AGRICOLA IND 90019481, Technical change is dynamic, recursive, and endogenous to the economic system. However, empirical studies usually treat technology as exogenous, defining technical change in terms of its end result: changes in some production possibilities set. An endogenous view of technical change is necessary to understand, anticipate, and perhaps alter the development and use of new technologies and their associated problems. This article outlines a conceptual framework in which technical change is endogenous. The framework accounts for the dynamic and recursive interactions between research and development activities, the adoption and diffusion of new innovations, and the regulatory and institutional environment. As an example, the development of glyphosate-tolerant crops is discussed to show how the framework can be used to identify, organize, and understand the important variables and relationships for a specific case of technical change.
Texas Agricultural Experiment Station Paper No. TA-25007; AGRICOLA IND 90017245, Agricultural lenders have a stake in and are in a position to influence their borrowers' management decisions. Risk management practice adoption is an area in which lenders might want to exercise this influence. This study employs logistic statistical models to estimate lenders' influence on crop producers decisions regarding use of three alternative risk management practices: federal multiple-peril crop insurance, crop hail and fire insurance, and forward contracting. Results suggest lenders can exert significant influence on these decisions but that poor communication between lenders and borrowers likely reduces this influence.
AGRICOLA IND 90010311; Discussion by C.R. Harper, : 96-97; Discussion by R.D. Weaver, : 98-102, The neoclassical paradigm has proven to be a rich approach for evaluating a variety of issues for individual and social decision making. However, an increasing body of literature suggests that actual behavior systematically violates the neoclassical utility model. This paper reviews a number of alternative models for decision making. Results from the literature show several examples of apparently "irrational" behavior that can be explained in terms of these alternative motivations. The paper also extends the received literature by examining in some detail the implications of one such model which is based on the psychological feeling of ambivalence. The paper demonstrates that ambivalence has the potential for explaining the appearance of intransitive choices, the use of rules of thumb in decision-making and the large discrepancies between stated willingness-to-pay and
Debertin, David L. (author), Pagoulatos, Angelos (author), Sjarkowi, Fachurrozi (author), and Pagoulatos: Professor of Agricultural Economics, University of Kentucky, KY; Debertin: Professor of Agricultural Economics, University of Kentucky, KY; Sjarkowi: Former graduate research assistant, University of Kentucky, KY
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
1989-12
Published:
USA
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 83 Document Number: C05160
AGRICOLA IND 90017248, This study developed an intertemporal profit function to determine optimal conservation adoption strategies under alternative scenarios with respect to crop prices, relative yields, discount rates, and other assumptions. Special emphasis was placed on determining from the analysis when the switchover from conventional to soil-conserving practices should take place. Technological change was incorporated by allowing crop yields to vary over time. Our analysis thus provides a new, more precise measurement of the cumulative net benefit differential. The optimal period for switchover from conventional to soil-conserving practices was found to vary depending on the assumptions made about corn Prices and discount rates. Empirical results were based on an erosion damage function (EDF) for Western Kentucky corn production.
