Recent empirical studies have found significant evidence of departures from competition in the input side of the bread,breakfast cereal and margarine end-product markets. In this study we specify a general duality model of profitmaximisation that allows for imperfect competition in the input and...

The primary objective in this paper is to 'promote' the use of equilibrium displacement modelling, or comparative static analyses of general function models, as a research tool in agricultural price and policy analyses. This is by no means a new tool, but it does seem to be used much less in...

Allocations of research funds across programs are often made for efficiency reasons. Social science research is shown to have small, lagged but significant effects on U.S. agricultural efficiency when public agricultural R&D and extension are simultaneously taken into account. Farm management...

The estimated parameters of output distance functions frequently violate the monotonicity, quasi-convexity and convexity constraints implied by economic theory, leading to estimated elasticities and shadow prices that are incorrectly signed, and ultimately to perverse conclusions concerning the...

Profitability change can be decomposed into the product of a total factor productivity (TFP) index and an index measuring changes in relative prices. Many TFP indexes can be further decomposed into measures of technical change, technical efficiency change, scale efficiency change and mix...

This paper presents a metafrontier production function model for firms in different groups having different technologies. The metafrontier model enables the calculation of comparable technical efficiencies for firms operating under different technologies. The model also enables the technology...

Effective socio-economic service delivery is vital for alleviating poverty in developing countries.Increased financial support without complementary investment in service delivery mechanisms oftenresults in little or no impact. This paper contributes to the discussion on how to maximize the...

Simultaneous equation techniques are used to re-examine the behaviour of monthly wholesale and retail price spreads for beef, lamb and pork in Sydney over the period 1971-1988, so as to understand the factors determining the relationships between the prices at the different market levels....

The perceived value of integrating small partial- equilibrium structural models of individual livestock industries into a comprehensive single-sector model is to take advantage of the interrelationships that are usually expressed by cross elasticities on both the supply and demand sides of these...

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the influence of alternate price determination specifications on the ability of a structural econometric model of the Australian prime lamb industry to accurately forecast saleyard lamb prices. Five variations of this model were specified according to the...