Econ Papers Daily / 期刊论文
农药与苹果生产风险的关系
The relationship between pesticides and risk in apple production
摘要
We examine how pesticide expenditure relates to the probability distribution of yield and revenue per hectare in apple production in northern Italy. Using a flexible moment-based approach, we find that pesticide expenditure is negatively associated with downside risk in yield and revenue, whereas late frosts are positively associated with downside risk in yield. Sensitivity analyses show that mean-equation estimates are robust to unobserved confounders, while negative semi-variance models are less robust overall. Only the pesticide–expected outcome relationship appears plausibly causal. Therefore, conclusions about pesticides as risk-increasing or risk-decreasing inputs should be made with caution.
中文摘要
本文考察了意大利北部苹果生产中农药支出与每公顷产量及收益概率分布之间的关系。采用灵活的基于矩的方法，我们发现农药支出与产量和收益的下行风险呈负相关，而晚霜则与产量的下行风险呈正相关。敏感性分析表明，均值方程估计对未观测到的混杂因素具有稳健性，而负半方差模型整体稳健性较弱。只有农药与预期结果之间的关系似乎具有合理的因果性。因此，关于农药作为风险增加或风险减少投入的结论应谨慎得出。