The Common Agricultural Policy increases European poultry production costs, prohibits imports, increases domestic prices, and subsidizes exports. This policy has displaced some U.S. exports. However, the net impact in the U.S. has been quite modest, even assuming poultry is homogeneous, independent of source country. Costs to U.S. producers are almost entirely offset by gains to U.S. consumers. Effects in the U.S. are even smaller when imperfect substitutability between poultry from different countries is accounted for. A retaliatory U.S. export subsidy would have more dramatic effects in U.S. markets.

The purpose of this paper is to measure the extent of technical inefficiency among a sample of Illinois grain farms using the corrected ordinary least squares method. Instead of assuming a Cobb-Douglas production function, a linear form of the ray-homothetic is used. The results show a significant amount of technical inefficiency among all the farms in the sample, but with large farms being less technically inefficient than small farms.

Using data from a survey of farm operators in two Virginia counties, the authors analyze farmers' soil conservation decisions. Results indicate that financial factors, including income and debt, are the most important influences on the sample farmers' use of conservation practices. Additional factors such as perception of erosion, education level, off-farm employment, and tenancy also influence conservation expenditures. Factors influencing conservation tillage acreage differ from those influencing expenditures for other conservation practices. In particular, age and race of the operator and on-farm erosion potential are significantly related to the use of conservation tillage but not other practices. These results are discussed in terms of their implications for conservation programs.

Implicit (hedonic) producer prices for fiber strength uniformity were estimated for the southwest U.S. cotton market using seemingly unrelated regression and market sales data from 1983/84 and 1984/85. Fiber strength and length uniformity had significant effects on the price of cotton, but price was less responsive to both attributes than anticipated. Producer prices were most responsive to fiber length and micronaire and least responsive to color and strength. The market at the producer level appears to be making effective price adjustments with respect to factors such as fiber color, trash content, micronaire, fiber length, and location, but strength and length uniformity premiums and discounts are smaller than those paid by end users.

An econometric model of cotton acreage response was estimated for four distinct production regions in the United States. This work builds on previous work in the area of supply response under government farm programs and provides up-to-date regionalized estimates of own-price elasticity of cotton acreage supply. The own-price variable used in this study is a weighted combination of expected market price and government policy variables. Results indicate regional similarity in response to own price but differences with respect to the prices of alternative enterprises. Differences in regional response to paid diversion are also indicated.

Risk has long been recognized as potentially important in determining agricultural supply. However, supply response models have either incorporated risk in an ad hoc manner or not at all. A rational expectations supply response model incorporating price risk is developed, an estimation procedure suggested, and an empirical example presented.

This paper describes computer-assisted instruction for financial management which can be used to supplement an undergraduate course or to update training of persons in agribusiness. It is used to review principles of financial management, to illustrate analytical techniques, and to provide practice in the use of financial concepts and techniques. The material covered is similar to that found in traditional textbooks. Student evaluations of the software were fairly positive, but teaching effectiveness needs to be measured.