SABIIA - Sistema Aberto e Integrado de Informação em Agricultura (Sabiia)

Chavas, Jean-Paul.

This paper explores the economics of input decision by a firm facing production uncertainty. It relies on a state-contingent approach to production uncertainty. First, the paper develops a methodology to specify and estimate cost-minimizing input decisions under a state-contingent technology. Second, the analysis is applied to time series data on US agriculture. It finds strong empirical evidence that, in the analysis of input choices, expected output alone does not provide an appropriate representation of production uncertainty. The results provide empirical support for an output-cubical technology. This indicates that an ex post analysis of stochastic technology (as commonly found in previous research) appears appropriate. The analysis also provides...

Panel Data Estimation Methods on Supply and Demand Elasticities: The Case of Cotton in Greece

Palavras-chave: Production uncertainty; State contingent; Cost; Cubical technology.; Research Methods/ Statistical Methods; C3; D21; D8.

Ano: 2006

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/21081

Optimal Nitrogen Fertilization Rates in Winter Wheat Production as Affected by Risk, Disease, and Nitrogen Source

Kotakou, Christina A..

This article examines the effects of the application of panel data estimation methods on a system of equations with unbalanced panel data. We apply pooled, random-effects, and fixed-effects estimation in three data sets: small, medium, and large farms to examine the relationship between farm size and the elasticity of cotton supply with respect to cotton price. Our results indicate that the adoption of various estimation methods entails different estimated parameters both in terms of their absolute value and in terms of their statistical significance. Additionally, the elasticity of cotton supply with respect to price varies according to farm size.

Tipo: Journal Article

Palavras-chave: Farm size; Panel data; Supply elasticity; Systems of equations; Demand and Price Analysis; C33; D21; Q18.

Ano: 2011

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/100637

Roberts, Roland K.; Walters, Jeremy T.; Larson, James A.; English, Burton C.; Howard, Donald D..

Interactions among the nitrogen (N) fertilization rate, N source, and disease severity can affect mean yield and yield in conservation tillage wheat production. A Just-Pope model was used to evaluate the effects of N rate, N source, and disease on the spring N fertilization decision. Ammonium nitrate (AN) was the utility-maximizing N source, regardless of risk preferences. The net-return-maximizing AN rate was 92 lb N/acre, providing $0.52/acre higher net returns than the best alternative N source (urea). If a farmer could anticipate a higher-than-average Take-All Root Rot infection, the difference in optimal net returns between AN and urea would increase to $35.11/acre.

Tipo: Journal Article

Palavras-chave: Certainty equivalent; Blume-Blotch; Nitrogen fertilizer; Nitrogen source; Risk; Take-All; Winter wheat; D21; D81; Q12.

Ano: 2004

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/43444

Production Inefficiency in Fed Cattle Marketing and the Value of Sorting Pens into Alternative Marketing Groups Using Ultrasound Technology

Koontz, Stephen R.; Hoag, Dana L.; Brethour, John R.; Walker, Jodine L..

The cattle industry batch markets animals in pens. Because of this, animals within any one pen can be both underfed and overfed. Thus, there is a production inefficiency associated with batch marketing. We simulate the value of sorting animals through weight and ultrasound measurements from original pens into smaller alternative marketing groups. Sorting exploits the production inefficiency and enables cattle feeding enterprises to avoid meat quality discounts, capture premiums, more efficiently use feed resources, and increase returns. The value of sorting is between $15 and $25 per head, with declining marginal returns as the number of sort groups increases.

Tipo: Journal Article

Palavras-chave: Cattle feeding; Production efficiency; Simulation; Sorting; Value-based marketing; Ultrasound; Agribusiness; Livestock Production/Industries; Marketing; Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies; C15; D21; D23; Q12.

Ano: 2008

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/47266

Nitrate Pollution Control Policy and Its Impact on Farms' Performance: A Nonparametric Approach

Piot-Lepetit, Isabelle; le Moing, Monique.

The purpose of this paper is to develop models with an individual and a collective management of the European Nitrate directive. The objective is to compare productive efficiency of farms under the two regimes. First, we develop a model that explicitly integrate the individual constraint on organic manure spreading. The individual threshold is introduced as a productive right. Then, we develop a framework that allows for modelling exchange of productive rights among producers. The simulation of a management of the spreading constrainst on organic manure at the regional level give an estimate of the potential gains that can be realised by allowing a collective maagement of the European environmental regulation. Models are based on a nonparametric frontier...

