A Comprehensive Assessment Of The Role Of Risk In U S Agriculture

After all the research on agricultural risk to date, the treatment of risk in agricultural research is far from harmonious. Many competing risk models have been proposed. Some new methodologies are largely untested. Some of the leading empirical methodologies in agricultural economic research are poorly suited for problems with aggregate data where risk averse behavior is less likely to be important. This book is intended to (i) define the current state of the literature on agricultural risk research, (ii) provide a critical evaluation of economic risk research on agriculture to date and (iii) set a research agenda that will meet future needs and prospects. This type of research promises to become of increasing importance because agricultural policy in the United States and elsewhere has decidedly shifted from explicit income support objectives to risk-related motivations of helping farmers deal with risk. Beginning with the 1996 Farm Bill, the primary set of policy instruments from U.S. agriculture has shifted from target prices and set aside acreage to agricultural crop insurance. Because this book is intended to have specific implications for U.S. agricultural policy, it has a decidedly domestic scope, but clearly many of the issues have application abroad. For each of the papers and topics included in this volume, individuals have been selected to give the strongest and broadest possible treatment of each facet of the problem. The result is this comprehensive reference book on the economics of agricultural risk.

This book examines the current magnitude and characteristics of risk-related policies in agriculture and what is known about the quantitative size of agricultural risks. It also looks at the on-farm, off-farm, and market instruments available to manage risk.

Mathematical Models in Economics is a component of Encyclopedia of Mathematical Sciences in which is part of the global Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), an integrated compendium of twenty one Encyclopedias. This theme is organized into several different topics and introduces the applications of mathematics to economics. Mathematical economics has experienced rapid growth, generating many new academic fields associated with the development of mathematical theory and computer. Mathematics is the backbone of modern economics. It plays a basic role in creating ideas, constructing new theories, and empirically testing ideas and theories. Mathematics is now an integral part of economics. The main advances in modern economics are characterized by applying mathematics to various economic problems. Many of today's profound insights into economic problems could hardly be obtained without the help of mathematics. The concepts of equilibrium versus non-equilibrium, stability versus instability, and steady states versus chaos in the contemporary literature are difficult to explain without mathematics. The theme discusses on modern versions of some classical economic theories, taking account of balancing between significance of economic issues and mathematical techniques. These two volumes are aimed at the following five major target audiences: University and College students Educators, Professional practitioners, Research personnel and Policy analysts, managers, and decision makers and NGOs.

"Agricultural Trade Liberalization investigates key issues in the Western Hemisphere, including potential scenarios for liberalization at the regional and multilateral levels, the effects of U.S. and European Union agricultural policies on trade, and the outcomes that a Free Trade Area of the Americas and a European Union-Mercosur trade agreement might have on agricultural trade flows. The book also examines the impact of sanitary and phytosanitary measures and biotechnology on agricultural trade, integration of sugar and dairy markets in the Americas, and a comparison of agri-food industries in the United States and Brazil. Finally, the book provides and overview of agricultural liberalization in the U.S.-Central American Free Trade Agreement and suggests a food security typology to be utilized by the World Trade Organization."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

The book addresses and documents farmers' risks in developing and emerging economies. It draws lessons from experimental economics on measuring risk preferences, attitudes, gender differences in managing risks, and risk management strategies in countries across Africa and Asia. It argues policy makers, especially in emerging economies, need a better understanding of farmers' attitudes toward risk and choices of risk management strategies when designing policies to support production agriculture. The book includes chapters on three themes: understanding risk attitudes and preferences; using experimental economics to measure risk, preferences, and risk management strategies; and understanding climate change, risk, and risk management. The book critically examines the currently held beliefs about risk preference, attitudes, and empirical estimation of risk management strategies, emphasizing developing and emerging economies (DEE). This book is ideal for students and researchers in universities and research organizations who conduct applied research on public policy, community development, and rural development, and will also be of interest to policy-makers in those fields.

Risk and uncertainty are inescapable factors in agriculture which require careful management. Farmers face production risks from the weather, crop and livestock performance, and pests and diseases, as well as institutional, personal and business risks. This revised third edition of the popular textbook includes updated chapters on theory and methods and contains a new chapter discussing the state-contingent approach to the analysis of production and the use of copulas to better model stochastic dependency. Aiming to introduce agricultural decision making, probability and risk preference, this book is an indispensable guide for students and researchers of agriculture and agribusiness management.

This book presents the first thorough economic analysis of current agricultural biotechnology regulation. The contributors, most of whom are agricultural economists working either in universities or NGOs, address issues such as commercial pesticides, the costs of approving new products, liability, benefits, consumer acceptance, regulation and its impacts, transgenic crops, social welfare implications, and biosafety.

Defining the fundamentals of building a risk management plan, Applied Risk Management in Agriculture uses strategic management to organize the process of risk management. A time-tested procedure inside and outside the business community, this technique provides an ideal platform for organizing risk.Making complex principles easily accessible to stu