AgEcon Search: Research in Agricultural and Applied Economics collects, indexes, and electronically distributes full text copies of scholarly research in the broadly defined field of agricultural economics including sub disciplines such as agribusiness, food supply, natural resource economics, environmental economics, policy issues, agricultural trade, and economic development.
The majority of items in AgEcon Search are working papers, conference papers, and journal articles, although other types such as books chapters and government documents are included. AgEcon Search will serve as the permanent archive for this literature and encourages authors and organizations to use this electronic library as the storehouse for additional appropriate scholarly electronic works.
AgEcon Search is co-sponsored by the Department of Applied Economics and the University Libraries at University of Minnesota and the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
The site has received encouragement and financial support from:
Agricultural Economics Reference Organization
Agricultural and Applied Economics Association
European Association of Agricultural Economists
Farm Foundation
International Association of Agricultural Economists
USDA Economic Research Service
AgEcon Search is part of the University of Minnesota's Digital Conservancy, which provides stewardship, reliable long-term access, and broad dissemination of the digital scholarly and administrative works of the University of Minnesota faculty, departments, centers and offices.
Papers and articles downloaded from AgEcon Search may be used for non-commercial purposes and personal study only. No other use, including posting to another Internet site, is permitted without permission from the copyright owner, or as allowed under the provisions of Fair Use, U.S. Copyright Act, Title 17 U.S.C.
AgEcon Search does not hold the copyright to articles, working papers, conference papers, or other materials available in the database. Copyrights may be held by any of the following: individual authors, multiple authors, organizations, institutions, or publishers.
History
AgEcon Search began in 1995 as an experiment to see if it were possible to use the internet to archive, index and deliver on demand, full text working papers produced by university agricultural economics departments. The first papers were from agricultural economics departments at Minnesota and Wisconsin. These early papers predated the World Wide Web and were mounted on a GOPHER server in WordPerfect format. The project was (and still is) a cooperative project of the University of Minnesota Libraries, the Department of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota and the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA). The Farm Foundation and the Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture provided financial support in the beginning of the project. Patricia Rodkewich and Louise Letnes managed AgEcon Search until Patricia's retirement in 2001, when Julie Kelly joined the AgEcon Search team. Erik Biever also served on the original AgEcon Search team, providing valued technical services and guidance. The members of the Agricultural Economics Reference Organization endorsed the efforts of AgEcon Search early on and have been instrumental in expanding the use of AgEcon Search in their respective institutions.
Since its inception AgEcon Search has operated as a distributed network, with each institution designating a member of their organization to submit papers on their behalf. With this model, costs for maintaining the system were kept low and institutions do not have to pay membership fees for participation. In the cases where an institution had no central person to act as the network member, a fee has been charged for AgEcon Search staff to submit papers. The first organization to choose this option was the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, which since 1997 has been contracting with AgEcon Search to post its annual conference papers.
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Resources
Displaying 111 - 115 of 376Contract Duration and the Division of Labor in Agricultural Land Leases
Short-term contracts provide weak incentives for durable input investment if post-contract asset transfer is difficult. Our model shows that when both agents provide inputs, optimal contract length balances weak incentives of one agent against the other. This perspective broadens the existing contract duration literature, which emphasizes the tradeoff between risk sharing and contract costs. We develop hypotheses and test them based on private grazing contracts from the Southern Great Plains. We find broad support for the implications of our model.
Landscape Maintenance and Farming in the Alps: From Family Firms Up-Keeping to Inter-Institutional Arrangements
This contribution discusses assets and limits of the local/territorial level as a core level to improve the sustainability of agriculture. The focus is on the issue of rural landscape maintenance through farming. Some possible institutional solutions to overcome the difficulties of family farms are examined. New institutional settings such as the "local group", constituting an interface for the negotiation among different local stakeholders, seem to effectively facilitate the stipulation of local contracts for landscape management.
A Panel Data Analysis of the Determinants of Farmland Price: An Application to the Effects of the 1992 Cap Reform in Belgium
This study identifies the effects of the 1992 and subsequent CAP reforms on arable farmland price in Belgium. We first propose a brief literature review of studies identifying the determinants of farmland price. Afterwards, we use a panel data set to estimate a capitalization model of farmland price. We first show that the compensatory payments introduce by the 1992 CAP reform exert a positive effect on the arable farmland price in Belgium.
A Growth-Focused Spatial Econometric Model of Agricultural Land Development in the Northeast
Using county data for West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, estimation of a system of simultaneous equations shows that population growth, higher taxes, high farmland value, and high initial per capita income accelerate farmland development, but return on farmland, government assistance to farmers, farmland conservation, and farming agglomeration reduce development pressure.
Expansion of China's Cities and Agricultural Production
In China, there is a growing debate on the role of cultivated land conversion on food security. This paper examines the changes of the area of cultivated land and its potential agricultural productivity in China using satellite images. We find that between 1986 and 2000, China recorded a net increase of cultivated land (+1.9%), which almost offset the decrease in average potential productivity, or bioproductivity (-2.2%). Therefore, we conclude that conversion of cultivated land did not hurt China's national food security.