Federal budgetary pressures raise questions regarding the importance of public market information. This study assesses the impact of price discovery and production efficiency of reducing public price and quantity information. The amount and type of information provided to Fed Cattle Market...

Elasticities calculated from an econometric model of cost of gain (COG) for cattle in feedlots indicate that COG is considerably less responsive to corn price changes than breakeven budgets assume. This difference in elasticities can lead to substantial errors in COG estimates obtained from...

Although several studies have estimated the costs of country-of-origin labeling (COOL), no previous study has documented how these costs will be distributed across the livestock sector or how producer and consumer welfare will be affected. This analysis presents an equilibrium displacement model...

Production agriculture and agribusiness are exposed to many weather-related risks. Recent years have seen the emergence of an increased interest in weather-based derivatives as mechanisms for sharing risks due to weather phenomena. In this study, a unique precipitation derivative is proposed...

For multiple peril crop insurance, the U.S. Department of Agriculture'Â’s Risk Management Agency estimates the premium rate for a base coverage level and then uses multiplicative adjustment factors to recover rates at other coverage levels. Given this methodology, accurate estimation of the...

This paper examines the use of market consultants and market information systems by grain and cotton producers. A model of producer demand for marketing information and consultants is proposed that decomposes price received into exogenous and endogenous components. The analysis is based on a...

A variety of crop revenue insurance programs have recently been introduced. A critical component of revenue insurance contracts is quantifying the risk associated with stochastic prices. Forward-looking, market-based measures of price risk which are often available in form of options premia are...

New types of crop insurance have expanded the tools from which crop producers may choose to manage risk. Little is known regarding how these products interact with futures and options. This analysis examines optimal futures and put ratios in the presence of four alternative insurance coverages....