[go: up one dir, main page]
More Web Proxy on the site http://driver.im/
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/aaea13/151269.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

On Technological Change in Crop Yields

Author

Listed:
  • Tolhurst, Tor
  • Ker, Alan P.
Abstract
Technological change in plant research rarely shifts the entire yield distribution upwards as assumed in the agricultural economics literature. Rather, technologies have been targeted at a specific subpopulation of the yield distribution--for example, drought resistant seeds or so-called racehorse seeds--therefore, it is unlikely technological advancements are equal across subpopulations. In this manuscript we introduce a mixture model of crop yields with an embedded trend function in the component means, which allows different rates of technological change in each mixture or subpopulation. By doing so, we can test some interesting hypotheses that have been previously untestable. While previous literature assumes an equivalent rate of technological change across subpopulations we reject the null in 84.0%, 82.3%, and 64.0% of the counties for corn, soybean, and wheat respectively. Conversely, with respect to stable subpopulations through time (i.e. climate change) we reject in only 12.0%, 5.4%, and 4.6% of the counties for corn, soybean, and wheat respectively. These results have implications for modelling yields, directing funds regarding plant science research, and explaining the prevalence of heteroscedasticity in yield data.

Suggested Citation

  • Tolhurst, Tor & Ker, Alan P., 2013. "On Technological Change in Crop Yields," 2013 Annual Meeting, August 4-6, 2013, Washington, D.C. 151269, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:aaea13:151269
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.151269
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/151269/files/aaea13_tolhurst_ker.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.151269?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
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Turvey, Calum & Zhao, Jinhua, 1999. "Parametric And Non- Parametric Crop Yield Distributions and Their Effects on All-Risk Crop Insurance Premiums," Working Papers 244742, University of Guelph, Department of Food, Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    2. Miller, Edward M, 1977. "Risk, Uncertainty, and Divergence of Opinion," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 32(4), pages 1151-1168, September.
    3. Ralph R. Botts & James N. Boles, 1958. "Use of Normal-Curve Theory in Crop Insurance Ratemaking," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 40(3), pages 733-740.
    4. Jerry R. Skees & J. Roy Black & Barry J. Barnett, 1997. "Designing and Rating an Area Yield Crop Insurance Contract," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 79(2), pages 430-438.
    5. Richard E. Just & Quinn Weninger, 1999. "Are Crop Yields Normally Distributed?," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 81(2), pages 287-304.
    6. Gallagher, Paul W., 1987. "U.S. Soybean Yields: Estimation and Forecasting with Non-Symmetric Disturbances," Staff General Research Papers Archive 10779, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    7. Bruce J. Sherrick & Fabio C. Zanini & Gary D. Schnitkey & Scott H. Irwin, 2004. "Crop Insurance Valuation under Alternative Yield Distributions," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 86(2), pages 406-419.
    8. Barnwal, Prabhat & Kotani, Koji, 2013. "Climatic impacts across agricultural crop yield distributions: An application of quantile regression on rice crops in Andhra Pradesh, India," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 95-109.
    9. Pease, James W., 1992. "A Comparison Of Subjective And Historical Crop Yield Probability Distributions," Southern Journal of Agricultural Economics, Southern Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 24(2), pages 1-10, December.
    10. Arellano, M, 1987. "Computing Robust Standard Errors for Within-Groups Estimators," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 49(4), pages 431-434, November.
    11. 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.
    12. Jesse Tack & Ardian Harri & Keith Coble, 2012. "More than Mean Effects: Modeling the Effect of Climate on the Higher Order Moments of Crop Yields," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 94(5), pages 1037-1054.
    13. 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.
    14. Ardian Harri & Cumhur Erdem & Keith H. Coble & Thomas O. Knight, 2009. "Crop Yield Distributions: A Reconciliation of Previous Research and Statistical Tests for Normality," Review of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 31(1), pages 163-182.
