Food and Resource Economics Department

Upcoming Seminars

Fall 2026 FRE Seminar Series

All Seminars in the Fall 2026 Seminar Series will take place at 10:30 A.M., EST on the scheduled date in McCarty Hall A 1151 unless otherwise noted. Zoom Option Available. To request recording, please email alenarene@ufl.edu

Dr. Marco Palma, Texas A&M University - Oct. 16

Seminar Title: Supporting Carbon Pricing Markets with Probabilistic Cash Rebates

Abstract: An online incentivized experiment with consumption and carbon emission tradeoffs shows that guaranteed cash rebates reduce private consumption and increase carbon emission offsets. Probabilistic cash rebates have the potential of retaining the behavioral effectiveness of the guaranteed rebates at a fraction of the implementation cost. We test the effectiveness of several probabilistic cash rebates (i.e., 10%, 25% and 50%) and find that the guaranteed rebate produces larger reductions in purchases than all the lottery-based rebates. Although the 50% rebate does not reproduce the full behavioral effect of the guaranteed rebate, it generates substantial reductions in consumption while reducing expected rebate disbursements in half. These findings show a proof of concept for generating economic gains in the tradeoff between behavioral effectiveness and program cost for probabilistic rebates to support carbon-pricing policies.

Speaker Bio: Dr. Marco A. Palma is Regents Professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Texas A&M University and holder of the Economics of Responsive Agriculture Endowed Chair. His research focuses on consumer economics, experimental and behavioral economics, and neuroeconomics. Palma is a Texas A&M Presidential Impact Fellow and AgriLife Research Faculty Fellow. He serves as Director of the Human Behavior Laboratory, a transdisciplinary facility that uses state-of-the-art technology to measure neurophysiological responses in human decision-making. His work integrates these responses with traditional behavioral research methods to better understand, predict, and influence behaviors that enhance health, prosperity, and well-being. Palma also serves as Associate Director of the Institute for Advancing Health through Agriculture leading Responsive Agriculture. In this role, he promotes innovation in agriculture and the food environment to build a system that is economically prosperous while delivering safe, nutritious, and abundant food to support public health. Palma obtained BS, MS, and PhD degrees from the UF Food and Resource Economics Department.

Dr. Jacob Ricker-Gilbert, Purdue University - Oct. 30

Presentation Title: Does Crop Insurance Relieve Stressed Landlords and Help Tenants Invest? Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial in Malawi.

Abstract: The present study used a Randomized Controlled Trial conducted with smallholder farmers in southern Malawi. We test if access to an area-yield based crop insurance program that pays cash equivalent to 7-11% of average baseline income to drought and flood-affected farmers in a geographic region increases their ability to rent in land and reduces their need to rent out land in the subsequent year. In doing so, we link the agricultural insurance literature with the land market literature in sub-Saharan Africa. We found that the insurance payouts caused beneficiary farmers to rent in slightly more land, especially for those who had higher baseline wealth and larger families with more available labor. Conversely, It did not cause beneficiaries to reduce the amount of land that they rented out, the income they earned from renting out land or the price they received for renting out land. Only relatively wealthy farmers with higher than the median amount of non-land assets rented out a lower share of their land when they received the highest level of insurance payout. However, we found no differentiated impact of the insurance payout for those with higher off-farm income or more labor availability in the household. This provides evidence that relatively large payouts after a drought helped improve the liquidity of farmers allowing them to rent in some land, but the payouts were not high enough to significantly reduce the need among the poorest farmers to rent-out their land, likely under financial stress.

Speaker Bio: Since joining the faculty in Agricultural Economics at Purdue University in 2011 he has developed an impactful, well-funded, and internationally recognized research program around the economics of sustainable smallholder agricultural intensification, mainly focused on sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The core research topics in his program include: 1) evaluating the economic impacts of input subsidies in Africa; 2) estimating the impact of farmland markets on agricultural productivity and livelihoods in Africa; 3) analyzing the economics of smallholder farm households’ post-harvest decisions in Africa; and 4) studying how smallholder farm households in Africa adapt to climate change. He has published 56 peer-reviewed articles in top development economics, agricultural economics, and multi-disciplinary fields. He has been part of more than $40 million in external grants and mentored 24 graduate students, many of them from various African countries including, Malawi, Senegal, Ghana, Nigeria and Côte d'Ivoire. Ricker-Gilbert has served on the editorial board for the African Journal of Agricultural Economics, the American Journal of Agricultural Economics and currently serves as co-editor of Agricultural Economics, the flagship journal of the International Association of Agricultural Economists. Ricker-Gilbert’s research and outreach on input subsidies and post-harvest loss-reducing strategies for smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa has led to actionable policy and business decisions in the region.

