farm employment and government support payments in addition to farm production revenues. If income is fungible, then marginal consumption should not var . . .

Joint estimation of risk preferences and technology: flexible utility or futility?
Risk and uncertainty are prominent features of agricultural production and marketing. Not surprisingly, numerous studies in agricultural economics have focused on producer behavior under uncertainty . . .

On crop biodiversity, risk exposure, and food security in the highlands of Ethiopia.
Production risk is one of the quintessential features of agriculture. Unpredictable weather can expose farm households to significant production uncertainty and serious hardship. Under harsh clima . . .

Risk averters that love risk? Marginal risk aversion in comparison to a reference gamble.
Applied economists have developed a vibrant literature that seeks to quantify the impacts of risk on production decisions. This technical literature posits an expected utility objective function and . . .

Livestock disease indemnity design when moral hazard is followed by adverse selection.
The outbreak of disease in domestic livestock herds is an economic problem and potential human health risk. Diseases that are highly contagious or have human health implications are often the target . . .

On the deadweight cost of production requirements for geographically differentiated agricultural products.
This article investigates the welfare effects of alternate collusion schemes in a context where collusion is authorized in order to cover fixed costs. We find analytical evidence that whenever produ . . .

Who pays the costs of non-GMO segregation and identity preservation?(Report)
Many people feel that consumption of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is unhealthy and that growing and distributing genetically modified (GM) crops is environmentally risky. Many farmers belie . . .

Dairy tariff-quota liberalization: contrasting bilateral and most favored nation reform options.(Report)
Views on the applicability of quantitative trade policy models differ widely. Critics often point to the problem of policy aggregation. For example, Sumner (1993) argues that policy models are too a . . .

Shadow wages and shadow income in farmers' labor supply functions.
The shadow wage and shadow income are the key variables in estimating the labor supply function. Thus, having an appropriate measurement of these variables is crucial to the estimation process. Unde . . .

Weather risk, wages in kind, and the off-farm labor supply of agricultural households in a developing country.
This article investigates the effects of weather risk on the off-farm labor supply of agricultural households in a developing country. In low-income developing countries like India, markets for agri . . .

Evaluating alternative policy responses to higher world food prices: the case of increasing rice prices in Madagascar.(Report)
Recent large increases in cereal and other food prices have led many governments to adopt policies intended to mitigate the adverse impact on households, especially on low-income households that all . . .

Political market power reflected in milk pricing regulations.(Report)
Government policies that control quantity supplied or price may have effects on the market that are similar to those of monopolists or oligopolists that exercise market power. Numerous studies exami . . .

The economics of a blend mandate for biofuels.(Report)
Worldwide, many governments now require that a minimum percentage of transportation fuels sold consist of biofuels. A recent FAO study concludes that "virtually all existing laws to promote ... biof . . .

A nonparametric analysis of production models with multidimensional quality.(Report)
Measuring quality attributes of raw materials and intermediate and final products is a common problem in many sectors of the economy. The importance of quality for agricultural production and commod . . .

Measuring excess capital capacity in agricultural production.
Stochastic production frontier models have been used extensively to analyze technical efficiency of firms operating in agriculture and other industries (Kumbhakar and Lovell 2000). It is generally f . . .

Scale economies and inefficiency of U.S. dairy farms.
Structural changes taking place on dairy farms are an important policy concern in the United States and elsewhere. Dairy farm herd sizes and cow productivity have exhibited significant increases dur . . .

Effects of label information on consumer willingness-to-pay for food attributes.
Consumer willingness-to-pay (WTP) for certain food quality attributes is an important indicator of consumer response to food labels and a determinant of the anticipated change in demand under a food . . .

An empirical investigation into the excessive-choice effect.
Over the past two decades, there has been an explosive growth in the field of behavioral economics, which focuses on the interface between economics and psychology. Behavioral economics has contribu . . .

What is it about organic milk? An experimental analysis.
In response to concerns by farmers and consumers regarding the lack of organic standards, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) implemented standards for organically produced agricultural produc . . .

