Risk and uncertainty are inescapable factors in agriculture which require careful management. Farmers face production risks from the weather, crop and livestock performance, and pests and diseases, as well as institutional, personal and business risks. This revised third edition of the popular textbook includes updated chapters on theory and methods and contains a new chapter discussing the state-contingent approach to the analysis of production and the use of copulas to better model stochastic dependency. Aiming to introduce agricultural decision making, probability and risk preference, this book is an indispensable guide for students and researchers of agriculture and agribusiness management.

The popular first edition of this text on risk analysis and management in agriculture has been almost wholly revised. The second edition includes much new material. It includes a revised chapter on incorporating decision makers' preferences into the analysis of risky choices that recognizes and gives consideration to some recently published challenges to the legitimacy of the expected utility hypothesis. While it is argued that the theory is still the best way to handle risk aversion, at least in prescriptive analyses, more attention is given to the practical problems of utility function elicitation. It is shown how estimates of (or ranges of) degree of risk aversion might best be obtained and consistently applied.
The new edition has a much more thorough treatment of stochastic stimulation, including some novel yet simple methods for dealing with stochastic dependency between uncertain quantities. The treatment of policy aspects of risk in agriculture has been revised and extended to account for such important current issues as new approaches to crop insurance, the management of serious animal and crop diseases and food safety issues. As with the first edition, the book contains a blend of theory with simple illustrative examples to enable readers to see how the principles being discussed can be made operational using modern software.

'Economic Analysis of Investment Operations' presents general principles and methodologies that are applicable across sectors, including quantitative risk analysis. It provides both theory and practice about how to evaluate transportation, health, and education projects; and explains how to assess the environmental impact of projects. It provides a fresh look at the tools of project analysis and explains how to apply quantitative analysis of costs and benefits from multiple perspectives including the private sector, the public sector, bankers, and the country as a whole. The examples used to illustrate the principles are drawn from actual projects of the World Bank and other institutions.

Risk and uncertainty are inescapable factors in agriculture which require careful management. Farmers face production risks from the weather, crop and livestock performance, and pests and diseases, as well as institutional, personal and business risks. This revised third edition of the popular textbook includes updated chapters on theory and methods and contains a new chapter discussing the state-contingent approach to the analysis of production and the use of copulas to better model stochastic dependency. Aiming to introduce agricultural decision making, probability and risk preference, this book is an indispensable guide for students and researchers of agriculture and agribusiness management.