This paper develops Engel relationships to identify the determinants of household expenditures on nursery products and specifies their impact on consumer purchases of these goods for subregions of the United States. Household income, the number of single family home construction starts, educational level attained, and age composition of the population were found in influence nursery product expenditures. The economic variables of income and construction starts appear to be key factors affecting nursery purchases. To maintain a competitive edge, industry participants should monitor these variables carefully and adjust their production and marketing plans to meet changing market conditions.

Firm characteristics and managers' attitudes and opinions about pesticide safety were used to classify lawn care and landscape management firms into four categories and compare them using the logit procedure. Survey data obtained from 223 firms was used in the empirical investigation of the adoption of the IPM techniques. Results showed the need for continued transfer of new technology to independently owned firms, multidisciplinary assessment of IPM methods before their transfer to ascertain the economic viability of proposed methods, public investment in programs training workers in knowledge-based pesticide applications, possible assistance in obtaining capital, and investment in consumer education.

This study evaluates optimal investment decision rules for an energy beet ethanol firm to exercise the option to invest, mothball, reactivate, and exit the ethanol market, considering uncertainty and volatility in the market price of ethanol, feedstock, and irreversible investment. A real options framework is used to compute gross margins of ethanol that trigger entry into and exit from the ethanol market. Results show that volatility in ethanol gross margins has much greater effects on exit and entry decisions than investment costs, and it also causes firms to wait longer before entering the ethanol market and, once active, to wait longer before exiting.

We develop a model for a representative risk-averse cotton farmer to analyze the impact of crop insurance policies (Revenue Protection [RP], Yield Protection, Stacked Income Protection Plan [STAX], and Supplemental Coverage Option [SCO]). The model is calibrated and numerically optimized to quantify the effects of different insurance policy combinations on input use (moral hazard), insurance coverage levels, premiums, and certainty equivalent. When the farmer elects only RP, the optimal coverage rate is 80%. Under RP and STAX, the optimal RP coverage rate is 70% and the STAX coverage rate is 90%. RP and STAX is the optimal policy combination based on certainty equivalents. The RP and SCO combination has the lowest impact of input use.

This study explores the potential of routine preharvest cross-hedging of rough rice using wheat futures contract prices. A numerical simulation approach combined with risk efficiency analysis evaluates a wide range of cross-hedging alternatives. Results establish that farm-level cross-hedging can be considered a viable marketing alternative.

Applying the difference-in-difference (DID) estimation procedure, this study quantifies the wheat blast (Magnaporthe oryzae pathotype Triticum) induced losses in wheat yield, quantity of wheat sold, consumed, or stored, as well as wheat grain value in Bangladesh in 2016 following a disease outbreak that affected over 15,000 ha. Estimates show that the blast-induced yield loss was 540 kg ha−1 on average for households in blast-affected districts. Estimated total wheat production loss was approximately 8,205 tons worth USD 2.1 million in during the 2016 outbreak. Based on these insights, we discuss the need for long-term assured investment and concerted research efforts in controlling transboundary diseases such as wheat blast, including the importance of weather forecast driven early warning systems and the dissemination of blast-resistant varieties.

Crossing of breeds traditionally has been viewed skeptically by cattle producers. Although there has been some crossbreeding between traditional beef breeds, little use of dairy-beef crosses in commercial beef herds has been made. Often such calves have been inferior in quality and have yielded a lower return than the standard beef breeds.

Recently, however, considerable research attention has focused on crossbreeds – crossing standard beef breeds, dairy and beef, and standard and exotic (or new) beef breeds. When all three genetic types are crossed, several positive features have been identified: (1) quality is good – few animals grade prime but most finish at satisfactory weights as high good or choice; (2) greater milking capacity of the part-dairy cow increases the potential for rapid gains, thus permitting more beef to be raised per cow, and (3) genetic growth capability of some exotic breeds is greater so such crosses can take advantage of additional milk.

The food stamp and other assistance programs for low-income households require continual adjustment if some form of equity across time is to be achieved. For this reason, cost-of-living adjustments and related mechanisms for reflecting changes in prices and the economic status of the target populations have been used in formulae for computing the food stamp bonus and other welfare transfers.

The concept of demand has evolved through the centuries, enriched by the natural-value, exchange-value controversy and the diamond, water paradox of the classicists [11], the intuitive insights of Marshall [8], and the mathematical rigor of Slutsky [10], and Hicks and Men [6]. These developments led to the conceptualization of a demand function as a solution function to a constrained extremum problem [5,6,9, 10].

In his 1967 presidential address to the AAEA, Charles E. Bishop raises the question: “Why have agricultural economists not devoted more resources to the study of structural changes in rural communities and to public policies relating to the location of economic activity and of population?”. Later in the address, he partially provides the answer through the comment that “We must reorient our thinking in terms of location and scale of organizations and interrelations among firms and among communities … it will be necessary for us to make basic changes in our philosophical approaches to problems, our analytical tools,…”.

