This study uses a unique firm-level dataset to examine how falling trade costs from 1993-2001 affected entry, exit, productivity, and exporting in the Korean manufacturing sector. We verify many of the predictions of recent heterogeneous-firm models of international trade. For example, falling...

A farm’s physical investment is affected by its fundamental q and by its financial situation, with the later comprising both the firm’s liquidity and its possibility of facing capital market imperfections. This study determines the effects of government payments, depreciation, and inflation...

This paper analyzes the variance in accounting profitability within the European food industry. Based on a large panel data set, the variance in return on assets (ROA) is decomposed into year, country, industry, and firm effects. Further on, we include all possible interactions between year,...

An agronomic crop growth model, Decision Support System for Agro-Technology Transfer (DSSAT), is used to find optimal crop management strategies for cotton production in Mitchell, Miller, and Lee Counties in Georgia during the past 10 years. Planting date and irrigation threshold are the two...

This paper tries to justify the observation of different return patterns in the upstream and downstream sectors of US beef production. It builds a dynamic rational expectation model separating the cow-calf and feeding sector with the former sector being the residual claimer. The model shows that...

Livestock Gross Margin insurance for dairy cattle (LGM-Dairy) is a risk management tool that can be used to insure a lower bound on a dairy producer’s gross margin. In this paper we (1) review the basic structure of LGM-Dairy (2) examine the sensitivity of Gross Margin Guarantee (GMG) and...

Recent agronomic research finds that economically optimal seeding densities have likely increased for many Midwestern corn farmers as a result of genetic improvements including new GM traits such as Bt corn and herbicide tolerance. We derive a per acre demand model for hybrid seed corn to...

Raising the incomes of agricultural households is central to reducing poverty in Uganda. In many areas of the country agriculture has encroached into marginal or fragile lands, leaving little room for the expansion of agricultural lands (Kraybill, Bashaasha, and Betz 2009). Additionally, soil...

This paper evaluates farmers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for the vegetative propagated orange fleshed sweetpotato (OFSP) planting material that is many times considered as a public good. Famers’ WTP for OFSP vines was elicited by conducting a real choice experiment (RCE) among 121 small...