Technology and innovation play an increasingly important role in the economic development of both developed and developing countries. We investigate how policy and market factors influence firms’ (or other potential innovators’) decisions on innovation or imitation by developing a conceptual...

Exogenous, unobserved factors often confound the effects of alliance networks. More capable farmers might be less likely to exit and more likely to have a large number of alliances. In this case the negative correlation between alliance network size and exit likelihood is due to the unobserved...

This paper explores the factors that impact insurance choices. Specially designed survey questions allow one to fully observe the demand tendency by the farmers and partially observe the supply tendency by the insurance company. A joint estimation of insurance decision by both supply and demand...

Using an extensive household-level data set collected in Tanzania, this paper investigates the determinants of the technological adoption of rice cultivation and of paddy yield. We especially focus on the impact of credit and training on the adoption of modern technologies. Based on empirical...

Investigating the determinants of economic growth remains a long research tradition in the economic growth literature. Most studies in this literature have tried to link economic growth and different economic factors using either neoclassical growth theories or endogenous growth approaches....

In the US, The Tobacco Transition Payment Program, also called the "tobacco buy-out," helps tobacco quota holders and producers transition to the free market. In China, the transaction of Land Use Rights providing farmers’ ability to buy or sell Land Use Rights has been seriously considered by...

Using a national survey, double hurdle models are estimated to examine the impact of farmers’ risk attitude on use of production and marketing contracts. Risk averse farmers are less likely to use contracts but risk attitude does not have any significant impact on the intensity at which...

Dairy production in the US has experienced a marked increase in the size of dairy operations over time. Even as total production has grown over time, smaller operations have been disappearing. Consequently, the viability of smaller dairy farms has become an important policy concern in regions...

Replaced with revised version of paper 06/08/11.

Replaced with revised version of paper 07/21/11.