J. S. Shonkwiler

Attitudes and Farmer Conservation Behavior

Conservation behavior is influenced by the attitudes of farmers and by context variables, like income and farm terrain. Important attitudes were selected by using the theory that fundamental value ranks or weights affect attitudes and that only certain values are important to the conservation decision. An extension of the tobit estimation approach, handling both censored observations of the dependent variable and measurement error for the nonlimit observations, was used. Conservation behavior models can be improved with a merger of concepts and approaches from social psychology and economics.

Estimating Yield Distributions with a Stochastic Trend and Nonnormal Errors

Randomness in crop yields can be decomposed into two broad modeling focuses: the estimation of the mean or central tendency of the distribution and the dispersion around that central tendency. We propose modeling the central tendency of the distribution with a stochastic trend model and allowing for nonnonnality within the stochastic trend through an inverse hyperbolic sine distribution. Results are consistent with this construction. First, residuals around the stochastic trend model are found to be non normal. Second, the inverse hyperbolic sine modification of the stochastic trend model corrects both skewness and kurtosis of corn yields.

THE EFFECT OF MANAGERIAL ABILITY ON FARM FINANCIAL SUCCESS

The effects of managerial ability on farm financial success are analyzed for a 1990 sample of Pennsylvania commercial dairy farms using structural latent variable techniques. Latent factors related to dairy, crop, and financial management are used with herd size to explain farm financial success, measured by net farm income. Results indicate the relative importance of each management variable toward farm financial success.

Factor Bias under Stochastic Technical Change

Time-series procedures are employed to determine the influence of technological change in inducing factor bias in U.S. agricultural production between 1948 and 1983. A dynamic measurement error model is used to link research expenditures to the unobserved technological change variable. Biasedness in labor and material factor shares is established.

A State-Space Approach to Perennial Crop Supply Analysis

In perennial crop supply analysis, separate estimation of the qualitatively different new planting and replanting decisions is desirable. Commonly, data paucity restricts estimation to a single reduced form equation. This study develops a dynamic unobserved components method where separate estimation of the structural equations is possible in the absence of detailed data on new plantings and replantings. The proposed method is empirically implemented in a case study of the Florida grapefruit industry. In terms of both statistical and forecasting performance, the proposed structural approach is found superior to a single equation reduced form specification.

RATIONALITY, PRICE RISK, AND RESPONSE

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.

Food Processor Price Behavior: Firm-Level Evidence of Sticky Prices

Firms in imperfectly competitive markets face direct and indirect costs when changing product prices. The latter costs reflect uncertain changes in revenue and market share resulting from the actions of rival firms. Rosetts friction model is applied to firm-level data to provide estimates of the indirect costs of changing prices for a major processor of frozen concentrated orange juice. Results indicate that indirect costs cause significant price rigidity. Additionally the hypothesis that prices are equally rigid for upward and downward changes could not be rejected.

Monte Carlo and bootstrap testing of demand homogeneity

Abstract To test for homogeneity of demand, a Monte Carlo test is formulated and it is extended to a bootstrap version.

A Monte Carlo test of Slutsky symmetry

Abstract This paper demonstrates how Barnards (1963) Monte Carlo test procedure can be applied to Slutsky symmetry in demand systems.

Assessing the Impact of Atlantic City Casinos on Nevada Gaming Revenues

The commencement of casino gaming activities in Atlantic City, New Jersey, during 1978 marked the end of Nevadas virtual monopoly of casino-style gambling. This paper attempts to quantify the impact of Atlantic City casino gaming activity on Nevada gross taxable gaming revenues by using a dynamic unobserved components time series model. Such structural time series models have the ability to represent local linear (stochastic) trends, stochastic seasonality, and nonstationary time series. The stochastic trend model is augmented with exogenous variables to explicitly account for the effects of changing consumer incomes, Atlantic City play, and the California lottery. The empirical results show that by 1985 the impact of Atlantic City casinos reached an apparently stable level of reducing Nevada gaming revenues by about 10 to 12 percent.