In this paper, we examine more closely some of the forces that underlie economic growth at the county level. In an effort to describe a much more comprehensive regional economic growth model, we address a variety of different hypotheses by introducing a large number of growth-related variables....

On average, U.S. farmers choose to apply nitrogen fertilizer at a rate that exceeds the ex post agronomically optimal rate. The technology underlying the yield response to nitrogen rewards producers who over apply in years when rainfall is excessive. The overapplication of nutrients has negative...

Worldwide, a segment of consumers can afford to pay substantial price premiums for very high quality agricultural products with attributes those consumers value. At the same time, many U.S. farmers are producing these high-quality products but are not using market mechanisms that allow them to...

The declining share of beef in total U.S. meat consumption has motivated industry-ï¾­wide efforts to improve average beef quality through more effective coordination among the various market participants. Increased use of explicit "grid" pricing mechanisms over the last decade represents...

This publication contains estimates of production costs for common livestock enterprises in Iowa. Estimates are intended to refl ect average or above-average levels of management using common types of technology. Input prices reflect expected average price levels during the year.

This paper evaluates the results of a survey of Iowa pork producers, examining potential price discrimination by packers. Prices varied greatly across producers, and the examined variables explain just over half of the variation. Factors under the producer's control were the most significant...

Life cycle analysis (LCA) is the standard approach used to evaluate the greenhouse gas (GHG) benefits of biofuels. However, it is increasingly recognized that LCA results do not account for some impacts-including land use changes-that have important implications on GHGs. Thus, an alternative...

To evaluate the impact of conservation policies on soil organic carbon in agricultural soils, the authors link information from the 1992 National Resources Inventory (NRI) database and the extensive physical data on soils and climate from the SOILS5 database. These data serve as input for a...

This study utilizes an analysis technique commonly used in marketing, the conjoint analysis method, to examine the relative utilities of a set of beef steak characteristics considered by a national sample of 1,432 US consumers, as well as additional localized samples representing undergraduate...

The efficiency of redistribution and the level of government costs of revenue assurance are compared with current farm programs. The results suggest that a revenue assurance program that uses a fixed base acreage and actual or county average yields to assure whole farm revenues could provide a...