A GENERALIZED SUPPLY RESPONSE/FACTOR DEMAND MODEL AND ITS APPLICATION TO THE FEEDER CATTLE MARKET

The appropriate specification of expectations in empirical models of supply response or factor demand is discussed. A general model that admits both extrapolative and rational expectations is formulated and analyzed. The model is used to investigate the decision making process of cattle feeders by incorporating information on futures prices (as representations of rational forecasts) and lagged prices. The findings provide some evidence that cattle feeders form their expectations of future prices using both types of information.Demand and Price Analysis, Livestock Production/Industries,

MISSPECIFICATION IN SIMULTANEOUS SYSTEMS: AN ALTERNATIVE TEST AND ITS APPLICATION TO A MODEL OF THE SHRIMP MARKET

Concern over the effects of public policies based on misspecified econometric models motivates interest in a procedure to test, diagnose, and improve the specification of models that have been estimated with three-stage least squares. A test of system-wide specification based on Hausman's specification test is employed in a test of the a priori restrictions placed on the parameters of a structural model of the U.S. shrimp market. The null hypothesis of proper specification is rejected. After diagnosis via a comparison of unrestricted and restricted reduced forms and respecification, the null hypothesis cannot be rejected.Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

A MODEL OF WEEKLY PRICE DISCOVERY FOR FLORIDA CELERY: REPLY

Demand and Price Analysis,

MODELING WEEKLY TRUCK RATES FOR PERISHABLES

Crop Production/Industries,

PROPERTY RIGHTS, GRAZING PERMITS, AND RANCHER WELFARE

This study attempts to link factors affecting the demand for Bureau of Land Management grazing to perceived changes in permittee welfare over the 1962-92 period. Annual demand for federal forage is found to be sensitive to active preference, beef cow and breeding ewe inventories, and grazing fees and nonfee allotment utilization costs. No evidence is found to support the notion that the demand for grazing has been affected by changes in property rights associated with the federal grazing permit that are not reflected in higher user costs. The total decrease in welfare generated from the permit that are not reflected in higher user costs. The total decrease in welfare generated from the permit to graze public lands has been about 9% per authorized cattle animal unit month and 65% per authorized sheep animal unit month over the study period.Land Economics/Use,

THE EFFECT OF MANAGERIAL ABILITY ON FARM FINANCIAL SUCCESS

The effects of managerial ability on farm financial success are analyzed for a 1990 sample of Pennsylvania commercial dairy farms using structural latent variable techniques. Latent factors related to dairy, crop, and financial management are used with herd size to explain farm financial success, measured by net farm income. Results indicate the relative importance of each management variable toward farm financial success.Farm Management,

HURDLE COUNT-DATA MODELS IN RECREATION DEMAND ANALYSIS

When a sample of recreators is drawn from the general population using a survey, many in the sample will not recreate at a recreation site of interest. This study focuses on nonparticipation in recreation demand modeling and the use of modified count-data models. We clarify the meaning of the single-hurdle Poisson (SHP) model and derive the double-hurdle Poisson (DHP) model. The latter is contrasted with the SHP and we show the DHP is consistent with Johnson and Kotz's zero-modified Poisson model.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

GOVERNMENT PAYMENTS TO FARMERS AND REAL AGRICULTURAL ASSET VALUES IN THE 1980S

This study determines the effect of government payments on real agricultural asset values using Bayesian vector autoregression. In developing the empirical model, special attention is focused on the informational content of government payments. The results indicate that government payments to farmers have little effect on real asset values in the long run. In the short run, an increase in government payments to farmers may be associated with decline in asset values.Agricultural Finance,

History matters for the export decision and the volume exported: Firm-level evidence from French agri-food firms

As a result of the rapid growth of microeconometric studies of exporting firms, we know quite a lot about the hysteresis occurring in the current decision of firms to export. Firms entering a foreign market the previous year are more likely to export the current year. This fact is traditionally interpreted as a consequence of sunk export costs at entry to the international market. These costs are for instance the knowledge of foreign markets, the search for new distribution networks, or the compliance with border crossing standards specific to a given market. The specificity of the destination market appears as being of huge importance for the firms. Papers in this field propose to test for the existence of sunk-cost hysteresis by analysing entry and exit patterns in plant-level panel data, whatever the destination market. Roberts and Tybout (1997) or Özler et al. (2009) develop and estimate a dynamic discrete-choice model of the plant’s current exporting status in Colombia or Turkey respectively. Only a few studies have accounted either for the destination of the exports or for the volume exported. Blanes-Cristobal et al. (2008) show that previous experience on a market has a positive impact on the probability of current export on this market. Das et al. (2007) consider both the decision to export and the value exported in a dynamic model. They show that entry costs on international markets (whatever the destination market) are substantial. The questions addressed by this study are: Are sunk costs a feature of the firm's export behavior (decision and volume) and do they vary across export markets? A multivariate dynamic panel model of French agribusiness firms' exports to two aggregate markets (EU and Rest of the World) is specified. The model accounts for both zero level and positively skewed exports by adopting the Cragg (1971) logarithmic Tobit model. Unobserved firm-level heterogeneity is accounted for by introducing random effects which may be correlated across export markets. The initial conditions problem is treated by assuming that a component of the unobserved firm effect is conditional on initial values and exogenous variables (Wooldridge, 2005). As a consequence the degree of structural state dependence can be estimated for each export market. Previous export experience in both markets is hypothesized to impact both the decision to export and the level of exports in each market.dynamic tobit model, French agri-food firms, exports, destination markets, Agribusiness, International Relations/Trade,

Protection Motivation Theory and Contingent Valuation: Perceived Realism, Threat and WTP Estimates for Biodiversity Protection

We report on a discrete-choice CV study conducted in Germany to value the WTP for biodiversity protection in less developed countries. To systematically investigate survey realism and subjective threat assessment from the loss of biodiversity described in the scenario the study includes questions to uncover the constructs of Protection Motivation Theory, which is introduced to the CV literature. The patterns of responses to such questions are analysed using an Expectation-Maximization algorithm to derive class membership probabilities. These are found to match the predictions of Protection Motivation Theory and systematically improve the logistic analysis of the WTP responses