Gallagher, Paul W.

American Journal of Agricultural Economics Vol. 69 no. 4 (November 1987): 796-803.

National average soybean yields are skewed with a relatively high chance of low yields. Maximum likelihood estimates support this hypothesis Revised forecasts which account for skewed yields are positioned higher than forecasts based on the illusion of a symmetric distribution Also, yield instability has been increasing steadily; the standard deviation of the soybean yield distribution is twenty-five percent higher m the late 1980s than it was in the early 1970s.