Dr. Alan Ker, Michigan State University - Nov. 9

Presentation Title: A Distributional Structural Change Test for Mixed Random Variables

Abstract: This paper proposes a generalized test for distributional structural change thataccommodates mixed random variables. The proposed test statistic is based on thesupremum of a weighted squared L2-Wasserstein distance between empirical quantilefunctions. Taking the supremum enables the detection of unknown breakpoints, whilethe Wasserstein metric measures horizontal differences between empirical CDFs, makingit particularly well suited for mixed random variables. We establish the asymptoticproperties of the test statistic and derive its limiting distribution for continuous, discrete, and mixed random variables, showing that the limiting distribution depends onwhether discrete points are separated by positive geometric gaps or seamlessly attached to continuous support. Quite favorably, the asymptotic properties are maintained undertargeted subsets of the underlying distribution in cases where one is only interested in distributional change in a specific support. Simulations demonstrate that the proposedtest is competitive relative to existing tests. Finally, we apply the proposed testto U.S. crop insurance loss-cost ratios and identify significant distributional structuralchange for numerous county–crop combinations.

Bio: Dr. Alan Ker is the Elton R. Smith Endowed Chair in Food and Agricultural Policy and Professor in the Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics at Michigan State University. He received a joint Ph.D. in Economics and Statistics from North Carolina State University. Prior to joining Michigan State University, Dr. Ker held faculty and leadership positions at the University of Arizona and the University of Guelph, including serving as Head of the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of Arizona, Chair of the Department of Food, Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of Guelph, and Director of the Institute for the Advanced Study of Food and Agricultural Policy. He was also appointed the OAC Research Chair in Agricultural Risk and Policy in 2019.

Dr. Ker’s research broadly focuses on agricultural risk, agricultural policy, and quantitative methods, with particular expertise in the analysis of uncertainty and risk in agricultural markets and policy settings.

Dr. Ker has also held several important leadership and professional service roles in the agricultural economics profession. He served as President of the Canadian Agricultural Economics Society and as Managing Editor of the Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics. In recognition of his contributions to the profession, he was named a Fellow of the Canadian Agricultural Economics Society in 2021. He was elected President-Elect of the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association (AAEA) in 2026.

Dr. Nicole Karwowski, Montana State University - Nov. 13

Bio: Nicole Karwowski is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Economics at Montana State University. She received her PhD in Agricultural and Applied Economics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Dr. Karwowski’s research focuses on understanding how nature-based solutions can improve agricultural resilience and environmental sustainability. Using econometric methods, theoretical models, and remote sensing data, her research evaluates the environmental and economic impacts of conservation and provides insights for land-use decision-making and policy design. Dr. Karwowski is affiliated with the Global Land Use and Environmental Lab and the National Great Rivers Research and Education Center. She is also a founder of the Big Sky Workshop on the Economics of Agriculture and the Environment.

Presentation title: Non-Abutting Wetlands Drive Water Quality Benefits

Abstract:

Wetlands provide a wealth of ecosystem services, including flood mitigation, wildlife habitat, and a natural ex-post solution to surface water pollution from agricultural runoff (Taylor & Druckenmiller 2022, Karwowski & Skidmore 2026) . Wetland restoration in the United States is supported by programs including the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program. Additionally, wetlands that are part of the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) are protected under the Clean Water Act. Currently, only wetlands directly abutting another surface water feature in WOTUS are protected (Sackett v. EPA 2023). Yet, there is limited causal evidence on the ecological impact of wetlands based on their surface water connection (Cohen et al. 2016).

We test the impact of restored wetlands on downstream water quality based on the distance from the wetland to the nearest protected surface water feature. We link a rich dataset on all wetlands restored under USDA easement contracts in the Mississippi River Basin, National Hydrology streams and rivers, and harmonized measures of surface water quality from nearly three decades. We use an upstream-downstream model to evaluate the changes in water quality before and after wetland restoration. We find that non-abutting wetlands within one kilometer of a surface water feature significantly reduce phosphorus and nitrogen concentrations downstream. In contrast, abutting wetlands provide only modest downstream water quality benefits, though water quality is only one of the many ecosystem services that wetlands provide. The effects are most pronounced in the Upper Mississippi region, which is a large contributor to the Gulf Hypoxic Zone (Evenson et al. 2021), and the recipient of significant federal, state, and local resources to reduce nutrient loss (Iowa DNR 2025, Berhane et al. 2020). Our results demonstrate that restored wetlands are an effective tool to improve water quality, and considering their heterogeneous benefits could be pivotal in creating optimal policy.