Decisions farm boys make upon graduation from high school with regard to education and occupation are important to their future welfare, the optimum allocation of human resources, and the rate of economic growth. In order to help these boys make educational and occupational plans, parents, teachers, counselors, and other adults must understand what factors influence their choices. Several well designed studies have been conducted in other states by sociologists and economists within this general area. This analysis was specifically designed to provide information about the factors which influence Oklahoma farm boys' educational and occupational plans.

Financing local public goods is a major issue in many communities, especially those that have experienced rapid growth. This paper analyzes problems associated with locally collected real property taxes where the real property tax base is only revaluated at long time intervals. Using counties in North Carolina as the subject of the analysis, we find that effective real property tax rates fall between revaluations. We calculate that a system of taxing market values of real property at a constant legislated tax rate would have yielded additional annual revenues of $320 million for North Carolina counties over 1980 to 1995.

The effect of capital structure and seasonality of fresh market vegetables was examined via the Target MOTAD model. The level of capital indebtedness and the selection of either a fall or spring season resulted in significantly different levels of enterprise mixes, expected returns, risk magnitudes, rates of change of risk magnitudes, and operating capital requirements. The fall season demonstrated larger initial levels of risk and larger increases in the level of risk due to increases in indebtedness. The spring season showed larger increases in risk between the minimum risk point and the maximum expected return point (linear programming solution) on the risk-efficient frontier. Operating capital requirements were substantially higher for the fall season than for the spring season. The operating capital requirements of the spring season were significantly affected by the level of indebtedness and the magnitude of risk selected by the grower, while the larger operating capital requirements of the fall season were only marginally affected.

The economic distortions that have been caused by federal regulation of natural gas markets have been the subject of many recent studies (Committee for Economic Development [CED]; Brickhill; Hall; MacAvoy and Pindyck; and Means). The most recent policy debate concerns the relative merits of alternatives to the price deregulation schedule of the 1978 Natural Gas Policy Act (NGPA). The range of options runs from freezing natural gas prices at current levels to complete decontrol of natural gas prices by January 1, 1986. Producers of natural gas, pipelines, distribution utilities, and end users all suffer from some sort of economic distortion under the NGPA (CED, pp. 50-60).

For many years my interest in farm policy was focused on the substance of the issues we confronted. What were the alternative means by which the current questions could be answered? What were the consequences of the alternative solutions? But recently I have found myself focusing on a different set of questions. These questions have to do, not with the substance of the items that happen to be on the agenda, but with the makeup of the agenda itself. How did the present questions get on the agenda? Who is intent on keeping them there? What other questions are there, questions not on the agenda? Who wants to put them on? In short, are we asking the right questions? Many years of teaching have convinced me that it is very difficult to get the right answer if we ask the wrong questions.

Adjustments in the distribution system, as rapidly and as consistently as they occur, seldom fail to elicit substantial emotional reaction. Linking the production system with the consumption system, the distribution system is extremely pervasive. Small changes have widespread effects. Thorough, objective analysis of these changes is difficult and vulnerable, especially when public hearing procedures provide little time for intensive study.

Do cost considerations justify the current structure of production of extension services in which one or more providers exists in virtually all of the contiguous U.S. states? Provision of extension services has sizable cost implications for the host institutions. Yet, to our knowledge, there has been virtually no analysis of the impact of extension on higher education costs. Using academic year 1995–1996 data, we estimate a multiproduct cost function for 1,445 public institutions of higher education in the United States, including 65 that provide extension services. We find evidence of significant economies of scale with respect to the provision of extension services but no evidence of significant economies of scope between the provision of extension and the production of research, undergraduate education, or graduate education.

Florida has an estimated 618 trillion gallons of fresh water in the aquifer system. In addition, there is a considerable amount of water in lakes, and annual runoff from streams (and underground aquifer seepage) has been estimated at 40 billion gallons [1, p. 9]. The annual runoff alone is seven times the withdrawal (about 14 percent) and 22 times the consumption (about 5 percent). A curious development has occurred in Florida, however, that would not have been expected by the reviewer of such aggregated figures. The general populace and, as a result, the legislators, became concerned enough with water management and use in the early 1970s to develop and implement sweeping water legislation. The nature of this legislation had not heretofore been observed in the southeast nor, for that matter, almost anywhere else in the eastern United States. The Florida Water Act of 1972 [3] was enacted to deal with localized shortages that were developing in, and have been compounded since, the late 1960s.

During the last two decades, the feeder pig industry in Virginia has undergone significant growth in the number of pigs sold and in the value of total sales, along with improvement in marketing procedures. From 1959 to 1978, the number of feeder pigs sold in state-sponsored auctions increased from 2,195 to more than 150,000 per year (Virginia Department of Agriculture). Tele-Auction sales, conducted by the Virginia Feeder Kg Association, use a conference telephone system that allows distant buyers to bid for pigs described by lot size, grade, weight, and tail docking. Pigs from various producers are co-mingled into lots that are homogeneous with respect to these characteristics. The Tele-Auction system permits out-of-state buyers to participate easily in sales, thus increasing the demand for Virginia's feeder pigs. In 1979, the Association sponsored 128 sales at 8 locations.

