This study presents evidence that contracting is positively associated with the scale of production for six major U.S. agricultural commodities. Specifically, contract producers tend to operate at a larger scale than do independent producers, and the likelihood of an operation contracting...

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...