Risk in agriculture : a study of crop yield distributions and crop insurance

Thesis (M. Eng. in Logistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2006.

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Gayam, Narsi Reddy
Other Authors: David Brock.
Format: Thesis
Language:eng
Published: Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2007
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/35537
_version_ 1826209982251532288
author Gayam, Narsi Reddy
author2 David Brock.
author_facet David Brock.
Gayam, Narsi Reddy
author_sort Gayam, Narsi Reddy
collection MIT
description Thesis (M. Eng. in Logistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2006.
first_indexed 2024-09-23T14:38:24Z
format Thesis
id mit-1721.1/35537
institution Massachusetts Institute of Technology
language eng
last_indexed 2024-09-23T14:38:24Z
publishDate 2007
publisher Massachusetts Institute of Technology
record_format dspace
spelling mit-1721.1/355372019-04-12T12:31:55Z Risk in agriculture : a study of crop yield distributions and crop insurance Study of crop yield distributions and crop insurance Gayam, Narsi Reddy David Brock. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Engineering Systems Division. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Engineering Systems Division. Engineering Systems Division. Thesis (M. Eng. in Logistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2006. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 52-53). Agriculture is a business fraught with risk. Crop production depends on climatic, geographical, biological, political, and economic factors, which introduce risks that are quantifiable given the appropriate mathematical and statistical methodologies. Accurate information about the nature of historical crop yields is an important modeling input that helps farmers, agribusinesses, and governmental bodies in managing risk and establishing the proper policies for such things as crop insurance. Explicitly or implicitly, nearly all farm decisions relate in some way to the expectation of crop yield. Historically, crop yields are assumed to be normally distributed for a statistical population and for a sample within a crop year. This thesis examines the assumption of normality of crop yields using data collected from India involving sugarcane and soybeans. The null hypothesis (crop yields are normally distributed) was tested using the Lilliefors method combined with intensive qualitative analysis of the data. Results show that in all cases considered in this thesis, crop yields are not normally distributed. (cont.) This result has important implications for managing risk involving sugarcane and soybeans grown in India. The last section of this thesis examines the impact of crop yield non normality on various insurance programs, which typically assume that all crop yields are normally distributed and that the probability of crop failure can be calculated given available data. by Narsi Reddy Gayam. M.Eng.in Logistics 2007-01-10T16:34:47Z 2007-01-10T16:34:47Z 2006 2006 Thesis http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/35537 72822349 eng M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission. http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582 60 leaves 2690788 bytes 2692406 bytes application/pdf application/pdf application/pdf Massachusetts Institute of Technology
spellingShingle Engineering Systems Division.
Gayam, Narsi Reddy
Risk in agriculture : a study of crop yield distributions and crop insurance
title Risk in agriculture : a study of crop yield distributions and crop insurance
title_full Risk in agriculture : a study of crop yield distributions and crop insurance
title_fullStr Risk in agriculture : a study of crop yield distributions and crop insurance
title_full_unstemmed Risk in agriculture : a study of crop yield distributions and crop insurance
title_short Risk in agriculture : a study of crop yield distributions and crop insurance
title_sort risk in agriculture a study of crop yield distributions and crop insurance
topic Engineering Systems Division.
url http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/35537
work_keys_str_mv AT gayamnarsireddy riskinagricultureastudyofcropyielddistributionsandcropinsurance
AT gayamnarsireddy studyofcropyielddistributionsandcropinsurance