Search

The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), which provides incentives for landowners to idle erodible and marginal farmland, faced new challenges as record-high commodity prices significantly affected landowners' interests in the program in recent years. We develop and estimate an empirical structural model to examine the manner in which productivity, market conditions, and CRP payment affect landowners' land use decisions. The model carefully controls for the endogeneity of CRP payment and landowners' self-selection into the program. The parameter estimates are used to simulate how changes in agricultural prices and CRP payment influence program enrollment and cost across the Corn Belt states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A large variety of subsidized crop insurance products are available to U.S. crop growers. Distinct and perhaps puzzling patterns in the choices of insurance products and coverage levels can be discerned. Where production conditions are better and yields are less risky then (a) higher insurance coverage levels are chosen; and (b) revenue insurance is preferred over yield insurance. Also, (c) the extent of preference for revenue insurance is stronger in more productive areas. Assuming, as many do, that growers seek to maximize subsidy transfers, point (a) can be explained by the interaction between yield technology and natural resource endowments. Points (b) and (c) can be explained by location in conjunction with the “natural hedge” and a contract design bias in how revenue insurance guarantees are computed. Empirical study of Risk Management Agency data on corn, soybean, and wheat yields, and insurance contract choices lend support to our model inferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corn markets are important for many industries, including the seed, fertilizer, meat production/processing, and agricultural machinery sectors, all of which are highly concentrated. Oligopoly theory suggests that corn input and field equipment suppliers likely benefit from policies that support corn markets, such as U.S. biofuels policy, whereas meat companies likely lose. This study investigates the impact of biofuels policy on U.S. agribusiness stock prices. Corn futures prices are found to have had a structural change in November 2006, consistent with the expansion of U.S. biofuels policy support. A linear two-factor (S&P 500 and corn prices) equilibrium asset pricing model is estimated on two subsamples, one before and one after the estimated change point. Conditional heteroskedasticity in stock returns is accounted for using a GARCH(1,1) model. In the more recent period, corn price increases are found to have positive effects on excess stock returns for seed, fertilizer, and machinery companies, while the impact on meat companies is negative. The results may be interpreted as evidence that crop input suppliers gain from U.S. biofuels policies while meat processors lose. [EconLit citations: D43; L13; Q14]. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which investigates the implications of the border carbon adjustments (BCAs) to the bilateral trade flow of the U.S. to China and India. It says that the economic and the environmental impacts of the imposed trade policies are simulated using the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP)-E model. Furthermore, it mentions that the exploration of the impacts of the border adjustments is applicable to the climate change policy in all countries.