@article{aglasan_rejesus_hagen_salas_2023, title={Cover crops, crop insurance losses, and resilience to extreme weather events}, ISSN={["1467-8276"]}, DOI={10.1111/ajae.12431}, abstractNote={AbstractThis study investigates whether cover crop adoption reduces extreme‐weather‐related crop insurance losses. To achieve this objective, we utilize a county‐level panel data set with information on cover crop adoption acres, crop insurance losses (i.e., specifically due to drought, excess heat, or excess moisture), and a number of weather variables. The data cover the main row crop production region in the Midwestern United States (US) for the period 2005 to 2018. We utilize linear fixed effects econometric models and a number of robustness checks in the empirical analysis (i.e., a fractional regression approach, two “external‐instrument‐free” estimation procedures, and a variety of alternative empirical specifications). The estimation methods used take advantage of the panel nature of the data to address various specification and endogeneity issues. We find evidence that counties with higher cover crop adoption tend to have lower crop insurance losses due to drought, excess heat, or excess moisture. Our analysis also indicates that cover crops likely have stronger loss mitigation effects against excess moisture events (like floods) and somewhat weaker loss mitigation impacts against droughts and excess heat. Nonetheless, our results overall suggest that cover crops can enhance resilience to extreme weather events and have the potential to be an effective climate change adaptation strategy in US agriculture.}, journal={AMERICAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS}, author={Aglasan, Serkan and Rejesus, Roderick M. and Hagen, Stephen and Salas, William}, year={2023}, month={Oct} }
 @article{park_rejesus_aglasan_che_hagen_salas_2022, title={Payments from agricultural conservation programs and cover crop adoption}, ISSN={["2040-5804"]}, DOI={10.1002/aepp.13248}, abstractNote={AbstractThis study explores how aggregate payments received from two different U.S. agricultural conservation programs—the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP)—influence county‐level cover crop adoption rates in the Corn Belt. We utilize 2006–2015 county‐level panel data with information on cover crop adoption rates and per acre conservation program payments to achieve the study objective. Cover crop adoption information is collected from a unique satellite‐based data set of soil health practices. Linear fixed effect models, fractional regression models, and a moment‐based instrumental variables model are used in the empirical analysis. Our estimation results suggest that EQIP payments have a statistically significant positive effect on cover crop adoption at the county level. In contrast, we find statistical evidence that CSP payments reduce the county‐level proportion of acres planted to cover crops. These opposing effects indicate that it is possible for conservation payment programs to have differing aggregate effects on adoption rates of specific conservation practices (e.g., cover crops in this case). Moreover, these results imply that not all conservation programs “are created equal” and differences in policy designs and focus areas may induce diverging effects in the uptake of particular conservation practices.}, journal={APPLIED ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES AND POLICY}, author={Park, Byungyul and Rejesus, Roderick M. and Aglasan, Serkan and Che, Yuyuan and Hagen, Stephen C. and Salas, William}, year={2022}, month={Mar} }
 @article{aglasan_goodwin_rejesus_2022, title={Risk effects of GM corn: Evidence from crop insurance outcomes and high-dimensional methods}, ISSN={["1574-0862"]}, DOI={10.1111/agec.12757}, abstractNote={AbstractThis study evaluates whether genetically modified (GM) corn hybrids with rootworm resistant traits (GM‐RW) have lower yield risk. A crop insurance actuarial performance measure, the loss cost ratio (LCR), is used to represent yield risk. High‐dimensional methods are utilized in this study to maintain parsimony in the empirical specification, and facilitate estimation. Specifically, we employ the Cluster‐Lasso (cluster‐least absolute shrinkage and selection operator) procedure. This method produces uniformly valid inference on the main variable of interest (i.e., the GM‐RW variable) in a high‐dimensional panel data setting even in the presence of heteroskedastic, non‐Gaussian, and clustered error structures. After controlling for a large set of potential weather confounders using Cluster‐Lasso, we find consistent evidence that GM corn hybrids with rootworm resistant traits have lower yield risk.}, journal={AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS}, author={Aglasan, Serkan and Goodwin, Barry K. and Rejesus, Roderick M.}, year={2022}, month={Dec} }
 @article{rejesus_aglasan_knight_cavigelli_dell_lane_hollinger_2021, title={Economic dimensions of soil health practices that sequester carbon: Promising research directions}, volume={76}, ISSN={["1941-3300"]}, DOI={10.2489/jswc.2021.0324A}, abstractNote={S oil health is a key element in enhancing agricultural production, environmental sustainability, and food system resilience (Farnsworth 2015; Stevens 2018). The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) defines soil health as “the continued capacity of soil to function as a vital living ecosystem that sustains plants, animals, and humans” (Pankhurst et al. 1997; Farnsworth 2015; Bowman et al. 2016). A common theme points to soil health as an indicator of the soil’s ability to support life, withstand environmental stresses, and endure as an important part of a resilient ecosystem. Because one of the key individual components of soil health is carbon (C) in organic matter (Idowu et al. 2009; Morrow et al. 2016), enhancing soil health also has a prominent