Seasonal swings in milk production in Florida result in a need to import milk on a seasonal basis. A linear programming analysis is used to analyze alternate freshening-date distributions and project the cost savings to Florida dairy farmers from reduced milk imports.

Protest bids are often excluded during analysis of contingent valuation method data. It is suggested that this procedure might introduce significant bias. Protest bids are often registered by respondents who may actually place a higher- or lower-than-average value on the commodity in question but refuse to pay on the basis of ethical or other reasons. Exclusion of protest bids may therefore bias willingness to pay (WTP) results, but the direction of bias is indeterminate a priori.

This paper empirically tested the three conditions identified by McConnell for equivalence of the linear utility difference model and the valuation function approach to dichotomous choice contingent valuation. Using a contingent valuation survey for deer hunting in California, two of the three conditions were violated. Even though the models are not simple linear transforms of each other for this survey, estimates of mean willingness to pay and their associated 95% confidence intervals around the mean were quite similar for the valuation methods.