Shiva S. Makki

Returns to American Agricultural Research: Results from a Cointegration Model

Abstract This study examines the returns to U.S. agricultural research investments for the years 1930 through 1990 using a cointegration model. Time series data on agricultural productivity, public and private research investments, farmers’ education, terms of trade, and commodity programs were found to be nonstationary and cointegrated. The estimated internal rates of return are 27 percent for public research and 6 percent for private research. These estimates from the most comprehensive and timely data assembled to date indicate that returns to public agricultural research compare favorably to real returns on alternative long-run investments, but do not call for large increases in investments suggested by previous studies or for the drop in public research expenditures appropriated by the U.S. Congress in recent years.

Agricultural trade negotiations as a strategic game

This study views multilateral trade negotiations as a strategic game among nations or regions, including taxpayer, consumer, and producer components. Payoffs are calculated from an intermediate-run international trade model initialized with 1989 data. For the public at large, the Nash equilibrium and socially optimal outcome is liberalization of trade - unilateral or multilateral. Maintenance of the status quo of market distortions costing the world billions of dollars each year is rational only if producer payoffs are sovereign so that strategies optimal for producers are considered optimal for nations. Remedial policies are discussed, including opportunities for economic education, political system reform, and less incentives for producers to scuttle multilateral trade negotiations.

Assessing Adverse Selection in Crop Insurance Markets: An Application of Parametric and Nonparametric Methods

This paper investigates adverse selection in crop insurance markets using both parametric and nonparametric methods. Our results reject the conditional independence of the choice of insurance contracts and risk of loss, implying the presence of informational asymmetries between insurers and insureds in the markets. Results also show that actual premium rates are significantly different from both pure and fair premium rates. Our findings provide useful insights into asymmetric information problems and methods to assess the risk of loss in crop insurance markets.