Trade in temperate zone agricultural products has remained largely outside the trend toward liberalization that has characterized international trade in the last 30 years. One of the most debated issues in this regard has been the European Community's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and its effects on world trade. Recent evidence emphasized the implications of the protectionist nature of the CAP in stimulating internal trade and slowing down third countries' farm exports to the EEC. But, no attempt has been made to estimate quantitatively the magnitude of the effect of the CAP system of import protection on EEC supply, consumption, and trade of agricultural products.

Previous empirical studies of school choice have been at the national level, or have focussed on northeastern states. We estimate the demand for private education in rural Georgia, using proportion of private school attendance as an indicator variable. We find that income, tuition, race and school quality are important choice determinants. The results provide useful information for rural school administrators, and suggest that a tuition tax credit would have to be substantial to cause a significant exodus from public schools.

Two major programs — allotment-quota and price support — have been in force to support peanut farming since 1952. The purpose is to restrict production of peanuts while supporting the price of peanuts produced. Production is restricted through the allotment-quota program, determined by the Secretary of Agriculture, and converted to a national acreage allotment. However, minimum national acreage allotment has been fixed at 1.61 million acres. The price support program provided that price be supported no lower than 75 percent of the parity price of peanuts. Under the programs, peanuts produced by the grower are sold on the market at the support price for edible uses and excess quantities are sold to the government at the support price. Peanuts purchased by the government are stored and later sold for crushing at the going market price. Because peanuts for crushing command a much lower price than the government acquisition price, the purchase-and-resale operation results in a net loss representing public cost of the peanut price support program.

The most useful and practical strategy available for reducing variability of net farm income is ascertained. Of the many risk management tools presently available, five of the most commonly used are simultaneously incorporated in an empirically tested model. Quadratic programming provides the basis for decisionmaking in risk management wherein expected utility is assumed to be a function of the mean and variance of net income. Results demonstrate that farmers can reduce production and price risks when a combination strategy including a diversified crop production plan and participation in the futures market and the Federal Crop Insurance Program (FCIP) is implemented.

Natural causes (such as droughts), non-natural causes (such as competinguses), and government policies limit the supply of water for agriculture ingeneral and irrigating crops in particular. Under such reduced water supplyscenarios, existing physical models reduce irrigation proportionally amongcrops in the farmer's portfolio, disregarding temporal changes in economicand/or institutional conditions. Hence, changes in crop mix resulting fromexpectations about risks and returns are ignored. A method is developed thatconsiders those changes and accounts for economic substitution and expansioneffects. Forecasting studies based on this method with surface water inGeorgia and Alabama demonstrate the relative strength of econometricmodeling vis-à-vis physical methods. Results from a study using this methodfor ground water in Mississippi verify the robustness of those findings.Results from policy-induced simulation scenarios indicate water savings of12% to 27% using the innovative method developed. Although better irrigationwater demand forecasting in crop production was the key objective of thispilot project, conservation of a valuable natural resource (water) hasturned out to be a key consequence.

In recent years, significant changes have taken place in the food consumption patterns of American consumers. Evidence indicates that the ongoing changes in U.S. household food expenditure patterns occurred in response not only to sudden increases in food prices in the early 1970s and the recent salient inflationary period (Buse and Fleischner; Salathe), but also to demographic shifts, tastes, and preferences (LeBovit).

In his recent article, Onianwa used the absolute price version of the Rotterdam demand model to estimate Mexican and Canadian import demands for U.S. beef products. The specification of the Rotterdam model allows straightforward testing of the basic theoretical properties of demand. Based on theory, a system of demand equations should obey adding up, homogeneity, symmetry, and negativity (Theil 1971, 1975; Deaton and Muellbauer). Adding up is guaranteed or automatically satisfied in the Rotterdam model and other similar demand models like the almost ideal demand system (AIDS). Hence, adding up cannot be tested. Negativity can be checked by calculating the eigenvalues of the Rotterdam Slutsky matrix (all eigenvalues should be nonpositive). The remaining two properties, homogeneity and symmetry, can be straightforwardly tested by using the likelihood ratio test, as in the present paper, or the Wald or Lagrange multiplier tests; homogeneity can also be tested separately for each demand equation using the F-test.

This paper introduces and briefly discusses the economics of two important trade and environment policy issues--international harmonization of environmental standards and the use of trade measures for environmental purposes. Both issues are likely to generate lively international debate among environmentalists, industry representatives, and trade negotiators over the next few years. As the international community seeks new multilateral rules in these areas, agricultural producers will want to know how they will be affected. Thus, this paper also examines the potential impacts of environmental policy on the competitiveness of commodities unique to the Southern region of the United States.

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 5 percent in the short run and by 1 to 2 percent in the long run. The average retail price of fluid milk would rise by 9 to 13 cents per gallon. Dairy program costs fall under most scenarios, but could rise if surpluses fall to levels that would trigger increases in the support price.