role to play in addressing climate change (Stockmann et al. 2013; Schipanski et al. 2014; Paustian et al. 2016). Improving soil health is a natural climate solution (NCS) that increases C storage in soils (Poeplau and Don 2015; Griscom et al. 2017; Jian et al. 2020). Given soil health’s key role in sustaining agricultural productivity and enhancing C storage, there is significant interest in promoting agricultural management decisions, practices, and production systems that can help maintain or improve soil health. These include practices such as cover cropping, no-till residue and tillage management, conservation crop rotations, mulching, and nutrient management. However, adoption of these soil health practices by farmers is inextricably linked to whether private economic benefits from implementing these practices (i.e., benefits to the farmer) outweigh the associated private adoption costs. In addition, understanding the environmental benefits from adopting these soil health practices (i.e., external benefits to society through ecosystems services) can help inform design of public policies seeking to align private incentives with public environmental goals (for example, designing of subsidy payments to farmers). In this paper, we describe the economic dimensions associated with the decision to adopt soil health practices. These are important concepts that will help soil and water conservation practitioners further encourage adoption of soil health practices. Here, we summarize recent literature that examines the economic benefits and costs of cover crops and no-till systems for the United States, in general, and the understudied Northeast region of the United States, in particular. The Northeast is chosen here because several states in this region (i.e., Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware) are among the top states in terms of percentage cover crop and no-till adoption (Zulauf and Brown 2019a, 2019b). Yet there have been few economic studies of soil health practices for this region (more on this below). The Northeast region of the United States in this study includes Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont. Adoption of cover crops and no-till varies widely across the United States (figure 1). Key research directions are identified that would enhance understanding of the economics of soil health practices and provide insights into policies that can help encourage adoption of these C-sequestering soil health practices.}, number={3}, journal={JOURNAL OF SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION}, author={Rejesus, Roderick M. and Aglasan, Serkan and Knight, Lynn G. and Cavigelli, Michel A. and Dell, Curtis J. and Lane, Erin D. and Hollinger, David Y.}, year={2021}, pages={55A–60A} }
 @article{wang_rejesus_aglasan_2021, title={Warming Temperatures, Yield Risk and Crop Insurance Participation}, volume={48}, ISSN={["1464-3618"]}, DOI={10.1093/erae/jbab034}, abstractNote={Abstract
               Previous literature have shown that warming temperatures due to climate change are likely to decrease mean crop yields and increase crop yield risk. However, there is limited understanding of how crop insurance participation can potentially affect the adverse crop yield impacts of warming (or extreme heat). This study specifically examines whether crop insurance participation influences the impact of extreme heat on yield risk (i.e. yield variance, skewness and kurtosis). We utilise a parametric moment-based method and county-level panel data to evaluate how crop insurance participation affects the relationship between warming temperatures and the moments of crop yield distributions. Our results indicate that the yield risk increasing effect of warming is further magnified under high levels of crop insurance participation. This result still holds even when allowing for long-run adaptation (although the crop insurance effect tends to be weaker in this case). In general, our results indicate that not only does crop insurance participation adversely impact mean yields under climate change, it also influences the extent by which warming affects yield variability over time. This supports the notion that crop insurance can serve as a disincentive for climate change adaptation in agriculture.}, number={5}, journal={EUROPEAN REVIEW OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS}, author={Wang, Ruixue and Rejesus, Roderick M. and Aglasan, Serkan}, year={2021}, month={Nov}, pages={1109–1131} }
 @article{carriere_brown_aglasan_dutilleul_carroll_head_tabashnik_jorgensen_carroll_2020, title={Crop rotation mitigates impacts of corn rootworm resistance to transgenic Bt corn}, volume={117}, ISSN={["0027-8424"]}, DOI={10.1073/pnas.2003604117}, abstractNote={Significance
          
            The western corn rootworm, a major insect pest in the Midwestern United States, has evolved resistance to genetically engineered corn that produces insecticidal proteins derived from the bacterium
            Bacillus thuringiensis
            (Bt). To evaluate tactics for reducing the damage caused by resistant rootworms, we analyzed field data for 2011 to 2016 from Illinois, Iowa, and Minnesota. The frequency of corn fields with severe rootworm damage was reduced by rotating corn with other crops and by not planting the same type of Bt corn year after year in the same field. These results support the EPA’s recommendations to decrease the negative impacts of rootworm resistance to Bt corn by rotating corn with other crops and diversifying the type of Bt corn planted.
          }, number={31}, journal={PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA}, author={Carriere, Yves and Brown, Zachary and Aglasan, Serkan and Dutilleul, Pierre and Carroll, Matthew and Head, Graham and Tabashnik, Bruce E. and Jorgensen, Peter Sogaard and Carroll, Scott P.}, year={2020}, month={Aug}, pages={18385–18392} }