IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/uersab/33689.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Farmer Bankruptcies And Farm Exits In The United States, 1899-2002

Author

Listed:
  • Stam, Jerome M.
  • Dixon, Bruce L.

Abstract

Farmer bankruptcies, bankruptcy rates, and related issues are explored from the beginning of modern bankruptcy legislation over a century ago. Farmer bankruptcies historically have been controversial because they are thought to indicate changes in the economic well-being and structure of the rural economy. Concerns about farmer bankruptcies were heightened twice during the past century. The first was from 1920 through the Great Depression and the second was during the 1980s. Bankruptcy data for Chapters 7, 11, and 13 exist for farmers for the 1899-1980 period, but there are no Chapter 7, 11, or 13 farmer bankruptcy data available beginning in 1980. However, data are available for the 1986-2002 period for Chapter 12, the Family Farmer Bankruptcy Act of 1986, that became effective on November 26, 1986, in response to the farm financial crisis of the 1980s. Some 22,519 Chapter 12 cases were filed through 2002, with the highest rate being in 1987. Farmer bankruptcy filing rates trended down after the late 1980s because of improved economic conditions and institutional changes.

Suggested Citation

  • Stam, Jerome M. & Dixon, Bruce L., 2004. "Farmer Bankruptcies And Farm Exits In The United States, 1899-2002," Agricultural Information Bulletins 33689, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:uersab:33689
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.33689
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/33689/files/ai040788.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.33689?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hoppe, Robert A. & Korb, Penelope J., 2001. "Farm Operations Facing Development: Results From The Census Longitudinal File," 2001 Annual meeting, August 5-8, Chicago, IL 20771, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    2. Lawrence E. Shepard & Robert A. Collins, 1982. "Why Do Farmers Fail? Farm Bankruptcies 1910–78," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 64(4), pages 609-615.
    3. Gale, Fred & Henderson, David, 1991. "Estimating Entry and Exit of U.S. Farms," Staff Reports 278525, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    4. Newton, Doris J. & Hoppe, Robert A., 2001. "Financial Well-Being of Small Farm Households Depends on the Health of Rural Economies," Rural America/ Rural Development Perspectives, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, vol. 16(1), May.
    5. Deavers, Kenneth L., 1989. "Lagging Growth and High Poverty: Do We Care?," Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resource Issues, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 4(2), pages 1-4.
    6. Stam, Jerome M., 1996. "Are Farmer Bankruptcies A Good Indicator of Rural Financial Stress?," Agricultural Information Bulletins 33675, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    7. Stam, Jerome M., 1997. "Do Farmers Need a Separate Chapter in the Bankruptcy Code?," Agricultural Information Bulletins 33725, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    8. Buckley, F H & Brinig, Margaret F, 1998. "The Bankruptcy Puzzle," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 27(1), pages 187-207, January.
    9. Stephan J. Goetz & David L. Debertin, 2001. "Why Farmers Quit: A County-Level Analysis," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 83(4), pages 1010-1023.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ani L. Katchova & Mary Clare Ahearn, 2017. "Farm entry and exit from US agriculture," Agricultural Finance Review, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 77(1), pages 50-63, May.
    2. Dubman, Robert & Key, Nigel & Law, Jonathan & Litkowski, Carrie & Mandalay, Okkar & Subedi, Dipak & Todd, Jessica E & Whitt, Christine, 2021. "Agricultural Income and Finance Situation and Outlook: 2021 Edition," Economic Information Bulletin 327362, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    3. Geoffroy Enjolras & Philippe Madiès, 2017. "The determinants of financial distress in French farms: Analysts versus Algorithms," Post-Print hal-02048313, HAL.
    4. John Bailey Jones & Sangeeta Pratap, 2020. "An Estimated Structural Model of Entrepreneurial Behavior," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(9), pages 2859-2898, September.
    5. Glenn D. Pederson & Lyubov Zech, 2009. "Assessing Credit Risk in an Agricultural Loan Portfolio," Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/Revue canadienne d'agroeconomie, Canadian Agricultural Economics Society/Societe canadienne d'agroeconomie, vol. 57(2), pages 169-185, June.
    6. Dinterman, Robert & Katchova, Ani, 2018. "Survival Analysis of Farm Bankruptcy Filings," 2018 Annual Meeting, August 5-7, Washington, D.C. 274117, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    7. Jason Henderson, 2008. "Will farmland values keep booming?," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, vol. 93(Q II), pages 81-104.
    8. Lukasz SATOLA & Tomasz WOJEWODZIC & Wojciech SROKA, 2018. "Barriers to exit encountered by small farms in light of the theory of new institutional economics," Agricultural Economics, Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences, vol. 64(6), pages 277-290.
