Production functions and rationality of mixed cropping
研究了撒哈拉以南非洲和亚洲传统农民混合种植多种作物的产量方程，发现看似随意的作物组合能随生长季节调整生产决策以匹配风险偏好，多数组合位于均值-方差前沿。
This paper reports on the estimation of crop-yield equations in the context of mixed cropping where several crops are grown on the same plot. Mixed cropping has been developed by traditional farmers across much of sub-Saharan Africa and in Asia. The empirical results, are based on data collected by the Agricultural Projects Monitoring and Evaluation Unit attached to the Funtua, Gusau, and Gombe Agricultural Development Projects in northern Nigeria, The results show that these seemingly haphazard crop mixes provide a useful opportunity for matching production decisions to risk preferences as the growing season evolves. Using observed prices in two different time periods, 8 out of 20 crop mixes (all involving a subset of the same 6 crops) fall on the empirical mean-variance frontier, and 9 others are not dominated by any crop mix not on the frontier. Furthermore, some variation from the absolute frontier may be explained by imperfectly anticipated prices.