CONSUMER'S SPECIE KNOWLEDGE AND THE VALUES OF NATURAL CHRISTMAS TREE CHARACTERISTICS

Consumers' willingness to pay for natural Christmas tree characteristics are estimated. Differences in willingness to pay for characteristics by specie knowledge and lack of specie knowledge are tested. Differences in willingness to pay for characteristics by specie are also tested. The results suggests that willingness to pay measures differ by these separations of the sample and, ceteris paribus, sellers of natural Christmas trees could benefit by altering characteristics in accordance with the results of these sample separation tests.Christmas trees, Hedonic, Sample separation, Demand and Price Analysis, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

STUDENT NUMBERS AND SUSTAINING COURSES AND FIELDS IN PH.D. PROGRAMS

Many agricultural economics departments are concerned about the vitality of their Ph.D. programs. A particular problem is insufficient student numbers to justify teaching certain courses or fields. As a consequence, much faculty time can be spent debating alternative program structures without any real idea of the likelihood that a proposed program structure will succeed. This article presents a framework for deriving some analytical and empirical results for alternative Ph.D. program structures. A downloadable program is used to generate some representative results that will hopefully help others minimize speculations and time spent in committee or departmental meetings.Ph.D. programs, student numbers, Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession, A2, Q1,

Does consistent aggregation really matter?

Consistent aggregation ensures that behavioural properties which apply to disaggregate relationships apply also to aggregate relationships. The agricultural economics literature which has tested for consistent aggregation or measured statistical bias and/or inferential errors due to aggregation is reviewed. Tests for aggregation bias and errors of inference are conducted using indices previously tested for consistent aggregation. Failure to reject consistent aggregation in a partition did not entirely mitigate erroneous inference due to aggregation. However, inferential errors due to aggregation were small relative to errors due to incorrect functional form or failure to account for time series properties of data.Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

Household Food Expenditures, Parental Time Allocation, and Childhood Obesity

The increased prevalence of childhood obesity is a major concern for society. This study aims at exploring the influence of the parents (especially parental time allocation choices) on childrens obesity-related health outcomes and examining the potential differences between the fathers and the mothers marginal effects. A household with two parents and one child is modeled. The household production theory and the collective household modeling structure are combined. The model treats the mother, the father and the child as three separate agents with individual preferences. The two parents interaction is modeled within the collective model framework by assuming that they will reach Pareto efficient resource allocation between them. In order to capture the dynamics between parents and the child, parents-child interaction is modeled in a two-stage Stackleberg game structure where the child is allowed to have certain decision choices of his/her own. This game structure allows us to explore the parental influence on the childs health outcomes while allowing the child to have influencing power in the household decision-making process. Based on this theoretical model, a general triangular system with one childs health production equation and five health inputs demand equations is derived and estimated. The empirical estimation is performed for three systems: pooled model, the younger children model (of age 9 to 11), and the older children model (of age 13 to 15). The empirical results shows positive relationship between total household monthly food expenditure and the childs BMI outcome. Both parents time spent with the child are important and both show negatively significant impact on the childs BMI outcomes in all models and the pool model confirms the statistical difference between paternal and maternal time spent with the child. Other mother-related variables show more influence on the childrens BMI. There exists a complementary relationship between mothers income and fathers time allocation. Fathers have more significant influence on household food expenditure compared to mothers. In general, mothers show more significant influence on the parental time allocation compared to fathers. The main contribution of this study is that it develops a general theoretical framework to capture the dynamics in parents-child interaction. Based on this theoretical model, empirical analysis and future work can be conducted in a theoretically consistent way.Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Health Economics and Policy,

THE FORMAL LOGIC OF TESTING STRUCTURAL CHANGE IN MEAT DEMAND: A METHODOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

In the past two decades, the profession has expended valuable resources testing structural change in meat demand with mixed results. Overlooked to date is a fundamental methodological problem that transcends all of the methods of testing for structural change. In this study, a formal logic framework is utilized in which methodological problems associated with any hypothesis test can be analyzed. Within this framework, it is proven that there is no valid test of any single hypothesis, including structural change. Because of this result, additional criteria from the methodology literature are then used to evaluate the literature on structural change in meat demand.logic, meat demand, methodology, structural change, Demand and Price Analysis,

TWO-STAGE UTILITY MAXIMIZATION AND IMPORT DEMAND SYSTEMS REVISITED: LIMITATIONS AND AN ALTERNATIVE

Two-stage utility maximization theory has been widely used in the literature to estimate import demand for agricultural commodities that are often inputs. This article examines the overlooked conceptual and empirical limitations of applying two-stage utility maximization theory to model the demand for imported commodities that are inputs. A discussion is presented about how the underutilized theory of two-stage profit maximization overcomes these limitations. Also discussed are the conditions under which errors illustration of the two-stage profit maximization procedure is provided.Demand and Price Analysis, International Relations/Trade,

AGGREGATION WITHOUT SEPARABILITY: TESTS OF U.S. AND MEXICAN AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION DATA

The generalized composite commodity theorem (Lewbel 1996) is used to test for consistent aggregation of U.S. and Mexican agricultural production data in each of the categories for which earlier tests rejected homothetic separability. All U.S. agricultural outputs can be justifiably aggregated into as few as four categories. All Mexican agricultural outputs can be aggregated into as few as five categories. The aggregation of all outputs into a single output cannot be supported in either country by sufficient conditions provided by the generalized composite commodity theorem and/or a homothetically separable technology.aggregation, separability, generalized composite commodity theorem, Demand and Price Analysis,

BEYOND THE MODEL SPECIFICATION PROBLEM: MODEL AND PARAMETER AVERAGING USING BAYESIAN TECHNIQUES

The model specification problem is perhaps the Achilles heel of applied econometrics. Rather than test down to a single model as is usually done, we estimate 72 different demand systems and use Bayesian averaging procedures over all 72 systems to generate meta estimates of the parameters (e.g., elasticities) of interest.Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

The Effect of Alternative Nutrition Menu Labels on Children’s Meals Purchases and Parent-Child Decision-Making

Children are one subpopulation that have seen a threefold increase in obesity over the last two decades but have received no attention in the menu labeling literature. The purpose of this study is to explore the effects of different menu labeling formats on purchases of children’s meals and parent-child decision-making at a family-oriented restaurant. The intervention consists of five children’s menus featuring six bundled, nutritionally diverse, and equally priced combinations that are implemented over about a year. Accompanying each menu is a survey postcard collecting information on the parent-child decision process in choosing the item. This is ongoing research and all data is not in but at this point, the very early evidence points toward child-menu labeling having very little impact on food choices and caloric intake. This result is likely due to low parental involvement in the decision process given that children are the main ones deciding what to eat.Consumer/Household Economics, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

THE THEORY AND ECONOMETRICS OF HEALTH INFORMATION IN CROSS-SECTIONAL NUTRIENT DEMAND ANALYSIS

Understanding the role of health information in food and nutrient demand has become an important issue over the last decade. Endogeneity and measurement error are two empirical problems that are inherent in this type of analysis. While some type of instrumental variables estimation would appear the obvious solution, this paper provides several theoretical and empirical reasons why this is not the case in cross-sectional analysis. An alternative estimation strategy is pursued, an empirical example given, and the implications discussed.Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,