    15. Joseph Atwood & Saleem Shaik & Myles Watts, 2003. "Are Crop Yields Normally Distributed? A Reexamination," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 85(4), pages 888-901.
    16. Roger Claassen & Richard E. Just, 2010. "Heterogeneity and Distributional Form of Farm-Level Yields," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 93(1), pages 144-160.
    17. Robert Finger, 2010. "Revisiting the Evaluation of Robust Regression Techniques for Crop Yield Data Detrending," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 92(1), pages 205-211.
    18. Coble, Keith H. & Heifner, Richard G. & Zuniga, Manuel, 2000. "Implications Of Crop Yield And Revenue Insurance For Producer Hedging," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 25(2), pages 1-21, December.
    19. Scott M. Swinton & Robert P. King, 1991. "Evaluating Robust Regression Techniques for Detrending Crop Yield Data with Nonnormal Errors," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 73(2), pages 446-451.
    20. Featherstone, Allen M. & Kastens, Terry L., 2000. "Non-Parametric and Semi-Parametric Techniques for Modeling and Simulating Correlated, Non-Normal Price and Yield Distributions: Applications to Risk Analysis in Kansas Agriculture," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 32(2), pages 267-281, August.
    21. Alan P. Ker & Keith Coble, 2003. "Modeling Conditional Yield Densities," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 85(2), pages 291-304.
    22. Clifton B. Luttrell & R. Alton Gilbert, 1976. "Crop Yields: Random, Cyclical, or Bunchy?," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 58(3), pages 521-531.
    23. Ker, Alan P. & McGowan, Pat, 2000. "Weather-Based Adverse Selection And The U.S. Crop Insurance Program: The Private Insurance Company Perspective," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 25(2), pages 1-25, December.
    24. Octavio A. Ramírez, 1997. "Estimation and Use of a Multivariate Parametric Model for Simulating Heteroskedastic, Correlated, Nonnormal Random Variables: The Case of Corn Belt Corn, Soybean, and Wheat Yields," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 79(1), pages 191-205.
    25. Ardian Harri & Keith H. Coble & Alan P. Ker & Barry J. Goodwin, 2011. "Relaxing Heteroscedasticity Assumptions in Area-Yield Crop Insurance Rating," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 93(3), pages 703-713.
    26. Octavio A. Ramírez & Tanya McDonald, 2006. "Ranking Crop Yield Models: A Comment," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 88(4), pages 1105-1110.
    27. Bailey Norwood & Matthew C. Roberts & Jayson L. Lusk, 2004. "Ranking Crop Yield Models Using Out-of-Sample Likelihood Functions," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 86(4), pages 1032-1043.
    28. Barry K. Goodwin & Alan P. Ker, 1998. "Nonparametric Estimation of Crop Yield Distributions: Implications for Rating Group-Risk Crop Insurance Contracts," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 80(1), pages 139-153.
    29. Pease, James W., 1992. "A Comparison of Subjective and Historical Crop Yield Probability Distributions," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 24(2), pages 23-32, December.
    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. Fabio G Santeramo, 2019. "I Learn, You Learn, We Gain Experience in Crop Insurance Markets," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(2), pages 284-304, June.
    2. ODonoghue, Erik & Tulman, Sarah, 2016. "The Demand for Crop Insurance: Elasticity and the Effect of Yield Shocks," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 235623, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    3. Yong Liu & Alan P. Ker, 2021. "Simultaneous borrowing of information across space and time for pricing insurance contracts: An application to rating crop insurance policies," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 88(1), pages 231-257, March.
    4. Jacques, David & Fox, Glenn & White, Peter, 2018. "Farm level economic analysis of subsurface drip irrigation in Ontario corn production," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 203(C), pages 333-343.
    5. Paolo Agnolucci & Vincenzo De Lipsis, 2020. "Long-run trend in agricultural yield and climatic factors in Europe," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 159(3), pages 385-405, April.
