Agricultural Economics Department

 

First Advisor

Cory Walters

Second Advisor

Simanti Banerjee

Third Advisor

Karina Schoengold

Date of this Version

Fall 9-17-2020

Document Type

Thesis

Citation

A thesis presented to the faculty of the Graduate College at the University of Nebraska in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Master of Science

Major: Agricultural Economics

Under the supervision of Professors Cory Walters and Simanti Banerjee

Lincoln, Nebraska, August 2020

Comments

Copyright 2020, Iyore Eronmwon

Abstract

In this study, we investigate the role of myopic loss aversion (MLA) risk preferences on pre-harvest grain marketing decisions using a laboratory experiment. Prospect theory parameters were estimated to measure MLA. We estimated a power function for utility and obtained power estimates indicating linear utility for gains and concave utility for losses. We obtained a loss aversion parameter estimate that suggests the presence of loss aversion. We found evidence of probability weighting for both gains and losses. We classified individuals into three categories based on their MLA status. They are no NMLA, MLA, and high loss aversion (HLA). We observed participants’ grain marketing behavior using a novel marketing simulation game called Marketing in a New Era (MINE). The findings of our study show that MLA does not significantly influence pre-harvest grain marketing behavior. However, we found that high loss aversion (HLA), significantly impact pre-harvest hedging positively. Specifically, we found that subjects with HLA significantly hedged more of their expected yield than subjects with no MLA (NMLA). We found evidence that suggests that buying crop insurance leads to increased profit. We found no significant difference between risk attitude and profit made.

Advisors: Cory Walters and Simanti Banerjee

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