Comparing open-ended choice experiments and experimental auctions: an application to golden rice.(Report)
The most common experimental valuation methods in the agricultural economics literature today are experimental auctions (e.g., Corrigan and Rousu 2006) and nonhypothetical choice experiments (e.g., . . .

Just, Richard E., Julian M. Alston, and David Zilberman, Editors. Regulating Agricultural Biotechnology: Economics and Policy.
Just, Richard E., Julian M. Alston, and David Zilberman, Editors. Regulating Agricultural Biotechnology: Economics and Policy. New York: Springer, 2006, 732 pp., $149.00. The development of agricu . . .

Gentry, B., Q. Newcomer, S. Anisfeld, and M. Fotos, Editors. Emerging Markets for Ecosystem Services: A Case Study of the Panama
Gentry, B., Q. Newcomer, S. Anisfeld, and M. Fotos, Editors. Emerging Markets for Ecosystem Services: A Case Study of the Panama Canal Watershed. Binghamton, NY: Haworth Press, 2007, 387 pp., $148.0 . . .

Adger, W. Neil, Jouni Paavoli, Saleemul Huq, and M.J. Mace, Editors. Fairness in Adaptation to Climate Change.
Adger, W. Neil, Jouni Paavoli, Saleemul Huq, and M.J. Mace, Editors. Fairness in Adaptation to Climate Change. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006, xvi + 335 pp., $62.00. This book investigates the jus . . .

Perloff, Jeffrey M., Larry S. Karp, and Amos Golan, Editors. Estimating Market Power and Strategies.
Perloff, Jeffrey M., Larry S. Karp, and Amos Golan, Editors. Estimating Market Power and Strategies. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007, 352 pp., $88.99. From my point of view a text . . .

Evenson, Robert E. and Terri Raney, Editors. The Political Economy of Genetically Modified Foods.
Evenson, Robert E. and Terri Raney, Editors. The Political Economy of Genetically Modified Foods. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd., 2007, 485 pp., 112.50 [pounds sterling]. This book i . . .

The cotton influence index: an examination of U.S. cotton subsidies.
The Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 provides financial support to producers of corn, wheat, rice, soybeans, and cotton. Among commodities covered by the bill, the support given to cot . . .

Standards as barriers versus standards as catalysts: assessing the impact of HACCP implementation on U.S. seafood imports.(Repor
As one of the world's largest producers and importers of fishery products, the issue of seafood safety is of particular concern to the United States. The risks associated with domestic and imported . . .

Insuring against losses from transgenic contamination: the case of pharmaceutical maize.(Report)
Pharmaceutical crops are those that have been genetically adapted to produce recombinant proteins such as antibodies, enzymes, and vaccines for use in human and animal medicine. To date, these crops . . .

Highgrading in quota-regulated fisheries: evidence from the Icelandic cod fishery.(Report)
Different species and sizes of fish usually occupy the same habitat, and fishers have only imperfect control over their catch. A profit-maximizing fisher has an incentive to discard less valuable fi . . .

Defining access to health care: evidence on the importance of quality and distance in rural Tanzania.
Since the Alma-Ata declaration (World Health Organization 1978), developing countries have focused on expanding the coverage of curative health services. During this expansion, much of the literatur . . .

Impacts of low-cost land certification on investment and productivity.(Report)
A new wave of land reforms has hit Africa, typically aiming to provide more private and secure property rights to land. Formalization of land rights are being promoted by the Commission for Legal Em . . .

Public investment and industry incentives in life-science research.
A substantial body of analysis has developed on the returns to, and structure and organization of, public agricultural research (Huffman and Evenson 1992, 2006; Alston, Norton, and Pardey 1995; Fugl . . .

The procompetitive effect of demand-enhancing check-off programs.
In 1937, the U.S. Congress passed the Agricultural Marketing and Agreement Act (AMAA), enabling the development of marketing orders designed to restore market stability by compelling firms to act co . . .