    6. A. Ford Ramsey & Barry K. Goodwin, 2019. "Value-at-Risk and Models of Dependence in the U.S. Federal Crop Insurance Program," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-21, April.
    7. Alexandre Gohin, 2019. "General Equilibrium Modelling of the Insurance Industry: U.S. Crop Insurance," Journal of Global Economic Analysis, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Department of Agricultural Economics, Purdue University, vol. 4(2), pages 108-145, December.
    8. A Ford Ramsey, 2020. "Probability Distributions of Crop Yields: A Bayesian Spatial Quantile Regression Approach," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 102(1), pages 220-239, January.
    9. Chemeris, Anna & Liu, Yong & Ker, Alan P., 2022. "Insurance subsidies, climate change, and innovation: Implications for crop yield resiliency," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    10. Zheng Li & Roderick M. Rejesus & Xiaoyong Zheng, 2021. "Nonparametric Estimation and Inference of Production Risk," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 103(5), pages 1857-1877, October.
    11. Tolhurst, Tor N. & Ker, Alan P., 2017. "The Fingerprint of Climate on 65 Years of Increasing and Asymmetric Crop Yield Volatility in the Corn Belt," 2017 Annual Meeting, July 30-August 1, Chicago, Illinois 259189, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    12. Liu, Y. & Ker, A., 2018. "Is There Too Much History in Historical Yield Data," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 277293, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    13. Ker, Alan. P & Tolhurst, Tor & Liu, Yong, 2015. "Rating Area-yield Crop Insurance Contracts Using Bayesian Model Averaging and Mixture Models," 2015 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 26-28, San Francisco, California 205211, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    14. Jesse Tack & Keith Coble & Barry Barnett, 2018. "Warming temperatures will likely induce higher premium rates and government outlays for the U.S. crop insurance program," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 49(5), pages 635-647, September.
    15. Addey, Kwame Asiam & Shaik, Saleem & Nganje, William, 2022. "DEVELOPMENT OF FARM MODEL FOR ND and NGP Prediction of Corn and Soybean Yields in the Presence of Random Shocks," Agribusiness & Applied Economics Report 320066, North Dakota State University, Department of Agribusiness and Applied Economics.
    16. Shen, Zhiwei, 2016. "Adaptive local parametric estimation of crop yields: implication for crop insurance ratemaking," 156th Seminar, October 4, 2016, Wageningen, The Netherlands 249984, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    17. Alex Boakye, 2023. "Estimating agriculture technologies’ impact on maize yield in rural South Africa," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 3(8), pages 1-17, August.
    18. Ramirez, Octavio A. & Shonkwiler, J. Scott, 2017. "A Probabilistic Model of Crop Insurance Purchase Decision," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 42(1), pages 1-17, January.
    19. Kuangyu Wen, 2023. "A semiparametric spatio‐temporal model of crop yield trend and its implication to insurance rating," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 54(5), pages 662-673, September.
    20. Du, Xiaodong & Dong, Fengxia, 2024. "Climate Change and Dynamics of Crop Yield Distribution," 2024 Annual Meeting, July 28-30, New Orleans, LA 343786, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    21. Barry K. Goodwin & Nicholas E. Piggott, 2020. "Has Technology Increased Agricultural Yield Risk? Evidence from the Crop Insurance Biotech Endorsement," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 102(5), pages 1578-1597, October.

    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. Ozaki, Vitor & Campos, Rogério, 2017. "Reduzindo a Incerteza no Mercado de Seguros: Uma Abordagem via Informações de Sensoriamento Remoto e Atuária," Revista Brasileira de Economia - RBE, EPGE Brazilian School of Economics and Finance - FGV EPGE (Brazil), vol. 71(4), December.
