Farm Producers' Household Consumption and Individual Risk Behavior after Natural Disasters

Abstract

Understanding how farm household consumption responds to adverse income shocks can provide insight into household well-being and appropriate agricultural policy. Using a split-sample survey of Indiana specialty producers, where we randomly assign respondents to treatments that vary the size of a hypothetical income shock, we estimate the relationship between income loss and household consumption. Given that postdisaster producers' risk preferences are important for business decisions, we elicit producers' risk preferences. We find that food and miscellaneous expenses are the most sensitive to income losses. We also find evidence for decreasing absolute risk aversion among producers after the income loss shock.