Food, Agricultural and Resource Economics
 
Name
Alan P. Ker
Position
Chair and Professor
Specialization
Econometrics, Institutional Economics, Trade, Risk Management
aker's picture
Office
Room 314
Phone Number
ext. 53532
Profile
After obtaining his PhD at North Carolina State University in 1996, Alan worked as a professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of Arizona. In April 2009, Alan and his family moved to Canada where he joined the Department of Food, Agricultural and Resource Economics in his new position as Chair and Professor.
Research Interests
a) applied and theoretical nonparametric econometrics
b) effects of legal institutions on markets
c) use of intermediaries in public policy
d) political economy and trade
Teaching Interests
Applied and Theoretical Econometrics, Trade
Education

Ph.D. Economics and Statistics (co-major); North Carolina State University 1992–1996
Co-advisors: Ronald Gallant and Barry Goodwin
Dissertation:  Rating and Yield Predicting Procedures for the Group Risk Federal Crop Insurance Program: A Nonparametric Approach.

M.Sc. Agricultural Economics, University of Guelph 1989–1992
Advisor: Wayne Howard
Thesis:  A Comparison of Nonparametric Kernel Methods and Local Functional Approximations: An Analysis of Size and Scale Economies in the Ontario Hog Production Sector.

B.A. Honors Applied Economics – Cooperative Program 1985–1992 University of Waterloo.

Select Publications

Brewer, Jed, Robert Glennon, Alan P. Ker, Gary Libecap. “Legal Impediments to Water Transfers in the West.” Washington University Journal of Law and Policy forthcoming (2008) (authorship alphabetical).

Brewer, Jed, Robert Glennon, Alan P. Ker, Gary Libecap. “Water Markets in the West: Prices, Trading, and Contractual Forms.” Economic Inquiry 46(2008):91–112 (authorship alphabetical).

Ker, Alan P., and A. Tolga Ergun. “On the Revelation of Private Information in the U.S. Crop Insurance Program, Journal of Risk and Insurance 74(2007):761–776.

Brewer, Jed, Robert Glennon, Alan P. Ker, Gary Libecap. “Transferring Water in the American West: 1987–2005.” University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform 40(2007):1021–1053 (authorship alphabetical).

Sam, Abdoul, and Alan P. Ker. “Nonparametric Regression under Alternative Data Environments.” Statistics and Probability Letters 76(2006):1037–1046.

Racine, Jeff, and Alan P. Ker. “Rating Crop Insurance Policies with Efficient Non-parametric Estimators that allow Mixed Data Types.” Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics 31(2006):27–39.

Ker, Alan P. and A. Tolga Ergun. “Empirical Bayes Nonparametric Kernel Density Estimation.” Statistics and Probability Letters 75(2005):315–324 .