    9. Robert Dinterman & Ani L. Katchova, 2021. "Survival analysis of farm bankruptcy filings: Evaluating the time to completion of chapter 12 bankruptcy cases," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(2), pages 324-347, April.
    10. Jeremy G. Weber & Nigel Key, 2015. "Leveraging Wealth from Farmland Appreciation: Borrowing, Land Ownership, and Farm Expansion," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 91(2), pages 344-361.
    11. Dodson, Charles & Koenig, Steven, 2006. "Evaluating the Relative Cost Effectiveness of the Farm Service Agency’s Farm Loan Programs – Report to Congress," USDA Miscellaneous 338717, United States Department of Agriculture.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lars Lefgren & Frank McIntyre, 2009. "Explaining the Puzzle of Cross-State Differences in Bankruptcy Rates," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 52(2), pages 367-393, May.
    2. Paudel, Krishna P. & Wang, Yiqian, 2002. "Part Time Farming, Farm Productivity, And Farm Income: Evidence From The Southeast Us," 2002 Annual meeting, July 28-31, Long Beach, CA 19594, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    3. Phillips, James & Harsh, Stephen, 1987. "Use of Expert Systems in Agricultural Economics: An Expert System Application to the Financial Analysis of Lender Case Farm Records," 1987 Annual Meeting, August 2-5, East Lansing, Michigan 337275, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    4. Vassalos, Michael & Karanikolas, Pavlos & Li, Yingbo, 2015. "Investigating the Impact of Farm Characteristics, Socioeconomic Characteristics and of the Single Farm Payment on the Viability of Farms: The Case of Greece," 2015 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 26-28, San Francisco, California 205423, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    5. H. Frederick Gale, 2003. "Age-Specific Patterns of Exit and Entry in U.S. Farming, 1978–1997," Review of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 25(1), pages 168-186.
    6. Geoffroy Enjolras & Philippe Madiès, 2020. "The role of bank analysts and scores in the prediction of financial distress: Evidence from French farms," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(4), pages 2978-2993.
    7. Hülya Eraslan & Gizem Koşar & Wenli Li & Pierre‐Daniel Sarte, 2017. "An Anatomy Of U.S. Personal Bankruptcy Under Chapter 13," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 58(3), pages 671-702, August.
    8. Wenli Li & Pierre-Daniel Sarte & Hulya Eraslan, 2007. "A Structural Model of Chapter 13 Personal Bankruptcy," 2007 Meeting Papers 972, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    9. Coronese, Matteo & Occelli, Martina & Lamperti, Francesco & Roventini, Andrea, 2023. "AgriLOVE: Agriculture, land-use and technical change in an evolutionary, agent-based model," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    10. Nofsinger, John R., 2012. "Household behavior and boom/bust cycles," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 161-173.
    11. Igor Livshits & James MacGee & Michèle Tertilt, 2010. "Accounting for the Rise in Consumer Bankruptcies," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 165-193, April.
    12. Garrone, Maria & Emmers, Dorien & Olper, Alessandro & Swinnen, Johan, 2019. "Jobs and agricultural policy: Impact of the common agricultural policy on EU agricultural employment," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 1-1.
    13. Raimondi, Valentina & Curzi, Daniele & Bertoni, Danilo & Olper, Alessandro, 2013. "Off-farm Labour Decision of Italian Farm Operators," Factor Markets Working Papers 173, Centre for European Policy Studies.
    14. Berna Türkekul & Canan Fisun Abay, 2024. "Understanding Why Farmers Leave: Validating Key Indicators for Farm Exit in İzmir, Türkiye," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(14), pages 1-20, July.
    15. Marie Dervillé & Gilles Allaire & Élise Maigné & Éric Cahuzac, 2017. "Internal and contextual drivers of dairy restructuring: evidence from French mountainous areas and post†quota prospects," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 48(1), pages 91-103, January.
    16. Burns, Christopher & Prager, Daniel, "undated". "Do Direct Payments and Crop Insurance Influence Commercial Farm Survival and Decisions to Expand?," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 235693, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    17. Benjamin B Boozer & S. Keith Lowe & Robert J. Landry III, 2014. "Personal Financial Decisions: A Study of Changes in Homestead Exemption Levels and Consumer Bankruptcy Choices," The International Journal of Business and Finance Research, The Institute for Business and Finance Research, vol. 8(4), pages 17-26.
    18. Key, Nigel D. & Roberts, Michael J., 2007. "Commodity Payments, Farm Business Survival, and Farm Size Growth," Economic Research Report 55968, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    19. Stefan Buehler & Christian Kaiser & Franz Jaeger, 2007. "On the Geographic and Cultural Determinants of Bankruptcy," SOI - Working Papers 0701, Socioeconomic Institute - University of Zurich, revised Jun 2007.
    20. Key, Nigel D. & Roberts, Michael J., 2005. "Do Government Payments Influence Farm Business Survival?," 2005 Annual meeting, July 24-27, Providence, RI 19248, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Agricultural Finance; Farm Management;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:uersab:33689. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ersgvus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.