James W. Dunn

The Relative Efficiency of Agricultural Source Water Pollution Control Policies

This paper examines the relative expected efficiency of four general strategies which have been proposed for achieving agricultural nonpoint pollution abatement. Emphasis is placed on the implications of differential information about the costs of changes in farm management practices, the impracticality of accurate direct monitoring, and the stochastic nature of nonpoint pollution. The possibility of using hydrological models to reduce, but not eliminate, the uncertainty about the magnitude of nonpoint loadings is incorporated into the analysis. The principal result is that appropriately specified management practice incentives should generally outperform estimated runoff standards, estimated runoff incentives, and management practice standards for reducing agricultural nonpoint pollution.

Determinants of Seafood Purchase Behavior: Consumers, Restaurants, and Grocery Stores

United States sales of seafood increased about 50% from the 1950s to a peak of 16.1 pounds per capita in 1987. Because of an accelerating rate of growth in the early 1980s, there were optimistic projections of 20 pounds per capita sales for the year 2000. These projections of increased consumption coincided with growing recognition of the nutritional advantages of seafood over other meats (National Research Council, Lees). However, instead of growing, consumption per capita has flattened, just as it had previously leveled off in the 1950s and 1960s (table 1). Seafood sales of about 15 pounds per capita are now a cause of concern to both wild-catch and aquaculture producers. Their concerns are heightened by the continuing gains in per capita consumption of pork, chicken, and turkey since 1987. In this paper key determinants of seafood demand in the United States are examined. Atten-

Hedonic Pricing of Milk Components at the Farm Level

Raw milk derives its value from the products made from it: fluid milk, ice cream, yogurt, butter, cheese, nonfat dry milk, and other condensed dairy products. The key components of milk used to make these products are butterfat (BF), solids-not-fat (SNF), and water (W). Since these products use the components in different proportions, each component has an implicit value. These implicit values can be derived either from the retail market for dairy products (Lancaster; Ladd and Suvannunt) or from the farm market where raw milk is sold to dairy processors (Ladd and Martin). If the dairy marketing system efficiently transmits price signals, then the values implicit in prices paid to the farmer will equal their value to the dairy processor, as derived from the retail market. The problem of interest is whether the milk marketing system efficiently transmits milk component values from the retail market for dairy products to the farm market for raw milk. Federal Milk Marketing Orders control approximately 70 percent of all milk marketed in the United States. Thirty-five of the 33 Milk Marketing Orders use the volume-butterfat differential pricing system to pay milk producers in the farm market. Many have argued that the volume-butterfat differential pricing system is inefficient (Jacobson and Walker; Ladd and Dunn; Perrin; Graf; Kirkland and Mittelhammer; Gillmeister et al.; Lenz, Mittelhammer, and Hillers). Multiple-component pricing has been identified as an alternative system that would pay explicit prices for all three milk components. The issue of efficiency of the butterfat differential price formula arose for two reasons.

Economic assessment of crop damages due to air pollution: The role of quality effects

Biological research has established that air pollution can affect the yield and quality of agricultural crops. Economic assessments of crop exposure to air pollution have focused on the yield effect. This study illustrates the implications of considering crop quality effects in addition to crop yield changes for the case of O3 impacts on soybeans. An economic model of US soybean, soybean oil, and soybean meal markets is used to simulate the impacts of increased soybean yields due to reduced O3 concentrations with and without changes in soybean quality. The simulations with quality effects are richer in their distributional implications and show larger increases in economic surplus than the simulations with yield effects only.

Agricultural Nonpoint Source Pollution Control in Theory and Practice

The theory of efficient policy instruments for agricultural pollution control has been evolving. Some new developments suggest that policies using financial incentives to encourage desirable farming practices are superior to those focusing on runoff directly or restrictions on farming practices. However, the theoretical models used to derive such results make assumptions about conditions that may not hold. As a result, implementation of the findings of such models is not necessarily routine. This article attempts to summarize these studies and interpret their implications for agricultural nonpoint source pollution control for the Chesapeake Bay.

Food scare crisis: the effect on Serbian dairy market

The increasing trend of food scandal crises is not well followed in recent studies of spatial price transmission. This paper analyses the impact on the domestic market of an Aflatoxin M1 outbreak in the Serbian dairy sector during 2013/2014 using a spatial price transmission approach. Monthly farm milk prices in Serbia for the period 2007/2014 were contrasted with leading dairy exporting countries New Zealand, USA and Germany, which did not have a food scare in their dairy sectors. To estimate the impacts a Markov-switching vector error-correction model was utilized. For all four dairy markets the model identified two price change regimes: standard and extreme. Although it was predictable, an extreme regime was not identified during the Aflatoxin M1 crises in Serbia because of some specific characteristics of its dairy production. The results suggest that the Aflatoxin M1 outbreak ‘froze’ the Serbian dairy market and temporally disconnected it from the world milk market. Farmer’s prices fell below their l...

Marketing Characteristics Associated With Seafood Counters in Grocery Stores

This study provides a benchmark analysis of seafood counter characteristics corresponding to the peaking of per capita seafood demand in the U.S. Logistic regression results show separate seafood counters are less likely in small stores, in rural stores, and in stores in low or medium income areas. Chain stores and stores with a significant number of non-white customers were more likely to have a seafood counter. Stores in the East South Central region were less likely, and stores in New England more likely, to have a seafood counter. The likelihood that stores will develop seafood counters was related to differences in sales volume, floor space, urban/rural location, income level of clients and regional location. Continuing innovations in marketing technology of seafood counters are likely to provide expanded marketing opportunities in the future.

Producer attitudes toward a Federal marketing order for eggs.

The objectives of this research were to determine the level of producer support for an egg marketing order and obtain information on the preferred structure of a marketing order. A national mail survey was used to gather information on producer attitudes. A majority of respondents felt national action would lead to higher egg prices and should include both control on the number of shell eggs entering the fresh market and a promotion, research, and consumer education program. Responses were analyzed on the basis of flock size, regional location, and flock size change over the last three years.

The effect of transportation rates on interregional competition in agriculture: A general case

A general model for spatially separated markets is used to find the effects of transportation rates on interregional competition in agriculture. The results show that producers are affected much more than consumers, especially producers in the importing region. The solution is sensitive to the elasticity of supply, especially in the importing region. The elasticity of demand has little effect on the solution. The self-sufficiency ratio is not particularly important, but the size of both the transportation price and the farm price relative to the retail price is quite important. In general, the farmers in the importing region are quite sensitive to transportation prices.

CAPACITY DECISIONS FOR AN EMERGENCY SERVICE

Decision makers face two opposing forces in the provision of emergency services. Their constituency wants more and better services, but financial considerations limit the quantity and quality of services provided. This classic economic confrontation requires a decision based on the trade-offs between the benefits of protection provided by additional services and the cost of providing these services. Such a decision is needed for ambulance service, fire protection, and law enforcement.