Farm Wealth Inequality within and across States in the United States

Mishra, Ashok K., Moss, Charles B., Erickson, Kenneth W., Agricultural and Resource Economics Review

This paper uses Theil's (1979) entropy-based measure of inequality and farm-level data to examine changes in farm business wealth (farm equity) of farm households. The farms associated with farm households are grouped by state into ten regions of the United States. The Theil entropy measure is then calculated and used to decompose total inequality of farm wealth into within-state and across-states (between states) inequalities for each region. Results show that since the enactment of the 1996 Federal Agricultural Improvement and Reform (FAIR) Act, inequality in farm wealth among farms within a state has decreased relative to the number of farms per state, across all regions. Further, most …

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Publication information: Article title: Farm Wealth Inequality within and across States in the United States. Contributors: Mishra, Ashok K. - Author, Moss, Charles B. - Author, Erickson, Kenneth W. - Author. Journal title: Agricultural and Resource Economics Review. Volume: 35. Issue: 2 Publication date: October 2006. Page number: 251+. © Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association Oct 2008. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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