    2. Ker, Alan. P & Tolhurst, Tor & Liu, Yong, 2015. "Rating Area-yield Crop Insurance Contracts Using Bayesian Model Averaging and Mixture Models," 2015 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 26-28, San Francisco, California 205211, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    3. Christopher N. Boyer & B. Wade Brorsen & Emmanuel Tumusiime, 2015. "Modeling skewness with the linear stochastic plateau model to determine optimal nitrogen rates," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 46(1), pages 1-10, January.
    4. 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.
    5. Yong Liu & Alan P. Ker, 2021. "Simultaneous borrowing of information across space and time for pricing insurance contracts: An application to rating crop insurance policies," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 88(1), pages 231-257, March.
    6. Ramirez, Octavio & Shonkwiler, J. Scott, 2016. "Some Comparative Statics for Evaluating the Performance of the US Crop Insurance Program," SCC-76 Meeting, 2016, March 17-19, Pensacola, Florida 233761, SCC-76: Economics and Management of Risk in Agriculture and Natural Resources.
    7. Yu, Tian, 2011. "Three essays on weather and crop yield," ISU General Staff Papers 201101010800002976, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    8. Jesse B. Tack & David Ubilava, 2015. "Climate and agricultural risk: measuring the effect of ENSO on U.S. crop insurance," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 46(2), pages 245-257, March.
    9. Jesse Tack & David Ubilava, 2013. "The effect of El Niño Southern Oscillation on U.S. corn production and downside risk," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 121(4), pages 689-700, December.
    10. Gerlt, Scott & Thompson, Wyatt & Miller, Douglas, 2014. "Exploiting the Relationship between Farm-Level Yields and County-Level Yields for Applied Analysis," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 39(2), pages 1-18.
    11. Jing Wang & Feng Fang & Qiang Zhang & Jinsong Wang & Yubi Yao & Wei Wang, 2016. "Risk evaluation of agricultural disaster impacts on food production in southern China by probability density method," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 83(3), pages 1605-1634, September.
    12. A Ford Ramsey, 2020. "Probability Distributions of Crop Yields: A Bayesian Spatial Quantile Regression Approach," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 102(1), pages 220-239, January.
    13. Gerlt, Scott & Westhoff, Patrick, 2013. "Analysis of the Supplemental Coverage Option," 2013 AAEA: Crop Insurance and the Farm Bill Symposium 156704, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    14. Ramirez, Octavio A. & Shonkwiler, J. Scott, 2017. "A Probabilistic Model of Crop Insurance Purchase Decision," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 42(1), pages 1-17, January.
    15. Shen, Zhiwei, 2016. "Adaptive local parametric estimation of crop yields: implication for crop insurance ratemaking," 156th Seminar, October 4, 2016, Wageningen, The Netherlands 249984, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    16. Li, Shuang & Ker, Alan P., 2013. "An Assessment of the Canadian Federal-Provincial Crop Production Insurance Program under Future Climate Change Scenarios in Ontario," 2013 Annual Meeting, August 4-6, 2013, Washington, D.C. 151213, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    17. Lanoue, Christopher & Sherrick, Bruce J. & Woodard, Joshua D. & Paulson, Nicholas D., 2010. "Evaluating Yield Models for Crop Insurance Rating," 2010 Annual Meeting, July 25-27, 2010, Denver, Colorado 61761, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    18. Yong Liu & A. Ford Ramsey, 2023. "Incorporating historical weather information in crop insurance rating," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 105(2), pages 546-575, March.
    19. Arata, Linda & Fabrizi, Enrico & Sckokai, Paolo, 2020. "A worldwide analysis of trend in crop yields and yield variability: Evidence from FAO data," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 190-208.
    20. Gerlt, Scott & Westhoff, Patrick, "undated". "Comparison of County ARC and SCO," 2014 AAEA: Crop Insurance and the 2014 Farm Bill Symposium: Implementing Change in U.S. Agricultural Policy, October 8-9, 2014, Louisville, KY 184289, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Crop Production/Industries;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:aaea13:151269. 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/aaeaaea.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.