Weninger, Quinn; Just, Richard E.

American Journal of Agricultural Economics Vol. 81 no. 2 (May 1999): 287-304.

The evidence for nonnormality of crop yields is reassessed. Three methodological problems are identified in typical yield distribution analyses: (i) misspecification of the nonrandom components of yield distributions, (ii) misreporting of statistical significance, and (iii) use of aggregate time-series (ATS) data to represent farm-level yield distributions. One or more of these problems infect virtually all evidence against normality to date. The positive contribution of the article is a set of principles that must be followed in any valid investigation of yield normality.