Documentation of a Dynamic and Simultaneous Econometric Model of the U.S. Dairy Industry

The objective of this report is to publish a monthly forecasting tool of the U.S. dairy industry. This model forecasts the milk supply as well as the supply and demand for American cheese, Other cheese, butter, nonfat dry milk, and dry whey. Trade is presently exogenous to the model, but can be endogenized at a later date. The principal use of the model will be for forecasting purposes, thus we settled on a monthly frequency for the data. We delve into the complexities of the U.S. dairy industry using rich data sources. Our objective is clearly focused on developing an initial forecasting tool.