A Long-Term Analysis of Changes in Farm Size and Financial Performance

Palavras-chave: Environmental regulations; Manure management; Pig farming; Data Envelopment Analysis; Environmental Economics and Policy; C61; D21; Q12; Q52.

Ano: 2005

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/19458

Snider, Lindsey; Langemeier, Michael R..

This paper examined the changing structure of farms in Kansas. Specifically, changes in farm size, farm type, financial performance, and economies of size were examined using five-year moving averages from 1973 to 2007. Convergence analysis was used to determine whether small farms are catching up to larger farms or whether the difference in performance between these two groups of farms was widening. Results suggested that the gaps between the small farms and large farms have widened.

Exports and Productivity: A Survey of the Evidence from Firm Level Data

Palavras-chave: Economies of Size; Financial Performance; Farm Management; Production Economics; D21.

Ano: 2008

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/45915

Wagner, Joachim.

While the role of exports in promoting growth in general, and productivity in particular, has been investigated empirically using aggregate data for countries and industries for a long time, only recently have comprehensive longitudinal data at the firm level been used to look at the extent and causes of productivity differentials between exporters and their counterparts which sell on the domestic market only. This paper surveys the empirical strategies applied, and the results produced, in 45 microeconometric studies with data from 33 countries that were published between 1995 and 2004. Details aside, exporters are found to be more productive than non-exporters, and the more productive firms self select into export markets, while exporting does not...

Accounting for agronomic rotations in crop production: A theoretical investigation and an empirical modeling framework

Palavras-chave: Exports; Productivity; Literature survey; Micro data; International Relations/Trade; Productivity Analysis; F14; D21.

Ano: 2005

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/26308

Carpentier, Alain; Gohin, Alexandre; Letort, Elodie.

As far as crop acreage choices are concerned, a consensus seems to exist among agricultural scientists and extension agents: crop rotation effects and the related constraints are major determinants of farmers’ crop choices. Crop rotation effects are inherently dynamic. They are generally ignored in multicrop models with land as an allocable input found in the literature since most of these models are developed within a static framework. The aim of this paper is twofold (i) to propose a new approach and tools for investigating dynamic crop acreage choices accounting for crop rotation benefits and constraints and (ii) to illustrate the impacts of crop rotation effects and constraints on farmers’ acreage choices through simulation examples. The models...

An Evaluation of U.S. Hog Producer Preferences Toward Autonomy

Palavras-chave: Crop rotation; Dynamic programming; Acreage choice; Crop Production/Industries; Land Economics/Use; Q12; D21; D24; D92.

Ano: 2011

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/103431

Gillespie, Jeffrey M.; Davis, Christopher G.; Rahelizatovo, Noro C..

Hog farmers’ preferences for autonomy are assessed through the use of eight questions dealing with their preferences for general decision making and with respect to specific management actions. Farmers generally preferred to make a higher percentage of the decisions about their operations, especially older producers and those who operated farrowing units. Farmers who placed lower values on autonomy finished hogs, were nearing retirement, valued social relationships with other farmers more highly, had higher off-farm income, or were larger farmers.

Tipo: Journal Article

Palavras-chave: Autonomy; Contracting; Pork production; Utility; Q12; L14; D21.

Ano: 2004

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/43449

Diversification of the marketing chains among organic producers

Corsi, Alessandro; Borsotto, Patrizia; Borri, Ilaria; Strom, Steinar.

Diversification of consumers’ demand and environmental concerns are at the origin of a trend towards short marketing chains and towards direct links between consumers and farmers in developed countries. This paper explores farmers’ motivations for choosing these types of marketing chains and/or the “traditional” ones. To this purpose, a theoretical model of marketing chain choice is developed, and a multivariate probit model of organic farmers’ choice of the marketing chain is estimated from a unique data set of organic farms in an Italian region.

Environmentally-Oriented Innovative Strategies and Firm Performances in Services. Micro-Evidence from Italy

Palavras-chave: Marketing chain; Short chain; Organic farms; Multivariate probit; Agribusiness; Farm Management; Marketing; Production Economics; Q12; D21; C25.

