Assessing farmers’ risk preferences and their determinants in a marginal upland area of Vietnam: a comparison of multiple elicitation techniques

We examine the consistency of risk preference measures based on eight hypothetical elicitation methods and a lottery game applied to smallholder farmers in a marginal upland environment in Vietnam. Using these measures, we identify influencing factors of risk aversion via regression analysis, whereby unlike previous studies, we include several proxies of social capital such as social networks and norms. Data were collected from household heads and spouses separately in a random sample of 300 households. Although correlations between most of the various risk preference measures are all statistically highly significant, most are weak. On average, respondents have a high degree of risk aversion and specific characteristics—gender, age, idiosyncratic shocks, education, social norms, network‐reliance with extended family, and connections to local authorities—are significant determinants of risk preferences across most elicitation methods, whereas others—the household's dependency ratio, wealth, and covariate shocks—are significant in a few methods only. The explanatory power of the models is limited, indicating that other factors are likely to be of greater importance in determining risk preferences. The results can help target safety nets, encourage investments, and lead to the development of more applicable methods for assessing risk preferences of smallholders in developing countries.     

Heterogeneous Risk Preferences,Discount Rates and Land Contract Choice in Ethiopia

This paper analyses the role of risk and rate of time preference in the choice of land contracts. The analysis builds on the risk‐sharing and imperfect market explanations of contract choice. Unique data from Ethiopia, which contain land contract information and experimental risk and rate of time preference measures on matched landlord–tenant partners, are employed in the empirical analysis. The results show that landlord and tenant time preferences are significant determinants of contract choice. For landlords (but not tenants), risk preference is also significant, indicating the importance of financial constraints and production risk in the determination of contract choice. The results are of particular relevance to land market policy in Ethiopia, where production is risk‐prone, financial markets are imperfect, and where there is a major need for the development of vibrant land rental markets.     

Analysing Production Technology and Risk in Organic and Conventional Dutch Arable Farming using Panel Data

This paper compares the production technology and production risk of organic and conventional arable farms in the Netherlands. Just–Pope production functions that explicitly account for output variability are estimated using panel data of Dutch organic and conventional farms. Prior investigation of the data indicates that within variation of output is significantly higher for organic farms, indicating that organic farms face more output variation than conventional farms. The estimation results indicate that in both types of farms, unobserved farm‐specific factors like management skills and soil quality are important in explaining output variability and production risk. The results further indicate that land has the highest elasticity of production for both farm types. Labour and other variable inputs have significant production elasticities in the case of conventional farms and other variable inputs in the case of organic farms. Manure and fertilisers are risk‐increasing inputs on organic farms and risk‐reducing inputs on conventional farms. Other variable inputs and labour are risk increasing on both farm types; capital and land are risk‐reducing inputs.     

Social capital,risk preference and adoption of improved farm land management practices in Ethiopia

Many developing countries grapple with high rates of farmland degradation and low agricultural productivity amidst increasing climate variability. Considerable efforts have been exerted to promote the diffusion of improved farmland management to address these challenges. Despite these efforts, adoption rates, especially of soil conservation and water harvesting technologies, are still low, which has been the subject of investigation in several studies in Ethiopia and elsewhere. Most studies on the adoption of these technologies, however, tend to focus on economic incentives only, paying little attention to the role of social capital. This article provides evidence of the effects of different dimensions of social capital on innovation adoption across households holding different levels of risk aversion. We address this issue by using cross section and panel data from Ethiopia. Results show that social capital plays a significant role in enhancing the adoption of improved farmland management practices. We also find evidence that the effect of social capital across households with heterogeneous risk taking behavior is different.     

The impact of water price uncertainty on the adoption of precision irrigation systems

We examine whether a firm is more or less likely to adopt precision technology when input prices are stochastic. The results are important to determining whether programs and contracts that reduce input price uncertainty may deter the adoption of conservation practices. An economic model of the technology adoption decision shows that the net effect of input price risk is ambiguous and depends on several factors including the shutdown effect, the mean price effect, the precision expansion effect, and the risk aversion effect. An empirical implementation of the model relies on data on water price and irrigation technology adoption observed in a California irrigation district over the period 1999–2002. The results show that a stable input price increases the adoption of precision technology, but the impact depends on crop choice and land quality characteristics.     

