Ronald A. Schrimper

Opportunity Cost of Time and Other Socioeconomic Effects on Away-From-Home Food Consumption

Viewing the household as both a producing and consuming unit suggests the opportunity cost of the homemakers time to be an important factor affecting food consumption. Opportunity cost of time is shown empirically to have a positive affect on away-from-home consumption for employed homemakers in all 12 region-urbanization classes studied. The same response is shown for unemployed homemakers in most classes. Furthermore, the estimated bias associated with income elasticities estimated without adjustment for the time input was significant in most cases. Estimated effects of income, family composition and size, and race on away-from-home food consumption are analyzed.

Trends and Characteristics of Ph.D. Degrees in Agricultural Economics in the United States

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the trends that have occurred in the number of and some of the characteristics of recipients of Ph.D. degrees in agricultural economics in the United States in recent years. It includes an updating of work I initiated five years ago (Schrimper 1981a,b,c, 1982). The latest information used in the previous work included degrees awarded through 1980. This paper is based on an additional three years of information. This allows a detailed examination of changes over the last nine years as well as comparison with the earlier tabulations. Also, information for three more institutions, Arizona, Rhode Island, and Yale, has been included. As previously, the major source of information is listings of Ph.D. recipients for the previous year in the May issues of this Journal. The cooperation of several individuals contacted to obtain missing information and answer questions about data for various years is gratefully acknowledged. Without their help, the information would have been incomplete and comparisons over time would have been meaningless. The latest data available for developing this paper was the list of 1983 graduates. Even this information is somewhat dated, however, since it reflects admission, financial assistance, and enrollment decisions made at least five years ago. The first part of this paper summarizes changes that have occurred in total output of Ph.D. degrees in agricultural economics as well as distributional adjustments among regions, individual institutions, and between domestic and foreign students. The second part focuses on some characteristics of domestic students who received Ph.D. degrees in agricultural economics. It contains information about where individuals received their undergraduate training, and geographical and institutional migration for graduate training. Similar types of information about foreign Ph.D. students is included in the third section of the paper. Finally, a short summary and conclusions section is provided.

Demographic Change and the Demand for Food: Discussion

Salathes and Sexauers papers report substantial effects of demographic changes on food consumption in recent years even though some of the unexplained residuals are fairly large. Explanations of 50%-70% of actual changes for some of Salathes categories and 22.3% in Sexauers analysis are impressive. Although the latter type of comparisons are very natural, they can be misleading when various factors influencing quantities and expenditures for food have offsetting effects. In such circumstances, it is conceivable that observed changes in average consumption or expenditures per capita, or per household, actually can be less than some of the individual components. Hence, a more meaningful comparison might be made by noting the relative magnitude of individual components as in the case of Sexauers analysis where the effect of demographic shifts was approximately the same size as the aggregate income effect regardless of which set of marginal propensities to consume was used.1 Similarly, comparison of the magnitudes of various factors analyzed by Salathe may be more meaningful than comparisons to observed changes in per capita consumption. In addition to empirical estimation of the extent to which changes in various population characteristics affect average food consumption or expenditures, the papers raise some interesting methodological issues. The studies complement each other by illustrating how an identical conceptual relationship can be implemented in different ways with different types of data to examine similar questions. The basic relationship underlying each of the studies is that national average consumption

Reservation and Market Demands for Sweet Potatoes at the Farm Level

years. Analysis of the trends suggests that total onfarm use of sweet potatoes is responsive to the price which producers receive for the quantities entering commercial channels. With on-farm use responding to price changes, determination of market price and the allocation of total production between farm uses and commercial sales must be analyzed simultaneously to identify and measure the impact of various determinants affecting the separate demand components. The results of a simultaneous estimation of the demand components for sweet potatoes and the use of these relationships to project prices and allocations of sweet potato crops in 1980 are presented below.

SUBTLETIES ASSOCIATED WITH DERIVED DEMAND RELATIONSHIPS

Subtleties involving measurement of quantities and prices when derived demands are graphically displayed in frameworks representing market linkages are discussed. Complications arising from assuming variable proportions rather than fixed coefficients are noted. Finally, an example developed by Wohlgenant and Haidacher is clarified.

Discussion on Howe, Manchester and Baer

The three papers in this session reflect a sense of new interest in the general area of demand and consumption analysis. Some of the same resurgence of interest with respect to demand and consumption analysis of agricultural commodities undoubtedly is related to increased interest in the type of forecasting and policy analysis described by Manchester. Recent demand-supply-price interactions in the agricultural sector may be partly responsible for renewed interest in these issues.