Rate My Professor Jason Franken

Jason Franken serves as Associate Professor of Agricultural Economics and Management and MFA Chair in Agribusiness in the Division of Applied Social Sciences within the University of Missouri's College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, having joined the faculty in Fall 2024. A native Missourian raised near the university, he holds a Ph.D. in Agricultural and Consumer Economics from the University of Illinois (2008), an M.S. in Agricultural Economics from the University of Missouri (2003), and a B.S. in Agricultural Economics from the University of Missouri (2001). Prior to his current role, Franken was Professor of Agricultural Economics at Western Illinois University from 2017, Assistant Professor there from 2015 to 2017, Research Assistant at Sam Houston State University from 2014 to 2015, business and marketing analyst at Value Agriculture LLC, and a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Missouri.

Franken's research is interdisciplinary, drawing from economics, marketing, and decision sciences to examine how agricultural markets are organized—including through transactions, contracts, and cooperatives—to add value and manage risk, with implications for market performance and policy. He has authored or co-authored more than 40 peer-reviewed articles on topics such as cooperative governance, hedging strategies, and agribusiness organization. Notable publications include 'Why are there fewer and fewer cooperatives in the agricultural sector? A survival analysis within a competing risk framework' (2024), 'Hedging behavior of agribusiness cooperatives and investor-owned firms in Germany' (2023), 'Revisiting biodiesel hedging' (2023), 'New generation cooperatives: what we know and need to learn' (2023), and co-editing the 'Handbook of Research on Cooperatives and Mutuals' (2023). Franken has received awards for teaching excellence and instructs courses such as ABM 3183: The Economics of the Food, Fiber and Fuel Supply Chain and ABM 4972: Agri-Food Business and Cooperative Management. He is currently accepting new graduate advisees.