The ornamental horticultural industry continues to be one of the most rapidly expanding sectors in agriculture. This study examined a decision model for landscape plant production based on portfolio analysis. A quadratic programming model was developed to generate an optimal crop portfolio for a...

An adaptive regression model is employed for estimating pre-and post-boll weevil eradication cotton-acreage response. Results indicate cotton acreage becoming more inelastic to own- and cross-price changes. As a result of this shift in acreage response and yield increases from eradication, net...

The general method of moments procedure is used for estimating a soybean acreage response function assuming the producers hold rational expectations. Results indicate that soybean, corn, and wheat futures prices, lagged acreage, and government programs are significant factors for determining...

The efficiency of public education is examined using a cost indirect output distance function. Efficiency estimates are obtained using data envelopment analysis applied to data from Georgia public schools. Georgia school districts utilize educational budgets with reasonable efficiency, achieving...

An adaptive regression model is used to examine the relative importance of cash and government support prices in determining cotton production over time. The results show that the cash price is more important as a source of price information for cotton producers than the government program...

Forecasts of economic time series are often evaluated according to their accuracy as measured by either quantitative precision or qualitative reliability. We argue that consumers purchase forecasts for the potential utility gains from utilizing them, not for their accuracy. Using Monte Carlo...

Perceived characteristics of thin markets are described and approaches to furthering their study are suggested. Design features of a laboratory thin market, patterned after a typical livestock marketing situation, are described. Price bias and variation from a "thick" private negotiation market...

An expected-utility model and a chance-constrained linear programming model were used to analyze four marketing strategies and seven crop insurance alternatives for cotton marketing in Georgia. The results suggest that existing marketing tools and insurance alternatives can be used to reduce...