Crop Yield Skewness and the Normal Distribution

David Hennessy

Staff General Research Papers Archive from Iowa State University, Department of Economics

Abstract: Empirical studies point to negative crop yield skewness, but the literature provides few clear insights as to why. This paper formalizes three points on the matter. Statistical laws on aggregates do not imply a normal distribution. Whenever the weather-conditioned mean yield has diminishing marginal product with respect to a weather-conditioning index, then there is a disposition toward negative yield skewness. This is because high marginal product in bad weather stretches out the yield distribution's left tail relative to that for weather. For disaggregated yields, unconditional skewness is decomposed into weather-conditioned skewness plus two other terms and each is studied in turn.

Keywords: conditional distribution; crop insurance; negative skewness; normal distribution; statistical laws (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-03-29
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-ias
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published in Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, April 2009, vol. 34 no. 1, pp. 34-52

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Related works:
Journal Article: Crop Yield Skewness and the Normal Distribution (2009)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:isu:genres:35019

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