The Nature of the Farm
用一个权衡道德风险激励与专业化收益的模型，解释了为何农业大多仍是家庭小农场而非大型工厂式企业，并利用历史案例和加拿大、美国超千个农场的样本数据验证了预测。
Using a model based on a trade‐off between moral hazard incentives and gains from specialization, this paper explains why farming has generally not converted from small, family‐based firms into large, factory‐style corporate firms. Nature is both seasonal and random, and the interplay of these qualities generates moral hazard, limits the gains from specialization, and causes timing problems between stages of production. By identifying conditions in which these forces vary, we derive testable predictions about the choice of organization and the extent of farm integration. To test these predictions we study the historical development of several agricultural industries and analyze data from a sample of over 1,000 farms in British Columbia and Louisiana. In general, seasonality and randomness so limit the benefits of specialization that family farms are optimal, but when farmers are successful in mitigating the effects of seasonality and random shocks to output, farm organizations gravitate toward factory processes and corporate ownership.