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A split sample/dual method research protocol is demonstrated to increase transparency while reducing the probability of false discovery. We apply the protocol to examine whether diversity in ownership teams increases or decreases the likelihood of a firm reporting a novel innovation using data from the 2018 United States Census Bureau's Annual Business Survey. Transparency is increased in three ways: 1) all specification testing and identifying potentially productive models is done in an exploratory subsample that 2) preserves the validity of hypothesis test statistics from de novo estimation in the holdout confirmatory sample with 3) all findings publicly documented in an earlier registered report and in this journal publication. Bayesian estimation procedures that leverage information from the exploratory stage included in the confirmatory stage estimation replace traditional frequentist null hypothesis significance testing. In addition to increasing statistical power by using information from the full sample, Bayesian methods directly estimate a probability distribution for the magnitude of an effect, allowing much richer inference. Estimated magnitudes of diversity along academic discipline, race, ethnicity, and foreign-born status dimensions are positively associated with innovation. A maximally diverse ownership team on these dimensions would be roughly six times more likely to report new-to-market innovation than a homophilic team. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many regions in the United States will experience a hotter, drier climate in the coming decades. This prediction is especially troubling for rural communities whose economies depend primarily on agricultural production systems susceptible to drought. The impact of drought on the agricultural sector has knock-on effects on other industries comprising a community's economy. The result is that the total combined losses caused by drought (direct + indirect losses) can exceed direct losses alone. This study quantified the direct and indirect economic losses experienced by five counties in southwestern Oklahoma that experienced exceptional drought at some point from 2000 to 2021. The study also examines how Federal Crop Insurance Program (FCIP) indemnities for corn, cotton, and wheat mitigate the impacts of drought across all economic sectors. Drought caused an average loss of $163 million in output, 1,084 jobs, and $67 million in value-added per drought year in the communities analyzed. However, FCIP crop indemnities reduced drought-caused losses by 54% to 63%. A bumper wheat crop and record-high cattle prices caused by a reduction in supply during drought years also curbed drought-induced losses. These findings suggest that the economies of agricultural communities with more diverse production activities and higher enrollment rates in crop insurance were most resilient to drought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study compares the marginal and the rank methods for analysing best-worst scaling case 2 data using a simulated and an empirical example dataset. Simulation results suggest the rank method improves accuracy of estimates compared to the marginal method as measured by bias and mean square error. The rank method reduced bias on average by 48% across all coefficient estimates as compared to the marginal-CL method. Results from the empirical example align with those of the simulation and added robustness to the findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The small‐sample properties of robust, binary choice willingness‐to‐pay (WTP) estimators are analyzed. A Monte Carlo simulation compares the bias and mean‐squared error of marginal and expected WTP estimates from probit, zero‐centered tν ${t}_{{\nu }}$ ("robit"), logit, and a generalized Tukey lambda distribution called a "pregibit" regression under normal and nonnormal distributional assumptions. Robust binary choice estimators allow for variation in tail thickness (the robit and pregibit) or tail asymmetry (the pregibit). No previous studies have compared the performance of these WTP estimators. The findings will interest researchers who use contingent validation methods to estimate WTP for nonmarket or hypothetical goods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using information from precision farmer surveys conducted in the southern United States in 2005 and 2013, we evaluated changes in the use of precision farming information sources among cotton producers. Although Extension remains an important source for producers interested in precision farming information, the percentage of cotton producers using Extension to obtain precision farming information has decreased over time. Results from our study should motivate Extension professionals to re-evaluate the precision farming information they provide to producers and the practices they use to provide such information in efforts to maintain Extension's importance as an information source.

Winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is a significant forage source for livestock grazing in the Southern Great Plains (SGP). However, increasing input costs and changing climate conditions compel producers and researchers to search for alternative forage systems, such as cool-season perennials. Specifically, cool-season perennials with summer dormancy traits can survive droughts in the SGP. This paper aimed to determine the net returns of three different types of cool-season perennial summer-dormant tall fescue [ Schedonorus arundinaceus (Schreb.) Dumort. nom. cons.] systems either with N fertilizer or interseeded with alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) and the traditional graze-out annual winter wheat forage system. The data were from a 5-yr experiment conducted in south-central Oklahoma. Animal performance results indicated that the traditional graze-out winter annual wheat forage system provided more total gains at 434 kg ha−1 than the three tall fescue variety systems at 326 kg ha−1 (P  = 0.006) due to more grazing days. Thus, the gross revenue estimated at a cost of gain of $1.60 kg−1 gain for wheat at $694 ha−1 was greater than the average gross revenue of $521 ha−1 for the tall fescue systems. However, the average total cost for the perennial tall fescue systems ($374 ha−1) was less than the total cost ($594 ha−1) of the wheat system. Overall, the average net returns were similar for all grazing systems at about $145 ha−1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]