Valuation of new products in attribute space.
Since January 2001, U.S. food manufacturers introduced over 27,000 new food products to supermarket shelves (Mintel 2007). The addition of new formulas, new varieties/line extensions, and new packag . . .

Food stamps and food spending: an Engel function approach.(Survey)
Policy-makers have been demanding stronger evidence showing the beneficial effect of Food Stamp Program (FSP) participation on food spending, nutrition, and food security outcomes (Office of Managem . . .

A multivariate evaluation of ex ante risks associated with fed cattle production.
Cattle feeding can be a risky venture. From the time of cattle placement to finishing, which usually lasts three to five months, the value and profitability of cattle can change immensely. Most of t . . .

Integrating technology traits and producer heterogeneity: a mixed-multinomial model of genetically modified corn adoption.(Repor
Economic models of agricultural technology adoption have long emphasized how heterogeneity in farm and farmer characteristics shape decisions, with scant attention paid to the role of traits within . . .

Optimal investment in transportation infrastructure when middlemen have market power: a developing-country analysis.
High transportation costs and buyer market power are recognized as important factors that contribute to high marketing margins and low farm prices and incomes in many developing country settings. Hi . . .

The welfare economics of a biofuel tax credit and the interaction effects with price contingent farm subsidies.(Report)
Biofuels have generated a great deal of interest worldwide as a solution to a host of problems, ranging from reducing dependency on oil and tax costs of farm programs to improving farm incomes and e . . .

On the consumer value of complementarity: a benefit function approach.
The concept of complementarity has been a standard part of economic analysis (e.g., Hicks 1956; Samuelson 1950, 1974). Intuitively, two activities are complementary if increasing one has a positive . . .

Inventories and public information in private negotiation: a laboratory market study.
Prices in many business-to-business transactions are not discovered through the simultaneous interaction of numerous sellers and/or buyers, such as in an auction or well-developed posted-price marke . . .

How closely do hypothetical surveys and laboratory experiments predict field behavior?
There is perhaps no more important question for researchers working with survey and experimental preference elicitation methods than whether the elicited values accurately predict real-world field b . . .

A comment on weak disposability in nonparametric production analysis.
In a recent paper in this journal, Kuosmanen (2005) discusses the notion of weak disposability of outputs and how it may be implemented in a nonparametric activity analysis model. In its original im . . .

Weak disposability in nonparametric production analysis: reply to Fare and Grosskopf.(Formula)
The traditional approach to modeling weak disposability in the nonparametric activity analysis models (Shephard 1974) applies a single abatement factor for all observed activities in the sample. The . . .

Cooper, Joseph, Editor. Global Agricultural Policy Reform and Trade: Environmental Gains and Losses.(Book review)
Cooper, Joseph, Editor. Global Agricultural Policy Reform and Trade: Environmental Gains and Losses. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2005, 202 pp., $35.00. Many activists seem to accept as axiomatic . . .

Yotopoulos, Pan and Romano, Donato, Editors. The Asymmetries of Globalization.(Book review)
Yotopoulos, Pan and Romano, Donato, Editors. The Asymmetries of Globalization. New York: Routledge, 2007, 208 pp., $150.00. In the Editors' Introduction, the goals of this book are clearly articul . . .

Acemoglu, Daron and Robinson, James A.: Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy.(Book review)
Acemoglu, Daron and Robinson, James A. Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006, xv + 416 pp., $35.00. The interconnection between political struc . . .

Fukuda-Parr, Sakiko, Editor. The Gene Revolution: GM Crops and Unequal Development.(Book review)
Fukuda-Parr, Sakiko, Editor. The Gene Revolution: GM Crops and Unequal Development. Sterling, VA: Earthscan, 2007, 248 pp., $150.00. It is difficult to be value neutral in conversations about agri . . .

Banerjee, Abhijit Vinayak. Making Aid Work.(Book review)
Banerjee, Abhijit Vinayak. Making Aid Work. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2007, xv + 170 pp., $14.95. The past decade has witnessed an extraordinary resurgence of high-level political commitment to global . . .