Criticism of current agricultural programs is coming from within and outside agriculture. Secretary Bergland in recent “grassroots hearings” has called for new approaches in agricultural policy in which recipient benefits do not hinge on size of farming operation. Hjort suggests that despite widespread agreement on the objective of encouraging the family farm, “the cumulative effect of our farm programs may well have been to hasten the concentration of the farm sector….” (Hjort, p. 748). Producers of flue-cured tobacco voted overwhelmingly in December 1979 to continue a program but are upset about high quota rental prices. Outside agriculture, consumers are unhappy about the effects of farm programs on prices of milk, sugar, and other products. Students of the political process are concerned about the effects of the use of state power by small, politically powerful groups to secure economic gains.

In the fields of agriculture and resource economics, good economics is predicated by good science. By partnering more with physical scientists, economists will be better able to provide the broad policy-making community with practical recommendations for addressing resource issues. An example of collaboration is presented for the development of environmental indicators of the potential risk to the environment of die loss of pesticides from farm fields, which will be used by economists to adjust conventionally measured agricultural output for water quality impacts associated with agricultural production.

This article challenges the traditional model of the economist as a humble technocrat who simply provides analysis given the preferences of policy decision-makers. Since decision-makers rarely reveal their preferences, it is important that the would-be policy research/analyst know the political economy and be willing to identify potential performance goals for society. Researchers who are willing to incur the transaction cost associated with becoming involved in useful policy research must learn to work within the imperfect policy process. Policy research that considers the importance of implementation and that acknowledges the institutions and the history will have the highest chance of being useful to policy-makers.

In an excellent analysis, Dr. Ghebremedhin discusses the impacts of technological changes on “small versus large farms, public costs in rural communities, and the future direction of research needs.” I cannot but wholeheartedly agree with some of his conclusions; e.g., that “technology has increased agricultural productivity and created new jobs, but it has also displaced persons from their occupations and livelihood.”

Whole farm simulation analysis and econometric techniques are employed in an analysis of crop rotations and tenure arrangement strategies. The FLIPSIM model is used to analyze a representative Texas Upper Gulf Coast rice and soybean farm. Probit analysis is then used to determine the impact of net cash farm income, land tenure, and crop rotation on probability of survival. Results suggest that, although the simulation model is useful in providing information on the effect at the farm level of following the different strategies, probit results provide greater understanding into the returns and risk inherent to each strategy.

The USDA's Food Stamp Program (FSP) is a major item in the department's budget. In effect from 1939 to 1943 and revived as a pilot program in 1961, FSP has grown until, in 1973, it provided nearly $4 billion in food stamps to an average of 12 million persons per month. About 55 percent of the $4 billion is federal subsidy. The program is continuing to expand as a result of a congressional mandate that FSP be in effect nationwide after June 30, 1974. Because of the FSP's growth, questions are now being asked about the program's impact on demand for food in the United States.

In its pre-World War II inception, FSP was developed as an alternative to direct distribution of commodities to relief families. Although the objective of improving food consumption among needy households was recognized, FSP was viewed primarily as a method for stimulating demand for farm products.

The Stollsteimer plant location model is a normative tool appropriate for deterrmning least-cost number, size and location of a subindustry's marketing facilities. Several modification and extensions of the basic model have increased its value to the applied economist. Ladd and Halvorson developed a procedure to determine sensitivity of the optimal solution to variation in model parameters, i.e., the researcher may resolve how magnitude cost parameters are altered before the solution becomes non-optimal. The basic model's solution procedure prevented application where large numbers of potential plant sites were involved. A recent modification by Warrack and Fletcher effects a reduction in required computer time by approximating optimization, thus increasing size of plant location problems investigated. Polopolus extended the basic model to encompass multiple product plants and, in collaboration with Chern, modified the basic Stollsteimer model to permit substitution of a discontinuous, long-run plant cost function for the strategically assumed continuous linear form. Prior to the latter modification, the basic model accommodated only a long-run total plant cost function which was linear with a positive intercept.

An interregional reactive programming model of the United States dairy industry is used to test the welfare implications of several dairy program changes on milk producers, milk consumers, and taxpayers. The results showed that each of the tested alternatives (price support reduction, price support reduction with frozen minimum Class I price, assessments, and production quotas) could reduce price support expenditures substantially. However, assessments reduced expenditures most effectively in terms of cost to milk producers for the United States generally while price support reduction with frozen minimum Class I price was most efficacious in terms of cost to Southeast producers.

Economic events since the 1972–73 crop year have generated much interest in cottonseed prices. Cotton producers, observing a doubling of wholesale prices of cottonseed oil and meal during the last three years, have wondered whether they are getting an equitable share of this increased income. They have largely stopped thinking of their cottonseed as merely a means of payment for ginning charges and have begun to regard it as a potential source of supplementary income.

The limited objective of this paper is to examine, by regions, the wholesale marketing margin for cottonseed during the crop years of 1958–1973 in order to (1) more clearly determine how the marketing margin has behaved and (2) discover differences, if any, among regional marketing margins.