Impact of Damage Control and Quality of Output: Estimating Pest Control Effectiveness

Bruce Babcock, Erik Lichtenberg and David Zilberman

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

Abstract: Damage control affects both realized output and product quality; ignoring leads to underestimates of damage control agent productivity. Empirical analysis of pesticide use in North Carolina apple production using the damage control approach shows that fungicides and pruning reduce both yield losses and quality degradation, while insecticides reduce quality damage. Quality accounts for substantial shares of profit-maximizing insecticide and fungicide use. Use of both insecticides and fungicides appears excessive, while the potential for substitution between mechanical and chemical disease control appears large. A Cobb-Douglas specification of the quantity production function gives substantially larger estimates of fungicide productivity than the damage control specification.

Date: 1992-01-01
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (53)

Published in American Journal of Agricultural Economics, January 1992, vol. 74, pp. 163-172

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
Journal Article: Impact of Damage Control and Quality of Output: Estimating Pest Control Effectiveness (1992)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:isu:genres:10589

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Staff General Research Papers Archive from Iowa State University, Department of Economics Iowa State University, Dept. of Economics, 260 Heady Hall, Ames, IA 50011-1070. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Curtis Balmer ().