Ano: 2009

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/51422

Cainelli, Giulio; Mazzanti, Massimiliano; Zoboli, Roberto.

This paper aims at analysing the role of the environment in innovative strategies based on firm economic performance indicators such as employment, turnover, and labour productivity growth. We exploit a unique dataset of 773 Italian service firms with 20 or more employees comprising 1993-1995 CIS II data on firm innovation strategic motivations and 1995-1998 data on employment, turnover, and labour productivity from the System of the Enterprise Account (SEA). We specify a Gibrat-like empirical model in which the covariates include firm strategies (innovation and environmental), and a set of other explanatory variables and controls. Our econometric findings show a negative link between environmental motivations and growth in employment and turnover and a...

What's Advertising Content Worth? Evidence from a Consumer Credit Marketing Field Experiment

Palavras-chave: Services; Firm Environmental Strategies; Firm Growth; CIS Survey; Innovation; Environmental Economics and Policy; Institutional and Behavioral Economics; C23; D21; O32; Q55.

Ano: 2007

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/6922

Bertrand, Marianne; Karlan, Dean S.; Mullainathan, Sendhil; Shafir, Eldar; Zinman, Jonathan.

Firms spend billions of dollars each year advertising consumer products in order to influence demand. Much of these outlays are on the creative design of advertising content. Creative content often uses nuances of presentation and framing that have large effects on consumer decision making in laboratory studies. But there is little field evidence on the effect of advertising content as it compares in magnitude to the effect of price. We analyze a direct mail field experiment in South Africa implemented by a consumer lender that randomized creative content and loan price simultaneously. We find that content has significant effects on demand. There is also some evidence that the magnitude of content sensitivity is large relative to price sensitivity....

Risk and De-Collectivisation: Evidence from the Czech Republic

Palavras-chave: Economics of advertising; Economics & psychology; Behavioral; Economics; Cues; Microfinance; Institutional and Behavioral Economics; Marketing; D01; M31; M37; C93; D12; D14; D21; D81; D91; O12.

Ano: 2009

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/47038

Bezemer, Dirk J..

The replacement of wage-labour farms by family farms in Central and Eastern Europe during the transformation has been more limited than was initially expected. In this paper a formal framework is developed in order to analyse the behaviour of family farms and socialist-style farms in the presence of risk, given the typical post-socialist environment. Management incentives, ownership structure, lump-sum transfers and consumption choices are shown to have the potential to limit the size of family farms relative to socialist-style farms. The hypotheses are tested with survey data collected by the author in the Czech Republic.

FARM CERTIFICATION AND THE IMPLEMENTATION OF HACCP IN AGRICULTURE: A COST/BENEFIT ANALYSIS

Palavras-chave: Transition; Agriculture; Structural change; Risk; Survey data; Risk and Uncertainty; D21; D81; O18; Q12.

Ano: 2002

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/24888

Galan, Mari-Neatrice; Aubry, Christine; Maze, Armelle.

This article aims to highlight the methodological bases and principles, sometimes implicit, that have served as support for the development of a referential similar to the one retained as part of the French decree on "Agriculture Raisonnée", namely the Quali'Terre referential. We show that the innovations introduced by this referential are of various natures: i) a change of perspective by taking a position at the level of the farming system and not of a given parcel of land or production, ii) use of the HACCP method for identification and most especially the prioritization of risks and the preventive measures to be implemented, iii) the introduction of the concept of continual improvement for the farmer. Even, if from an agronomic point of view, the...

Multiple goals in farmers’ decision making: The case of sheep farming in Western Greece

Palavras-chave: HACCP; Methodology; Cost/benefit analysis; Farming system; Risk assessment.; Farm Management; Q16; Q20; M11; D21.

Ano: 2003

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/22094

Sintori, Alexandra; Rozakis, Stelios; Tsiboukas, Kostas.

Management strategies and performance differ among farmers, as a result of different, multiple and often conflicting goals. Many approaches to building farm level models that incorporate multiple goals have been developed over the years, most of which share a common weakness. The determination of the goals to be used as attributes in the utility function is the result of a highly interactive process with the individual farmer, often difficult to implement. In this study, we use a non-interactive methodology, described in recent literature, to elicit the utility function of selected sheep farmers in western Greece, since farmers often appear reluctant to answer straightforward questions about their goals and preferences. Τhe results indicate that sheep...

