Market structure has implications for research policies. The public sector reduced its support for technological change for poultry relative to beef and pork after poultry became integrated. However, market integration causes private sector research to be below the optimal level from society's perspective. In order to get the appropriate response from the private sector, the public sector should not reduce its support for technological change after market integration. Instead, the public sector should increase its support for research such as basic science that complements private sector research.

This paper examines the effects of the use of increasingly-popular phytosanitary regulations on production costs, and output and factor trade flows. The case addressed is that of the European regulation of maximum chemical residues in cigarettes manufactured with tobacco containing maleic hydrazide. The paper presents simulations of the effects of tightening the EU regulation on the tobacco growing and manufacturing industries. The analysis focusses on input/output market linkages and on the substitution away from the residue-contaminated U.S. input to residue-free non-U.S. inputs. This induced substitution results in higher costs, lower quantity supplied of the final product, and higher prices for U.S. cigarettes in Europe. Cross-price effects lead to higher quantities of EU cigarettes sold and a corresponding increase in the use of all inputs, including U.S. tobacco. When the U.S. tobacco price is allowed to fall, direct price effects stimulate the EU derived demand for U.S. tobacco. Although the regulation is protectionist in the output market, it leads to increased EU imports of the residue-contaminated input. When the price of U.S. tobacco adjusts, the regulation is actually antiprotective for EU growers. The regulation also indirectly influences production practices of U.S. tobacco growers and leads to lower levels of MH residues on U.S. leaf.

Primary food producers are permitted to bargain as a group for higher prices. Supply response, however, is critical to the long-run success of producer cartels. This article presents a model that elucidates that role of supply response in agricultural price bargaining when no overt action is taken to limit quantity and participation in the cartel is voluntary. Free-riding, for example, is seen as having a dual nature: it undermines the cartel's influence at the negotiating table but it enhances the cartel's ability to sustain a negotiated price increase by attenuating supply response. That price bargaining can result in significant transfers from processors to producers when demand is inelastic and supply is uncontrolled is highlighted in the empirical application.

Factors affecting marketing margins were identified and assessed using a relative price spread technique. Margins were disaggregated into slaughter-to-wholesale and wholesale-to-retail for a more complete understanding. Marketing costs, concentration, demand, and price were used to explain variations within these margins. Results showed that packer concentration had a significant effect on margins. Forces of supply and demand (as represented by production and market price) and changes in marketing costs also explained the variation in margins. A higher degree of price transmission from slaughter-to-wholesale level was observed in comparison to the wholesale-to-retail level.

Subtleties involving measurement of quantities and prices when derived demands are graphically displayed in frameworks representing market linkages are discussed. Complications arising from assuming variable proportions rather than fixed coefficients are noted. Finally, an example developed by Wohlgenant and Haidacher is clarified.

The industrialization of agriculture refers to the continued consolidation of farms and to the growing use of production and marketing contracts and vertical integration among input suppliers, lenders, agricultural producers, processors, and distributors of food and fiber products, domestically and globally. Industrialization is strongly affecting the structure and performance of farms and agribusiness firms; the distribution of risk, returns, and the ownership and control of resources in the food and fiber system; locations of production; competitiveness in international markets; the effectiveness of agricultural policy; business activity, income, family welfare and employment in rural communities; and environmental quality and control. Research is urgently needed to measure these effects, understand the complex underlying factors, and evaluate policy alternatives that influence and are influenced by the industrialization of agriculture.

Contingent-valuation estimates for white-water boating passengers are compared with Likert ratings by river guides. The approach involves asking whether passengers and their guides ordinally rank alternative flows the same. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Contingent Valuation Panel (1993) suggested “one might want to compare its (contingent-valuation's) outcome with that provided by a panel of experts.” River guides constitute a counterfactual panel of “experts.” For commercial trips, optimum flows are 34,000 cfs and 31,000 cfs for passengers and guides, and the comparable figures for private trips are 28,000 cfs and 29,000 cfs. In the NOAA Panel framework, passengers can evaluate the consequences of various river flows and translate this into contingent-valuation responses.

A long term whole farm analysis comparing conventional and low-input farming systems is reviewed. A computational error led to the mistaken conclusion that conventional farming with government programs is less preferred by risk-averse farmers than the low input alternative. The greater income variance of conventional agriculture need not make it less preferred provided a higher mean income sufficiently offsets the higher variance.

The authors are correct in identifying the mistakes in our article published in October, 1990 issue of the Northeastern Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics. In the following, I will provide the correct numbers, note changes that should be made in the article's observations, and offer a recommendation given my experience in sustainable agriculture since 1990.