This paper examines the potential that exists for energy conservation in feeding livestock and poultry in the Northeast by analyzing the “What if” question: “What if national policy dictates using imputed energy “costs” to minimize energy use in feed rations?” Current feed rations contain large amounts of embodied energy reflecting the quantity of fossil fuel energy required to produce, process and transport the various ingredients included in the feed rations. By changing the mix of ingredients in feed rations, perhaps considerable energy could be saved in the Northeast.

Mechanical fruit harvesters have been commercially available to New York growers for ten years. However, adoption of mechanical apple harvesters has been relatively slow because of (l) the availability of relatively inexpensive hand labor, (2) the lack of a suitable fresh fruit harvester, and (3) the wide variation in tree size, apple varieties, farm size and production practices which make operation of a mechanical harvester physically and/or economically infeasible.

Economic theory generally involves choice between real-valued criterion vectors x = (xi, …, xn) ε X, where X is the feasible set of such vectors. For example, in the theory of consumer demand, the criterion xi can be interpreted as the quantity demanded of the ith good. Under certainty, a rational consumer would choose a value of x that would maximize the ordinal utility u(x) subject to x ε X. If a function u(x) does not exist, in the paradigm of Marschak [1976], he is not national, his choices are not consistent, and some of them will be regretted. Even greater focus is placed on the multidimensional nature of the criterion function by the alternative approach suggested by Lancaster [1966]. His approach views goods or services as being demanded because they yield want-satisfying characteristics to consumers. In general, a good or service has multiple characteristics, any one of which may be shared by more than one good or service (the traditional consumer model is a special case which views the number of characteristics as equal to the number of goods or services). Further, goods or services in combination may possess characteristics (attributes) different from those pertaining to the items separately.

Public programs of agricultural preservation continue to be of interest in many states of the urbanized Northeast. Farmers themselves, of course, have always been concerned with this issue, and in recent years they have found effective allies among public planners, for whom the agricultural sector has become a chief source of scenic and cultural amenities as well as insurance against unforeseen disruptions in future supplies of food and fiber. Programs of use-value assessment have been enacted by almost all of the northeastern states, as well as by those in many other parts of the country. Partly as a result of the fact that the effectiveness of this approach has been in doubt, attention in some states is turning to programs in which the development rights are purchased from agricultural land in order to alleviate development pressure on these areas. New Jersey has recently undertaken a program of development rights purchase, Massachusetts is currently shaping legislation for such a program, and many other states have shown interest.

Most discussions of community planning and development have described it as a result (e.g., an increased level of economic activity which leads to a higher social welfare function and standard of living) or as a process (the way decisions should be made to achieve the result). The literature is, therefore, somewhat confusing since subsumed under the overall subject matter heading are such diverse topics as the economic feasibility of a manufacturing plant or social psychology applied to the power structure of the community recreation committee.

Insurance is generally found whenever uncertainty presents itself in economic activity. Adaptation to the existence of uncertainty of treatment and incidence of illness had by 1970 produced 77 percent and 57 percent of the individuals in the United States purchasing hospital and doctor visit insurance, respectively. Corresponding figures for the rural farm population were approximately 10 percent lower in each category. The recognition that a substantial proportion of individuals have failed to protect themselves voluntarily from the financial consequences of illness has lead researchers to develop models of decision-making which explain individual reluctance to protect from adverse consequences in the event of illness.

The elderly in the Northeast are increasing in both relative and absolute numbers. Research on the delivery of services to rural people in the Northeast and their satisfaction with services has been given a high priority. Among community services, research on services for the elderly has been given the highest priority. This article documents the opinions about community services of non-institutionalized, nonmetropolitan people 60 years of age and over.

Public concern with decisions about the use of land, particularly if it is undeveloped, is an increasing phenomenon in our society. This is especially true in the coastal zone, where land and water resources are extremely limited in quantity and subject to strong and growing demand, and where there are not only direct interrelationships among the ways adjacent parcels of shoreland and water are used, but also indirect interrelationships among various land and water uses that are effected through complex coastal ecosystems. Since the coastal waters are largely common property resources, there is a particularly strong rationale for concern about the impact of human activities upon their availability, quality, and viability within the ecosystem.

In 1974 the price level for food as measured by the Consumer Price Index increased by 14.4 percent. During this period supermarkets received wholesale price increases on up to 800 individual lines of merchandise per week. In keeping with traditional practices the industry would pass the wholesale price increases to the consumer by pricing the new merchandise and existing shelf inventory to reflect higher wholesale costs. It was not uncommon during this period for consumers to find two, three, or more old price markings on an item replaced by a higher price.