Hurley, Terrance M.

January, 2016

Quantifying Adoption Intensity for Weed-Resistance Management Practices and Its Determinants among U.S. Soybean, Corn, and Cotton Farmers

By: Dong, Fengxia; Mitchell, Paul D.; Hurley, Terrance M.; Frisvold, George B.
Using data envelopment analysis with principal components, we calculate an adoption-intensity index for herbicide-resistance best management practices (BMPs). Empirical results for over 1,100 farmers in twenty-two U.S. states suggest that many farmers could improve their herbicideresistance BMP adoption. Two-limit truncated regression results show that higher yields and a greater proportion of acres planted with Roundup Ready R seeds motivate weed BMP adoption. While soybean and corn farmers have lower adoption intensity than cotton farmers, farmer educational attainment and greater concern for herbicide effectiveness and for human and environmental safety are found to help increase the adoption of weed BMPs.
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August, 2013

Polarized Preferences in Homegrown Value Auctions

By: Hurley, Terrance M.; Yue, Chengyan; Anderson, Neil O.
Homegrown value-auction experiments are useful for exploring preferences for controversial product attributes. These auctions have emphasized estimating the effect of the attribute on the willingness to pay (WTP) for a product. The likelihood that individuals are willing to purchase any products with the attribute has received less attention, even though this could also be useful to researchers, marketers, and policy makers. This article shows how simultaneous, single-unit auctions can be used to estimate not just WTPs, but also the likelihood that individuals are willing to purchase any products with a controversial attribute.
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August, 2012

Firm Size, Technical Change, and Wages in the Pork Sector, 1990-2005

By: Yu, Li; Hurley, Terrance M.; Kliebenstein, James B.; Orazem, Peter F.
This study investigates worker shares of the returns to scale and returns to technology adoption on U.S. hog farms. The wage analysis controls for a matching process by which workers are linked to farms of different sizes and technology uses. Using four surveys of employees on hog farms collected in 1990, 1995, 2000, and 2005, we find persistent large wage premiums are paid to workers on larger farms and on technologically advanced farms that remain large and statistically significant even after controlling for differences in observable worker attributes and in the observed sorting process of workers across farms.
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August, 2006

Estimating the Benefits of Bt Corn and Cost of Insect Resistance Management Ex Ante

By: Hurley, Terrance M.; Langrock, Ines; Ostlie, Kenneth
This paper estimates farmer benefits for corn rootworm (CRW) active Bt corn and costs of complying with Environmental Protection Agency insect resistance management requirements. The estimates are obtained from farmer survey data that were collected in Minnesota in 2002, just prior to the commercial releases of CRW Bt corn. Benefit estimates range from $14 to $33.4 million, while compliance cost estimated range from $3.5 to $8.7 million depending on whether or not CRW Bt corn also controlled the European corn borer and whether of not it was approved for sale in major export markets.
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August, 2005

Estimating the Potential Value of Variable Rate Nitrogen Applications: A Comparison of Spatial Econometric and Geostatistical Models

By: Hurley, Terrance M.; Oishi, Kikuo; Malzer, Gary L.
Site-specific crop response functions (SSCRFs) are useful for estimating the value of variable rate nitrogen applications (VRA), but appropriate statistical models are necessary. Problems estimating SSCRFs using experimental field data include region, spatial, treatment, and strip dependent heteroskedasticity and correlation. We develop a spatial autoregressive error (SARE) model for dealing with these problems and compare results with previous analysis based on a geostatistical (GEO) model. VRA value estimates for the two models differ notably for 1995 data from Southern Minnesota. Furthermore, findings show that the results of a comparison of model performance are location specific.
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December, 2002

INSURING THE STEWARDSHIP OF BT CORN: ‘A CARROT’ VERSUS ‘A STICK’

By: Mitchell, Paul D.; Hurley, Terrance M.; Babcock, Bruce A.; Hellmich, Richard L.
Subsidies and fines are compared to voluntary and mandatory refuge insurance (insurance for pest damage on Bt corn refuge) as mechanisms for securing grower compliance with EPA refuge mandates. A conceptual model partially ranks mechanisms. Tradeoffs between mechanisms using grower welfare, payments to growers, and monitoring frequency are quantified empirically. Grower welfare is lowest with mandatory insurance because growers pay all costs, and is highest with direct refuge subsidies because public funds or companies subsidize all costs. Assuming typical premium loads and ignoring distribution considerations, we develop monitoring budgets for fines and subsidies, above which voluntary or mandatory insurance is better.
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July, 2001

BT CORN AND INSECT RESISTANCE: AN ECONOMIC ASSESSMENT OF REFUGES

By: Hurley, Terrance M.; Babcock, Bruce A.; Hellmich, Richard L.
Genetically engineered crops offer farmers a new option for controlling pests. The high efficacy of these pesticidal crops, combined with the potential for widespread adoption, has raised concerns that pest resistance may prematurely diminish their value. In response to these concerns, the Environmental Protection Agency requires resistance management plans. Current resistance management plans rely on a high-dose refuge strategy. This analysis extends the current framework for evaluating high-dose refuge strategies to include a measure of agricultural productivity and conventional pesticide use. The economic tradeoff relative to agricultural productivity, conventional pesticide use, and pest resistance is assessed when Bt corn is planted to control the European corn borer.
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