This paper analyses the world demand for fibers using the system-wide approach with three dimensions—product × space × time. We investigate to what extent differences in international consumption patterns of fibers can be explained by differences in incomes and prices faced by different consumers. A novel approach to cross-country consumption comparisons is employed to avoid the troublesome problem of what exchange rates to use when converting data into a common currency unit. We use data from the ten largest consuming countries to estimate demand systems and then examine how they perform in predicting consumption patterns in a large number of out-of-sample countries.

Factors unique to the turkey industry suggest that conclusions concerning market structure and demand specification drawn from aggregate poultry data cannot necessarily be extrapolated to the turkey industry. The Wu-Hausman endogeneity test is used to examine demand specifications and industry structure specifically for turkey meat. In contrast to general poultry, quantity—not price—is found to be predetermined in demand models that use annual turkey data. Quarterly demand analysis suggests this result stems from biological cycles that limit a producer's ability to react to price change and the use of a weighted average for determining price and quantity.

Using recent advances in the stochastic production frontier framework, this paper presents an empirical analysis of technical, allocative and economic efficiency of a sample of organic and conventional cotton farms located in Greece. The results suggest that both farm types in the sample examined are technically, allocatively and economically inefficient. Farmer's age and education and farm size are important factors in explaining differentials in efficiency estimates. In comparative terms, organic farms exhibit lower efficiency scores vis-à-vis their conventional counterparts in terms of technical and economic efficiency; regarding allocative efficiency both farm types are almost equally inefficient. Low efficiency scores in both types of farming may be attributed to the respective intervention policies of the last 20 years.

Colleges of veterinary medicine are often asked to provide evidence of the economic impacts of their activities. This paper presents methods for evaluating a veterinary college and applies them to the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine. It assesses short-run impacts on income and employment using input-output analysis. Long-run benefits are estimated using a combination of economic surplus analysis, travel cost analysis and demand estimation, animal-owner willingness-to-pay based on a survey of practicing veterinarians, and earnings differentials.

Regional water scarcity has motivated the South Central Texas Regional Water Planning Group to actively develop water management plans to address long-/short-term regional water needs. This study, therefore, develops an integrated Edwards Aquifer groundwater and river system simulation model to determine the “best” choice of regional water management plans using mixed-integer linear programming. The economic, hydrologic, and environmental consequences of the “best” choice of regional and other water management plans and options are evaluated and compared. Results indicate a tradeoff between the economic and environmental benefits. A slight decrease in economic benefit results in a substantial increase in environmental benefit.

Some suppliers of broilers without giblets (WOG) offer customers a choice between paying Urner Barry's WOG quote or a formula price based on futures prices. From a buyer's perspective, the formula price examined in this study is second-degree stochastic dominant. The formula price allows the seller to set perfect cross-hedges of WOGs with corn and soymeal. Stochastic dominance and mean variance results suggested that the seller's dominant strategy would shift from the Urner Barry quote to the hedged formula price as risk aversion increased. Input-based formula pricing may be usefully extended to other industries.

The North Carolina Agriculture Survey was designed to estimate the willingness to pay for agricultural research and extension programs. We find that North Carolina households are willing to pay between $218 and $401 million for food production programs and between $251 and $698 million for water quality programs annually. We find evidence of divergent validity and differences in the willingness to pay estimates from the single-bound and multiple-bound data.

This paper contributes to the debate on whether pre-harvest pricing strategies can improve returns over cash sales at harvest. It also examines cash flow needs of such strategies. The analysis is conducted for Ohio corn produced from 1986 through 1999. The pre-harvest strategies evaluated (short futures, long put, synthetic long put, put-call fence) did not statistically improve returns over cash sales at harvest. However, if implemented during or before planting, these naïve strategies reduced the standard deviation of annual gross income. Substantial cash flow may be incurred, either to establish the strategy or meet margin calls. Therefore, assessments of pre-harvest pricing strategies should include cash flow needs, along with return and risk.

If agricultural output results from non-separable multiproduct technologies, environmental regulation can change the set of possible output combinations. This will be important when regulation affects the quality composition of a crop. As a result, market and welfare changes have to be assessed in technology-related markets. We present a model that serves to estimate the economic impacts in such instances and use it in the assessment of pesticide regulation in the U.S. apple industry. Impacts for four pesticide cancellation scenarios are assessed. It is shown that changes in the quality of a crop lead to significant market reallocation effects.

Use of the Tobit model for estimation of adult equivalent scale (AES) parameters and expenditure equations presupposes that zero observations represent exclusively corner solutions. This paper tests for the underlying causes of zero observations and estimates accordingly the AES parameters, the household size in adult equivalents and the resulting expenditure equations and consumption profiles. The empirical application concerns Greek household “soft” and “hard” cheese consumption. The statistical results indicate that for the examined cheese categories the “double hurdle participation” model adjusted for non-normality and heteroskedasticity is the appropriate model for the estimation of AES parameters and expenditure equations.

Firm characteristics and managers' attitudes and opinions about pesticide safety were used to classify lawn care and landscape management firms into four categories and compare them using the logit procedure. Survey data obtained from 223 firms was used in the empirical investigation of the adoption of the IPM techniques. Results showed the need for continued transfer of new technology to independently owned firms, multidisciplinary assessment of IPM methods before their transfer to ascertain the economic viability of proposed methods, public investment in programs training workers in knowledge-based pesticide applications, possible assistance in obtaining capital, and investment in consumer education.

Interest in mandatory county-of-origin labeling of fresh meats exists at both the state and national levels. A sample of beef handling firms in Louisiana (processors, retailers and restaurants) was surveyed by telephone to identify the characteristics of these firms that would help explain their decision to support or reject the law. A factor supporting the label use was a belief that the label is valuable to buyers. Negative factors were that the firm is a restaurant, is part of a chain or franchise, or has experience handling imported beef, and the belief that labeling merely reflects more government interference in free trade.

The effects of cropland slope, distance to surface water, farmers' risk attitudes, and farmers' nitrogen (N) fertilizer applications on potential N delivery to streams and costs of reducing N delivery were evaluated for a representative Virginia peanut-cotton farm. Target MOTAD and generalized stochastic dominance were used to select preferred plans for different levels of risk aversion. Costs of reducing N delivery were lower on farms where fields were located close to surface water, where N was overapplied relative to extension fertilizer recommendations, and where the operator was risk averse. Cropland slope had less effect on cost of reducing N delivery relative to other factors.

This study investigates determinants of private capital formation in Greek agriculture and tests the “complementarity” against the “crowding out” hypothesis using multivariate cointegration techniques and ECVAR modeling in conjunction with variance decomposition and impulse response analysis. The results provide evidence of a significant positive causal effect of government spending on private capital formation, thus supporting the “complementarity” hypothesis for Greek agriculture.