Factors influencing the profitability of fertilizer use on maize in Zambia

Fertilizer use remains very low in most of Africa despite widespread agreement that much higher use rates are required for sustained agricultural productivity growth. This study uses longitudinal farm survey data to estimate maize yield response functions in a relatively high-potential zone of Zambia to determine the profitability of fertilizer use under a range of small-farm conditions found within this zone. The theoretical framework used in this study incorporates agronomic principles of the crop growth process. We generalize the asymmetric production models and define a concept of yield scaling factors. The model distinguishes different roles of inputs and non-input factors in crop production. We estimate the effects of conventional production inputs as well as of household characteristics and government programs on maize yield. The results indicate that recommended fertilizer application rates in the two specific years were often unprofitable, given observed price conditions and the yield response to fertilizer. However, there was substantial variability in yield response to fertilizer based upon the rate of application, the timeliness of fertilizer availability, the use of animal draught power during land preparation, and whether the household incurred the death of an adult member in the past three years. These modifying factors, as well as variations in input and output prices due to proximity to roads and markets, substantially affected the profitability of fertilizer use on maize.     

Adoption of organic farming in Germany and Austria: an integrative dynamic investment perspective

Farm‐level adaptation to changing economic environments is often slower than expected. Technological innovations, for instance, are frequently adopted at a later date than the net present value of investment suggests. This can be explained by a model of “investment under uncertainty,” which consistently accounts for uncertainty, sunk costs, and the flexibility of investment timing. Its essential conclusion is that, due to temporal opportunity costs, critical incremental cash flows that trigger investments might be higher than those needed for simple cost recovery. This accounts for an ostensible reluctance to invest (economic hysteresis). In this article, we demonstrate how slow conversion to organic farming in general, and the different rates of conversion in Germany and Austria in particular, can be explained by the new investment theory.     

Measuring the effect of risk attitude on marketing behavior

Despite extensive study, researchers continue to search for consistent and reliable measures of risk preferences to explain market behavior. We find that a measure, combining experiments rooted in expected utility theory and measures derived from surveys, explains spot and contractual sales, but does not exhibit substantially greater explanatory power than its underlying components. Survey‐based measures are generally more significant indicators of marketing choices, but experimental measures reveal how risk attitudes vary over a range of probable outcomes, which is important in light of increased commodity price volatility. Given recently identified limitations on the applicability of expected utility theory, we suggest that researchers include survey methods to obtain low‐cost supplemental measures.     

Tailored to the extremes: Quantile regression for index‐based insurance contract design

A new approach for weather index‐based insurance design based on Quantile Regression (QR) to condition the yield‐index dependency is developed and compared to standard regression technique. Three conceptual different risk measures, i.e., Expected Utility, Expected Shortfall and a Spectral Risk Measure, are used to evaluate the risk reducing properties of these contracts. Our findings show that QR is much more powerful in establishing the yield‐index dependency and lead for all risk measures to a higher risk reduction than the standard technique ordinary least squares (OLS). Thus, QR leads to a more efficient contract design, which is beneficial for both, the insurer (smaller remaining risk) and the insured (higher demand and willingness to pay). Our empirical application is based on a 31 years long time series of wheat yield data from Northern Kazakhstan.     