Quality Signaling through Certification

Palavras-chave: Sheep farming; Mixed integer programming; Multiple goals; Noninteractive elicitation; Livestock Production/Industries; C61; D21; Q12.

Ano: 2009

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/51075

Auriol, Emmanuelle; Schilizzi, Steven.

This paper analyzes the problem raised by quality provision in globalizing economies. When quality is a credence attribute, there is a signaling problem and quality drops to its minimum level. A way out of this under-provision equilibrium consists to rely on certification. However certification of goods involves costs, most of which are fixed, because to credibly signal quality, the certification process has to be carry out by an independent authority above all suspicion. The certification costs, which might justify a centralized intervention, become a major force in deciding market structure. Then in a given population the rate of certification depends on the consumers' wealth and size. If the population is too poor the market for certification collapses...

Tipo: Presentation

Palavras-chave: Agricultural and Food Policy; Crop Production/Industries; D11; D21; L11; L15..

Ano: 2000

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/123598

A Personal Touch: Text Messaging for Loan Repayment

Morten, Melanie; Karlan, Dean S.; Zinman, Jonathan.

We worked with two microlenders to test impacts of randomly assigned reminders for loan repayments in the “text messaging capital of the world”. We do not find strong evidence that loss versus gain framing or messaging timing matter. Messages only robustly improve repayment when they include the loan officer’s name. This effect holds for clients serviced by the loan officer previously but not for first-time borrowers. Taken together, the results highlight the potential and limits of communications technology for mitigating moral hazard, and suggest that personal obligation/reciprocity between borrowers and bank employees can be harnessed to help overcome market failures.

Tipo: Working Paper

Palavras-chave: Microcredit; Microfinance; Randomized evaluation; Development finance; Consumer/Household Economics; Financial Economics; Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies; D21; D92; G21; O16; O17.

Ano: 2012

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/121867

Relational Contracting and Allocation of Decision Rights in the Agri-Food Industry: Producer Contracts and Food Safety

Karantininis, Kostas; Graversen, Jesper T.; Rasmussen, Hans Jacob Nymann.

We apply a formal theoretical model of adaptation to two empirical settings within the agri-food industry: specialized pig production and food safety in Denmark. The objective is to allocate decision rights ex ante so that actual decisions taken ex post will optimize the profit accruing to the two parties in a contractual or integrative relation. Two applications are presented in this paper: First an actual partnership between two pork producers in Denmark. Based on detailed budgets we develop detailed schedules for the “reneging temptations” of the two partners- These are the temptations to renege on the contract during the evolution of the partnership. Using a model developed by Baker, Gibbons and Murphy (2006) we calculate equilibria using the Folk...

Assessing the Technical and Allocative Efficiency of Marketing Decisions by U.S. Organic Producers

Palavras-chave: Theory of the firm; Adaptation theory; Contracts; Decision Rights; Pig production; Food safety; Agribusiness; Agricultural and Food Policy; Farm Management; Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety; Industrial Organization; D21; L2; Q1.

Ano: 2008

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/49877

Lohr, Luanne; Park, Timothy A..

We develop measures of technical and allocative efficiency of producers in marketing certified organic products. A stochastic output distance frontier and the associated revenue share equations are estimated using comprehensive U.S. data on certified organic producers. Farm-level measures of technical efficiency are calculated and factors which enhance performance are identified. Factors that systematically influence allocative efficiency are assessed. The revenue mix of organic producers is systematically inefficient as both male and female producers rely too heavily on revenue from organic markets relative to conventional outlets.

Palavras-chave: Organic farming; Stochastic frontier; Technical efficiency; Allocative efficiency; Farm Management; Marketing; D21; C31; Q01.

Ano: 2011

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/103365

Resistance to Change

Dow, James; Perotti, Enrico.

Established firms often fail to maintain leadership following disruptive market shifts. We argue that such firms are more prone to internal resistance. A radical adjustment of assets affects the distribution of employee rents, creating winners and losers. Losers resist large changes when strong customer goodwill cushions the consequences. Partial adaptation may lead winners to depart to form new firms with no goodwill, but no internal resistance.