MEASUREMENT OF GRADING ERROR COSTS IN THE BEEF INDUSTRY

This paper models the market for beef products when quality production is stochastic and quality information is asymmetric between producers and consumers. Independent sorters act as intermediaries to enhance market efficiency by guaranteeing minimum quality levels. Market shares, effort levels, prices, and quality standards are obtained for general market equilibrium.Marketing,

De Gustibus Asparagus: Habits, Trade, and Welfare from Out of Season Imports of Fresh Vegetables

Fresh vegetables, including asparagus, are now available in months outside of the domestic growing season for most U.S. consumers. We use the virtual price method to calculate the equivalent variation for increased availability in a demand system for fresh and frozen vegetables and find that virtual price of out-of-season asparagus is roughly 3 times higher than its in-season price in years prior to year round availability. We find the equivalent variation between 1986-1991 (when asparagus was available approximately half the year) and 1993-1999 (when it was available year round) to be 0.91 of consumer vegetable budgets, implying a welfare benefit of approximately $86 million annually. We also find evidence of habit formation for fresh but not frozen goods.vegetable, translog, asparagus, habits, virtual price, welfare, fresh, frozen, Consumer/Household Economics, Demand and Price Analysis, International Relations/Trade,

Habit Effects and Producer Welfare in the Fresh Vegetable Trade

trade, vegetable, free trade agreement, tariff, habits, NAFTA, Andean Trade Preference Act, Agricultural and Food Policy, Demand and Price Analysis, International Relations/Trade,

The Economics of Agricultural and Wildlife Smuggling

The United States bans imports of certain agricultural and wildlife goods that can carry pathogens or diseases or whose harvest can threaten wildlife stocks or endanger species. Despite these bans, contraband is regularly uncovered in inspections of cargo containers and in domestic markets. This study characterizes the economic factors affecting agricultural and wildlife smuggling by drawing on inspection and interdiction data from USDA and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and existing economic literature. Findings reveal that agricultural and wildlife smuggling primarily include luxury goods, ethnic foods, and specialty goods, such as traditional medicines. Incidents of detected smuggling are disproportionately higher for agricultural goods originating in China and for wildlife goods originating in Mexico. Fragmentary data show that approximately 1 percent of all commercial wildlife shipments to the United States and 0.40 percent of all U.S. wildlife imports by value are refused entry and suspected of being smuggled.Smuggling, illicit trade, SPS, quarantine, endangered species, CITES, Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Financial Economics,

HYPOTHESIS TESTING USING NUMEROUS APPROXIMATING FUNCTIONAL FORMS

While the combination of several or more models is often found to improve forecasts (Brandt and Bessler, Min and Zellner, Norwood and Schroeder), hypothesis tests are typically conducted using a single model approach 1 . Hypothesis tests and forecasts have similar goals; they seek to define a range over which a parameter should lie within a degree of confidence. If it is true that, on average, composite forecasts are more accurate than a single model's forecast, it might also be true that hypothesis tests using information from numerous models are, on average, more accurate in the sense of lower Type I and Type II errors than hypothesis tests using a single model.Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

MODEL SELECTION CRITERIA USING LIKELIHOOD FUNCTIONS AND OUT-OF-SAMPLE PERFORMANCE

Model selection is often conducted by ranking models by their out-of-sample forecast error. Such criteria only incorporate information about the expected value, whereas models usually describe the entire probability distribution. Hence, researchers may desire a criteria evaluating the performance of the entire probability distribution. Such a method is proposed and is found to increase the likelihood of selecting the true model relative to conventional model ranking techniques.Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

Pollination Service Fees

While still a small share of food production costs, pollination service fees are now the largest source of beekeeper revenu

Driven by Almonds, Pollination Services Now Exceed Honey as a Source of Beekeeper Revenue

Pollination services income as a share of beekeeper revenue remained relatively small compared with honey sales through the 1990s. Today, led by almonds, pollination service fees and honey sales are roughly equal

The Evolution of Federal Programs for Beekeepers and Pollinator Data

Will there be enough pollinators to sustain the needs of agriculture into the near future? This straightforward question exposes critical gaps in the data on how farms obtain pollination services, how much they pay for them, and what factors affect pollination service supply. Prior to the emergence of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) in 2006, no systematic survey data tracked honey bee colony loss rates. Prior to 2015, no national-level data tracked either the cost and use of pollination services to farms or the movement of managed honey bees by beekeepers

Does Colony Loss Reduce Honey Yields?

While most agricultural goods is marked by increasing productivity, yields of honey measured in pounds produced per colony has fallen 29% since 2000. Throughout this period, both honey bee colony loss rates and pollination service income – the other main source of revenue for beekeepers – have also been high, suggesting a link between poor colony health and the long-distance movement and co-location of colonies in California to service its large and lucrative almond bloom. We use beekeepers survey data from USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service to estimate the response of honey yields to changes in the beekeeper’s colony loss rates and the beekeeper’s share of colonies moved to California for almond pollination while controlling for underlying beekeeper productivity differences using lagged and regional average yields as controls. We estimate that, on average, a 1 percentage point increase in the loss rate decreases honey yield by .362 pounds, but smaller beekeepers experience a greater yield reduction for a given loss rate than larger beekeepers. We also estimate that a 10 percentage point increase in beekeeper’s share of colonies moved to California in the almond pollination season decreases yield by 0.8 pounds