Evaluating the uncertainty in estimates of the economic impacts of Bovine-Leukosis virus in U.S. dairy cows

An examination of the economic impacts of Bovine‐Leukosis virus indicated that reduced milk production, attributed to the presence of Bovine‐Leukosis virus in dairy cows, reduced consumer surplus by 2.7 ± 2.3 billion US$ (bUS$), and resulted in a total partial equilibrium loss of 720 ± 560 million US$ (mUS$) to the U.S. economy in 1996. Most of the economic surplus lost by consumers was transferred to producers, whose economic surplus increased by 2.0 ± 1.8 bUS$ as a result of reduced milk production attributed to the presence of Bovine‐Leukosis virus in dairy cattle. Uncertainty analysis showed that an estimate of the milk‐production decline per percent increase in the prevalence of Bovine‐Leukosis virus in dairy cows accounted for most of the uncertainty in the economic‐impact estimates. If Bovine‐Leukosis virus had not been present in U.S. dairy cows, then milk production would have increased by 2.0 billion ± 1.5 billion kg, the price would have fallen by 3.8 ± 3.2 cents/kg, and the value of the milk produced would have decreased by 2.1 ± 1.9 bUS$. Guidelines delineated by the International Organization for Standardization, for evaluating and expressing uncertainty in measurement, are discussed and proposed for use in the context of broad national estimates, for which the economic impacts of Bovine‐Leukosis virus serve as an example. The principal advantages of the methodology are the clarity and transparency of results, and the ability clearly to identify major uncertainty contributors.     

Risk and marketing behavior: pricing fed cattle on a grid

A seven‐year comparative study of grid pricing versus average pricing of slaughter cattle was conducted to evaluate carcass quality market signals. The primary objectives of the study are to determine: (1) if market signals sent through the grid pricing system indicate an improvement in the grid incentive mechanism over time, (2) how changes in the grid premium and discount structure associated with carcass quality affect the market risk premium, and (3) if changes in price risk (variance) affect producer marketing decisions. An Exponential‐Autoregressive‐Conditional‐Heteroskedasticity‐in‐Mean (EARCH‐in‐Mean) modeling procedure was adopted. Empirical results suggest that the grid premium and discount structure is slowly adjusting carcass quality market signals to encourage marketing on a grid and discourage marketing by the pen. The inclusion of the conditional variance in the empirical model indicates that variance associated with the carcass quality risk premium adds financial risk associated with the adoption of grid pricing.     

Extreme Measures of Agricultural Financial Risk

The agricultural marketing environment is inherently risky. Having accurate measures of risk helps farmers, policy‐makers and financial institutions make better informed decisions about how to deal with this risk. This article examines three tail quantile‐based risk measures applied to the estimation of extreme agricultural financial risk for corn and soybean production in the US: Value at Risk, Expected Shortfall and Spectral Risk Measures. We use Extreme Value Theory to model the tail returns and present results for these three different risk measures using agricultural futures market returns data. We compare estimated risk measures in terms of size and precision, and find that they are all considerably higher than Gaussian estimates. The estimated risk measures are also quite imprecise, and become more so as the risks involved become more extreme.     

Production risk,risk aversion and the determination of risk attitudes among Spanish rice producers

Agricultural production is subject to risk and the attitudes of producers toward risk will influence input choices insofar as these affect production risk. Risk attitudes in turn may be affected by certain socioeconomic characteristics of producers. Using 2004 survey data from a cross‐section of 130 Spanish rice farms, we estimate risk‐aversion coefficients of farmers and investigate the influence of a series of socioeconomic variables on their risk attitudes. Our results show that farmers exhibit risk‐averse behavior and that risk attitudes are related to a series of socioeconomic characteristics. In particular, the belief that the farm will continue after the producer retires is found to increase the degree of risk aversion, while age is found to have nonlinear effects on risk aversion. Off‐farm income, especially from nonagricultural activities, is found to reduce risk aversion. Neither the educational level of the producer nor the presence of dependents on the household is found to have an effect on risk preferences. Regarding the production technology, we find that land, labor, and fitosanitary products are risk‐reducing inputs, whereas capital, seeds, and fertilizer all increase risk.     

Risk,learning, and technology adoption

This article explores how decision makers learn and use information, with an application to the adoption of biotechnology in agriculture. The empirical analysis relies on experimental and survey data measuring risk preferences, learning processes, and the adoption of genetically modified (GM) seeds among U.S. grain farmers. While controlling for risk aversion, we link individual learning rules with the cognitive abilities of each decision maker and their actual GM adoption decisions. We find evidence that very few individuals are Bayesian learners, and that the population of farmers is quite heterogeneous in terms of learning rules. This suggests that Bayesian learning (as commonly assumed in the analysis of agricultural technology adoption) is not an appropriate characterization. In addition, we do not find a strong relationship between observed learning styles and the timing of GM seed adoption. To the extent that learning is a key part of the process of technology adoption, this suggests the presence of much unobserved heterogeneity in learning among farmers.     

