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The Varying Impacts of Agricultural Support Programs on U.S. Farm Household Consumption
Author(s) -
Whitaker James B.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
american journal of agricultural economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.949
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1467-8276
pISSN - 0002-9092
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8276.2009.01257.x
Subject(s) - subsidy , consumption (sociology) , agriculture , transfer payment , farm programs , economics , agricultural economics , government (linguistics) , farm income , econometric analysis , payment , margin (machine learning) , survey data collection , production (economics) , econometric model , business , microeconomics , finance , econometrics , welfare , market economy , ecology , social science , linguistics , philosophy , statistics , mathematics , machine learning , sociology , computer science , biology
Farm households are economic agents whose income is derived from farm, off‐farm, and government sources. This article uses farm‐level data from the Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS) and recent advances in the econometric theory of dynamic pseudo‐panels to show that farm households consume various sources of income differently at the margin. Particular attention is given to a specific type of lump‐sum government transfer payment intended to be decoupled from (independent of) farm production decisions. The results suggest that relatively decoupled government subsidies have a greater marginal effect on farm household consumption than subsidies that are tied to market conditions.