Agricultural Economics最新文献

We examine the impact of a recent state-led alcohol prohibition policy on caloric and macronutrient intake from healthy food sources in Bihar, India. We exploit an exogenous statewide ban on the production, sale, and consumption of alcohol implemented in 2016. Using data from two rounds of a nationally representative cross-sectional survey conducted before and after the ban and employing a propensity score matching difference-in-differences framework, we find that alcohol prohibition led to significant increases in caloric, protein, and fat intake from healthy food sources. The policy was also associated with a decline in fat intake from unhealthy food sources. These findings are robust across a range of specifications and estimation strategies. Heterogeneity analysis reveals stronger effects among urban households, wealthier cohorts, and marginalized castes. The observed changes are likely driven by healthy behavioral spillovers, reduced marital conflicts, higher household earnings, income effects from the reallocation of resources previously spent on alcohol, and increased household spending on healthy food items such as pulses, dairy products, and healthy oils.

The South-to-North Water Diversion Project (SNWDP), the largest inter-basin water transfer project in the world, was launched to address severe water shortages in northern China and to support agricultural production, ecological restoration, and urban development. This paper examines the impact of the SNWDP's central route on agricultural and ecological outcomes, with a particular focus on grain yield measured by the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). NDVI is used because it provides high-frequency, fine-resolution measures of vegetation health on both cropland and non-cropland, allowing us to capture impacts on agricultural productivity as well as broader environmental conditions. Using a combination of difference-in-differences, instrumental variable estimation, and event study analysis, we find that the project significantly increases NDVI and grain yield. Further analysis shows that the project improves vegetation health more broadly by increasing the Leaf Area Index, surface water area, and soil moisture content, thereby confirming an enhanced water supply for irrigation and ecosystem support. These results highlight the effectiveness of large-scale water diversion projects in improving both agricultural productivity and environmental conditions.

Agricultural machinery socialization services (AMSS) are the primary channel for mechanized grain harvesting in China. Nevertheless, mechanical harvest loss rates for the country's three staple grains exceed thresholds set by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MARA), posing risks to national food security. This study examines the roots of opportunistic behavior among AMSS providers and its consequences for harvest losses. Using survey data from 649 rice farmers in Jiangsu, Sichuan, and Jilin provinces in China, we find that reliance on AMSS increases rice harvest losses, mainly because providers raise operating speeds—an expression of opportunism. Losses are higher when services are delivered by cross-regional rather than local providers. Cross-regional operators tend to work faster and find it difficult to build stable relationships with farmers; the one-time deal of these interactions encourages opportunism. Seasonal time constraints further amplify these effects. When the harvest window is tight, dependence on AMSS significantly worsens losses. The results suggest that effective policy interventions must address the fundamental incentive misalignment in AMSS markets through standardized operating protocols, enhanced monitoring systems, and mechanisms that transform one-time deal into repeated interactions.

This study performs an evaluation of the EU crop diversification obligation by leveraging administrative, geo-spatial data sourced from agricultural subsidy registers in Spain. The key features of GeoSpatial Aid Application (GSA) data include national coverage, accurate identification of land use and, crucially, the ability to group land parcels managed by the same farm, thus enabling causal analyses at the holding level. We provide novel empirical evidence of bunching at diversification policy thresholds. We calibrate a model of farmers' decision-making to GSA data and provide insights on the characterization of bunchers and compliers, finding stronger reactions among smaller-sized holdings. We concisely discuss implications for future research endeavors in the agricultural policy domain.

The recent surge in violent conflicts, intertwined with climate-induced drought shock, is jeopardizing decades of development progress in many low- and middle-income countries. This study investigates the compounded effects of armed conflicts and climate-induced disruptions on agricultural input use in Ethiopia, a country experiencing significant fragility due to both factors. Utilizing a unique household- and plot-level panel dataset collected before (2019) and after (2023) the onset of a widespread conflict, we examine how these disruptions affect the use of key productivity-enhancing agricultural inputs such as inorganic fertilizers, improved seed varieties, agrochemicals, compost, and manure. We find conflict exposure significantly reduces the use of productivity-enhancing agricultural inputs: inorganic fertilizer and improved seed use decline by 9% points, while compost and manure use fall by 11% and 13% points, respectively. These effects are magnified when conflict coincides with drought exposure, with fertilizer and improved seed use dropping by 25% and 22% points, respectively. We identify disrupted input markets—specifically reduced access to and availability of inputs, as well as rising prices—as key mechanisms. Conflict-exposed households also experience significantly higher food insecurity and lower consumption. These findings underscore the compounding risks that conflict and climatic stress pose to smallholder agriculture and rural welfare. They highlight the need for anticipatory and post-conflict resilience strategies that maintain functioning input markets and safeguard agricultural investment under fragility.

China's Grassland Ecological Compensation Policy (GECP) is the world's most extensive grassland conservation program, based on a payment- for- ecosystem- services framework. Despite comprehensive studies on its impact, the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Using survey data collected from 1039 forage farmers in Gansu and Qinghai provinces in China, this study employs a propensity score matching approach to address selection bias from observable factors. A selectivity-corrected stochastic production frontier model was subsequently applied to correct for the bias due to unobservable characteristics. We find that GECP increased technical efficiency by more than 5.7%. Moreover, the unconditional quantile regression results demonstrate that farmers with higher TE quantiles benefit more from GECP than farmers with lower TE quantiles.

This study examines whether cover crop adoption reduces downside production risk. A crop insurance loss measure is used as the main measure of downside production risk. To achieve the study objective, we utilize a unique county-level panel data set with information on cover crop adoption rate, crop insurance production losses, and weather variables. The data covers the main corn and soybean production regions in the Midwestern United States for the period 2005–2018. We employ linear fixed effects econometric models and a number of robustness checks in the empirical analysis (i.e., implementing different estimation procedures and a variety of empirical specifications). The different estimation methods employed leverage the panel nature of the data to address various specification and endogeneity issues. Our estimation results suggest that counties with higher cover crop adoption tend to have lower crop insurance losses and lower downside production risk. This finding supports the idea that the soil health benefits from cover crop use translate to a reduced likelihood of production losses.