Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-jwnkl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-11T17:47:34.486Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Market Functions and the Plight of the Northeast Livestock Auction Industry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 May 2017

William H. Lesser
William H. Lesser*
Affiliation:
Agricultural Economics, Cornell University
Get access

Extract

Most economists characterize spot markets as performing two basic functions: price discovery and locational services (which may be subdivided into assembly and sorting). The livestock auction industry in total does not differ from this general characterization since its basic function is to bring buyers and sellers to the place where the animals are being marketed. Thus whether the principal species and class handled in a particular market is feeder pigs or cull beef cows the functions performed at this level of generality are the same. The marketing procedures used are also highly uniform, consisting principally of unloading, sorting, presentation to buyers and reloading, along with the necessary record keeping. As a result there is a tendendy to view this industry as homogenous with some unit cost differences due principally to variation in size.

Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Journal of the Northeastern Agricultural Economics Council , Volume 8 , Issue 2 , October 1979 , pp. 221 - 229
Copyright
Copyright © Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

The author would like to thank Max Brunk for suggesting the topic of this paper, Everett Stoddard for providing the data for the research and William Greene for using his program to estimate scale economies. This research was supported by HATCH NY(C)-121420.

References

Agway, Planning Department. Cull Cow and Calf Marketing Survey. April 14, 1978.Google Scholar
Federal Register. March 30, 1978, pp. 13488–89.Google Scholar
Greene, William H. Maximum Likelihood Estimation of Econometric Frontier Functions. Working paper No. 162, Department of Economics, Cornell University, March 1978.Google Scholar
Kuehn, John P. Cost and Efficiencies of Model Livestock Auctions in West Virginia. Bulletin 606, West Virginia University, Agricultural Experiment Station, December 1971.Google Scholar
Schmidt, P. “On the Statistical Estimation of Parametric Frontier Production Functions.” Review of Economics and Statistics, 58 (1975): 238–239.Google Scholar
Stoddard, Everett O. An Economic Analysis of Cost of Service and Value of Service Tariffs in the Livestock Auction Industry. Unpublished Ph.D dissertation, University of Maryland, 1975.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Packers & Stockyards Administration, Resume, XV (3): 1977.Google Scholar
Wilson, E.M. and Kuehn, J.P. A Cost Analysis of the Livestock Auction Markets in West Virginia. Bulletin 600T, West Virginia Universtiy Agricultural Experiment Station, April 1971.Google Scholar
Yager, W.A. and Greene, R.C. Feeding and Marketing Strategies for Cull Cows. Bulletin 698, Montana State University Agricultural Experiment Station, November 1977.Google Scholar