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Geography of Crop Yield Skewness

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  • Du, Xiaodong
  • Hennessy, David A.
  • Yu, Cindy L.
  • Miao, Ruiqing

Abstract

This study seeks to provide a rigorous theoretical and empirical understanding of the effects of exogenous geographic and climate-related factors on the first three moments of crop yields. We hypothesize that exogenous geographic and climate factors that have beneficial effects on crop production, such as better soils, less overheating damage, more growing season precipitation and irrigation should make crop yield distributions less positively or more negatively skewed. We employ a large crop insurance dataset for corn, soybean, and wheat to find general support for the hypothesis. The novel empirical method optimally uses correlations between the first three moments and thus significantly improves estimation performance over existing methods.

Suggested Citation

  • Du, Xiaodong & Hennessy, David A. & Yu, Cindy L. & Miao, Ruiqing, 2012. "Geography of Crop Yield Skewness," 2012 Annual Meeting, August 12-14, 2012, Seattle, Washington 124748, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:aaea12:124748
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.124748
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. David A. Hennessy, 2009. "Crop Yield Skewness Under Law of the Minimum Technology," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 91(1), pages 197-208.
    2. Tian Yu & Bruce A. Babcock, 2010. "Are U.S. Corn and Soybeans Becoming More Drought Tolerant?," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1310-1323.
    3. Salvatore Di Falco & Jean-Paul Chavas, 2007. "On Crop Biodiversity, Risk Exposure, and Food Security in the Highlands of Ethiopia," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 91(3), pages 599-611.
    4. john M. Antle, 2010. "Asymmetry, Partial Moments, and Production Risk," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1294-1309.
    5. Xiaodong Du & David A. Hennessy & Cindy L. Yu, 2012. "Testing Day's Conjecture that More Nitrogen Decreases Crop Yield Skewness," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 94(1), pages 225-237.
    6. Peter Berck & Gloria Helfand, 1990. "Reconciling the von Liebig and Differentiable Crop Production Functions," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 72(4), pages 985-996.
    7. Octavio A. Ramirez & Sukant Misra & James Field, 2003. "Crop-Yield Distributions Revisited," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 85(1), pages 108-120.
    8. Phoebe Koundouri & Céline Nauges & Vangelis Tzouvelekas, 2006. "Technology Adoption under Production Uncertainty: Theory and Application to Irrigation Technology," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 88(3), pages 657-670.
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    10. Wolfram Schlenker & W. Michael Hanemann & Anthony C. Fisher, 2005. "Will U.S. Agriculture Really Benefit from Global Warming? Accounting for Irrigation in the Hedonic Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 395-406, March.
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    Cited by:

    1. Buchholz, Matthias & Musshoff, Oliver, 2014. "The role of weather derivatives and portfolio effects in agricultural water management," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 34-44.
    2. Hongli Feng & Xiaodong Du & David A. Hennessy, 2020. "Depressed demand for crop insurance contracts, and a rationale based on third generation Prospect Theory," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 51(1), pages 59-73, January.
    3. Agarwal, Sandip Kumar, 2017. "Subjective beliefs and decision making under uncertainty in the field," ISU General Staff Papers 201701010800006248, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    4. Du, Xiaodong & Hennessy, David & Feng, Hongli, 2014. "Tail Dependence is to be Expected Among Crop Yields," 2014 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2014, Minneapolis, Minnesota 174315, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Crop Production/Industries; Environmental Economics and Policy; Production Economics; Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q10 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - General
    • Q18 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agricultural Policy; Food Policy; Animal Welfare Policy

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