Pesticide Productivity: Of Bugs and Biases

Pesticide productivity is both important and difficult to measure. Typically, pesticide marginal products are estimated without information on the pest pressure. Three theoretical models are developed which suggest absence of such information may cause an underestimation of pesticide productivity. Using application frequency variables as a proxy for pest populations, we show that pesticide marginal products are higher when pest pressure is accounted for.

[1]  Jean-Marie Dufour,et al.  Invariance, Nonlinear Models and Asymptotic Tests , 1991 .

[2]  David Zilberman,et al.  The Econometrics of Damage Control: Why Specification Matters , 1986 .

[3]  H. Campbell.  Estimating the Marginal Productivity of Agricultural Pesticides: the Case of Tree‐Fruit Farms in the Okanagan Valley , 1976 .

[4]  M. Marra,et al.  An Economic Threshold Model for Weeds in Soybeans (Glycine max) , 1983, Weed Science.

[5]  Edward G. Smith,et al.  ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF REDUCED CHEMICAL USE , 1990 .

[6]  Erik Lichtenberg,et al.  Simple Econometrics of Pesticide Productivity , 1994 .

[7]  R. Weaver,et al.  Damage Control Productivity: Why Econometrics Matters , 1997 .

[8]  Gerald A. Carlson.  Long-Run Productivity of Insecticides , 1977 .

[9]  INFORMATION VALUE IN WEED MANAGEMENT , 1990 .

[10]  Gershon Feder.  Pesticides, Information, and Pest Management under Uncertainty , 1979 .

[11]  Jorge Fernandez-Cornejo,et al.  Issues in the Economics of Pesticide Use in Agriculture: A Review of the Empirical Evidence , 1998 .

[12]  J. C. Headley,et al.  Estimating the Productivity of Agricultural Pesticides , 1968 .

[13]  B. Wade Brorsen,et al.  Pesticide Productivity: What are the Trends? , 1995, Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics.

[14]  L. Moffitt,et al.  Economic Thresholds Under Uncertainty with Application to Corn Nematode Management , 1984, Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics.

[15]  L. Joe Moffitt,et al.  Damage Control Econometrics: Functional Specification and Pesticide Productivity , 1992 .

[16]  D. Zilberman,et al.  Impact of Damage Control and Quality of Output: Estimating Pest Control Effectiveness , 1992 .

[17]  A. Havenner,et al.  The Economics and Econometrics of Damage Control , 1997 .