In the agricultural economics literature, relatively little attention has been given to the effects of interest rates on the U.S. farm sector. According to macroeconomic theory, monetary policy influences the interest rate. Changes in the interest rate will have an effect on a farmer's decision...

This paper is an original attempt to find ways to estimate total factor productivity change on individual crops especially when certain input quantities and cost and profit data are unavailable. The study also develops a method, which is a measure of change in absolute productivity, to allow...

The purpose of this paper is to elaborate on the basic assumptions that have been made or need to be made before the solutions for the 1985 RCA (Resource Conservation Act.) This paper will state the regions to be used in the programming and the assumptions used in the creation of the crop...

Many farmers are currently facing severe financial stress resulting in asset liquidations, problems in obtaining credit, and even bankruptcy. An important question in policy analysis is the applicability of traditional farm policy approaches to the problem of financial stress in agriculture....

The United States has both enjoyed and suffered from the ability of its agricultural sector to produce more than was demanded domestically or that could be sold abroad at a profit. Food and fiber prices, because of the abundance of supply, are below those that would otherwise have prevailed....

In response to increasing criticisms of their load forecasts and forecasting methods, Iowa's electric utilities sponsored an independent review of past and present load forecasting methodologies. The review was conducted by an Iowa research team and followed two approaches. One was to evaluate...

In response to the Project Advisory Committee's inquiries, this note examines the consistency of using outputs from the National Inter-regional Agricultural Projection model (NIRAP) as inputs to the CARD/RCA linear programming model. To examine this, the paper first addresses the output that the...

After preliminary work on the livestock sector for the 1985 CARD/RCA model was completed in the summer of 1983, it was felt that one of the weaker areas in the sector was the linkage between the livestock sector and the range sector. At that time it was decided that the best way to approach this...

The purpose of this study is to develop an econometric simulation model for analyzing the use of funds in Corn Belt agriculture. The Corn Belt Region, one of the major regions in U.S. agriculture, constitutes states such as Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, and Ohio. A set of behavioral...