Laxmi Paudel

Upstream Effects of Generic Advertising: The Case of Catfish

Muths model is adapted to determine the effects of generic advertising on upstream factor markets in a competitive industry where funds for promotion are raised through a feed tax. Optimality conditions indicate that a feed tax is an inferior funding mechanism. That is, the resulting promotion budget, in general, is too small to maximize producer surplus at the farm level. Applying the model to the U.S. catfish industry, results suggest that raising the feed tax from

Impact of low carbohydrate information on vegetable demands in the United States

5 to

THE ELASTICITY OF EXPORT DEMAND FOR US COTTON

6 per ton is welfare increasing for farm, feed, and non-feed sectors alike. Distributional analysis suggests that the processing sector captures most of the long-term benefits (51%), followed by the non-feed sector (42%). Despite the feed sectors modest share of total benefits (7%), owing to tax shifting its long-run benefit-cost ratio (1.8:1) is favorable. Because feed and non-feed inputs are gross substitutes, the feed tax generates a positive externality for non-feed suppliers. Accounting for this externality raises the non-feed sectors net benefit by 36%. Overall, about one-half of the programs long-term net benefits accrue to input suppliers.

Dairy Supply Response under Stochastic Trend and Seasonality: A Structural Time Series Analysis

An almost ideal demand system was estimated to examine the impacts of low carbohydrate information on the demand of vegetables in the United States. Analysis was extended to examine the performance of alternative carbohydrate information indices. Results show significant impacts of low carbohydrate information across all included vegetables. Results indicated the superiority of the general and weighted carbohydrate information index specifications.