Steven T. Buccola

Joint Risk Preference-Technology Estimation with a Primal System

Applied studies of the firm in a risky environment have concentrated either on the firms technology or on its risk preferences. These models result in generally inconsistent and inefficient parameter estimates. A primal model is proposed which allows a firms preferences and technology to be estimated jointly in the presence of risk. The model is applied to Iowa corn production and estimated technology parameters are compared with those from other approaches. Modest risk aversion leads to inelastic (even backbending) per-acre supplies and input demands. Yield heteroskedasticity in inputs leads to supply heteroskedasticity in prices, especially for risk-neutral firms.

An Approach to the Analysis of Feeder Cattle Price Differentials

One of the difficulties faced by agricultural economic price analysts is the great variety of subclasses identifiable within commodity categories. Beef cattle price analysts face a particularly difficult problem in this regard. In addition to spatial, temporal, grade, and variety distinctions inherent in most agricultural commodities, cattle markets often discriminate sharply on the basis of weight, age, and sex. Most feeder cattle demand, supply, or price studies focus on a representative steer or heifer defined by an explicit set of characteristics that remains invariant across the data set (Maki). Readers are left to draw inferences for other sets of characteristics. Considerable attention has been

Branson, Robert E., and Douglass G. Norvell. Introduction to Agricultural Marketing. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1983, xx + 521 pp.,

Introduction to agricultural marketing , Introduction to agricultural marketing , مرکز فناوری اطلاعات و اطلاع رسانی کشاورزی

28.95

Cash returns from farming are expected to be nonnormally distributed under a wide range of joint price-yield distributions. Adequate testing for such nonnormality requires use of proper whitening procedures as well as appropriate statistics. With tests and sample sizes commonly employed, a false imputation of normality often will be made. However, positive correlation between skewness and kurtosis reduces the likelihood of associated decision errors. These results are illustrated with data for irrigated alfalfa and dryland wheat.

Testing for Nonnormality in Farm Net Returns

Auction bidders may pursue a large number of reasonable bidding strategies, including those that are risk-neutral and risk-averse. Risk-averse bidders are especially tempted by the auction process to discriminate against themselves, that is, to offer prices close to their reservation prices or target prices. Self-discrimination, in turn, usually implies that quality-corrected prices of individual lots trend downward as the sale proceeds. The empirical evidence for downtrending prices at selected yearling steer sales is examined. Implications are then drawn for auction pricing efficiency and equity.

Price Trends at Livestock Auctions

To assess likely producer response to milk price reform, we examine the technology of protein, butterfat, and fluid carrier production on 1,924 U.S. dairy farms. A variant of a hedonic cost model is proposed in which the output aggregator is expressed as a function of total output and of the percentage concentrations of its components. Dairy farmers have responded rationally to artificially low protein prices. Due to the cows appetite limit, farmers operate in stage I of feed-to-milk production functions; yet proteins marginal cost rises sharply with protein output. Only modest substitutability is evident among feed inputs or milk component outputs. Copyright 1997, Oxford University Press.

Hedonic Cost Models and the Pricing of Milk Components

Pricing efficiency in centralized markets is compared with that in noncentralized markets. On the basis of a price formation model, centrally discovered prices are hypothesized to adjust more slowly to equilibrium, but to have lower unpredictable variability, than noncentrally discovered prices. These hypotheses are borne out strongly in market experiments. Mean-squared error is found to be lower in centralized than in noncentralized trading, suggesting centralized markets are the more price efficient.

Pricing Efficiency in Centralized and Noncentralized Markets

Abstract Maize pricing and storage policies of Zimbabwes grain marketing board are compared to those that would be optimal under certain objective function, risk, and risk aversion assumptions. Optimal producer prices and storage levels are found to be interdependent and to respond to prices at other levels of the marketing chain. The ideal maize reserve stock increases with uncertainty over import transportation costs, a factor to consider in light of the threat of South African sanctions. But at a reasonable risk aversion level, optimal reserves still are much lower than those presently held by the board.

Optimal grain pricing and storage policy in controlled agricultural economies: application to Zimbabwe

We examine sources of productivity in bioscience research and graduate training in U.S. universities. For this purpose, we first identify the scientific publications cited on agricultural biotechnology patents, and then trace the citations back to the universities producing the cited research. Insight is thus gained into the university investments that demonstrably influence useful technology. Life-science budget allocations substantially affect both graduate education and technology-relevant science. Graduate training shows decreasing returns to budget scale, while productive research shows decreasing returns in the short run but increasing returns in the long run. Training is a weak substitute for research, while research is a moderate complement to training.

University Life Science Programs and Agricultural Biotechnology

Production functions have been shown useful for characterizing input effects on both the mean and variability of yield. Monte carlo experiments are used here to investigate small-sample properties of selected mean-variance production function estimators. Estimation efficiency in the mean is found to improve with iteration on the mean and variance components. Although efficiency in the variance is greatest at the first stage, bias in the variance diminishes through at least the second stage. These effects are influenced by the degree and sign of heteroscedasticity and by sample size.