Using detailed household-level data from Malawi on physical quantities of agricultural outputs and inputs, we measure farm total factor productivity (TFP), controlling for land quality, rain, transitory shocks. We find that operated size capital are essentially unrelated to TFP, implying substantial misallocation. The output gain a reallocation factors their efficient use among existing farmers...

The Acid Rain Program (ARP) cut sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ) emissions from power plants in the United States, with considerable benefits. We show this also reduced ambient sulfate levels, which lowered agriculture productivity through decreased soil sulfur. Using plant-level SO and an atmospheric transport model, we estimate relationship between airborne levels yields for corn soybeans. crop revenue...

Farmers often buy water using fixed fees—rather than with marginal prices. We use two randomized controlled trials in Bangladesh to study the relationship between prices, adoption of a water-saving technology, and usage. Our first experiment shows that technology only saves when farmers face second finds an encouragement voluntarily convert hourly pumping charges does not save water. Taken toge...

The literature on the capitalization of agricultural policies documents that government subsidies can increase farmland values with attesting empirical evidence found in a variety programs. This study argues well-documented effect prices may not be directly related to disaster relief program (ADRP). On one hand, payments positively capitalize into prices. other shocks result farm income loss wh...

In many developing countries property rights over rural land are maintained through continuous personal use instead of by land titles. We show that removing the link between land use and land rights through the issuance of ownership certificates can result in large-scale adjustments to labor and land allocations. Using the rollout of the Mexican land certification program from 1993 to 2006, we ...

Auctions allow regulators to identify land management changes with substantial environmental benefit and low opportunity cost. This paper reports an experiment in which seller subjects compete in sealed-offer auctions to obtain part of a fixed budget allocated by the experimenter-regulator to subsidize pollution abatement. One treatment employs uniform-price auction rules, whereas another treat...

Surface topography of human metaphase chromosomes following GTG banding was examined using high resolution atomic force microscopy (AFM). Although using a completely different imaging mechanism, which is based on the mechanical interaction of a probe tip with the chromosome, the observed banding pattern is comparable to results from light microscopy and a karyotype of the AFM imaged metaphase s...

Arizona is the first state in the nation to regulate agricultural practices in order to reduce dust emissions near urbanizing areas. This BMP program requires dust mitigation actions in some combination of tillage and harvest, crop land, and non-crop land activities. Contingent valuation methods were used to estimate the willingness-to-adopt reduced tillage equipment. At $10-26 per acre in long...

We estimate the effect of malaria on settlement and land use patterns in the Brazilian Amazon, where potential settlers were randomly assigned to plots in a newly opened settlement area. The random assignment allows us to estimate the risk of malaria on each plot based only on its characteristics. Using survey data, we find that a high malaria risk significantly reduces the probability that a p...