被征地农民贫困风险及安置措施研究

研究目的:为妥善安置被征地农民和防范风险的产生提供政策建议和决策参考。研究方法:阐述了被征地农民面临的贫困风险及风险程度,分析现行安置措施防范贫困风险的效用。研究结果:被征地农民面临的最主要的风险:收入下降、就业困难和长远生计缺乏保障。不同失地状况的被征地农民面临的风险程度是有差别的;不同的安置方式对防范风险的效用是不同的。研究结论:完善被征地农民安置政策措施,应明确以促进就业和建立社会保障体系为重点的基本政策取向,积极开拓多种安置途径。     

Integration of VaR and expected utility under departures from normality

This article identifies the level of the expected utility (EU) risk aversion and Value-at-Risk (VaR) confidence level that yield the same choice from a given distribution of outcomes, and thus allow for consistent application of the two criteria. The result for a given distribution is an explicit mapping between risk aversion under EU and VaR, for both normal and nonnormal distributions. The Cornish–Fisher expansion is used to establish adjusted mean-deviates for nonnormal outcome distributions and the investor's preference function is expanded to include elements for variance, skewness, and excess kurtosis. A farm-level application with nonnormal revenue distribution illustrates these approaches.     

Yield and income risk-efficiency analysis of alternative systems for rice production in the Guinea Savannah of Northern Ghana

Risk efficiency of rice grain yield and returns to farm operators' household resources generated from an improved short‐duration cover crop fallow system were compared with (traditional) natural bush fallow, and continuous rice‐cropping systems. The improved fallow system involved maintaining Calopogonium mucunoides, seeded into a natural bush fallow for 2 years before planting to rice. With no chemical fertilizer application, which reflects farmers' practice in the area, average grain yield for continuous rice (1,185 kg/ha) and the cropping sequence incorporating a natural bush fallow (1,175 kg/ha) did not differ, but were higher for the improved fallow system (1,304 kg/ha). This suggests that nutrient contribution from the leguminous cover crop made up for critical crop N requirements in the improved fallow. Stochastic dominance of grain yield distributions from the improved fallow system, relative to the other two cropping systems, was more dramatic with no N fertilizer application compared to treatments with 30 kg/ha N. Average returns were highest for the improved fallow system, followed by the natural bush fallow‐cropping system, and then continuous rice, under the no N fertilizer treatment regime. With 30 kg/ha N fertilizer, income risk efficiency was less clear (compared to treatments with no N fertilizer), especially between continuous rice and the improved fallow treatment, because of faster N mineralization effects on continuous rice. In contrast, the improved cover crop fallow system completely dominated the natural bush fallow treatment under both fertilizer regimes. Rice production systems that incorporated the leguminous cover crop fallow were superior to the natural bush fallow system, based on both grain yield and average farm income risk‐efficiency considerations.     

Non-parametric estimation of decision makers' risk aversion

A new non‐parametric method to estimate a decision maker's coefficient of absolute risk aversion from observed economic behaviour is explained. The method uses the expected value‐variance (E‐V) framework and quadratic programming. An empirical illustration is given using Norwegian farm‐level data.     

Measuring Price Risk on UK Arable Farms

Price risk is estimated for a representative UK arable farm using value‐at‐risk (VaR). To determine the distribution of commodity returns, two multivariate generalised autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH) models, with t‐distributed and normally distributed errors, and a RiskMetrics^TM model are estimated. Returns show excess kurtosis and that the GARCH model with t‐distributed errors fits best. Estimates of VaR differ between models: both GARCH models perform well but the RiskMetrics^TM model underestimates expected losses. UK arable farms face substantial price risk.