Recent empirical research and development in the cattle industry suggest several reasons to suspect structural change in economic relationships determining cattle prices. Standard forecasting models may ignore structural change and may produce biased and misleading forecasts. Vector...

The 1990 Farm Bill contains several measures concerning soil erosion caused by U.S. farmers. Data from a nationwide survey of people concerning their attitudes toward agriculture were used to examine the structure of respondents' preferences for government support-policies to combat soil...

Unilateral liberalization of U.S. peanut policy was evaluated using a model of U.S. and world peanut supply and demand. Under the proposed policy, world peanut price would rise slightly to $.20 per pound at the U.S. farm level. U.S. production would decline by 578 million pounds per year and...

An econometric model of the dairy industry was used to estimate the effects on farmers, consumers, and taxpayers of nationwide adoption of the California nonfat solids standards for fluid milk. It was estimated that adoption of the California standards would raise farm-level milk prices by 1 to...

An eleven-region stochastic coefficient econometric model was estimated and used in an optimal control framework to evaluate the effectiveness of the dairy price support program and marketing orders in reducing and stabilizing government purchases of dairy products. The results showed...

This paper explores changes in traditional commodity programs from the perspective of domestic welfare. A theoretical model was developed which describes domestic welfare changes that follow from policies consistent with reductions in international price distortions. The model was applied to the...

Over 90 percent of interstate produce movements are by truck. In recent years, concerns have been raised regarding the adequacy of motor carrier services. Reasons for these concerns include the possibility of increased costs or service erosions resulting from relaxed economic regulations, an...

The efficiency of livestock futures markets continues to receive attention, particularly with regard to their forward pricing or forecasting ability. The purpose of this paper is to present a more general theory that encompasses the forward pricing concept. It is argued that futures contract...

A credit scoring function incorporating statistical selection criteria was proposed to evaluate the credit worthiness of agricultural cooperative loans in the Fifth Farm Credit District. In-sample (1981-1986) and out-of-sample (1988) prediction performance of the selected models were evaluated...

This study examined the supply of and demand for married female labor in the southern United States. Special attention was given to differences in labor force participation, labor supply, and quantities of labor supplied and demanded across rural and urban areas. Once state effects were...