THOUGHTS ON BUILDING AN ACADEMIC CAREER

We have many routes to success in agricultural economics: extension education, resident teaching, advising, research, and public service. In selecting problems to study we must be sensitive to needs of all our clientele. Several production economics concepts are relevant to allocating our own efforts. Noticing, recognizing, and experiencing surprise aid scientific discovery. We need to use heuristics, intuition, deduction, and induction, though consideration of science's ideal and real types shows that all these mental processes are fallible. We need special theories that have broad application. Replication deserves high priority. A few thoughts on the manuscript review process are presented.Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

Trends in the Iowa dairy industry

This report is intended to serve as a source of Iowa dairy data and to highlight major characteristics and major trends in Iowa dairying. Some United States data are presented for comparative purposes.https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/specialreports/1051/thumbnail.jp

Distributed lag inventory analyses

The objective of this study was to measure determinants of short-term inventory behavior for selected commodities: beef, pork, butter, cheese, department store stocks, manufacturers\u27 nondurable inventories and manufacturers\u27 durable inventories. The last two were studied using monthly data; the others, with quarterly data. Dynamic considerations must enter into any adequate explanation of inventories. Distributed lag models were used in this study because they are one reasonable way of treating such dynamic phenomenon as expectations, frictions and lags. Such models are useful for study of inventory behavior. Nevertheless, there are some problems in using them. They commonly lead to equations to be estimated which are nonlinear in the parameters. Reduced equations containing exactly the same variables but different nonlinear combinations of parameters may be obtained from different models containing different behavioral assumptions. Whenever linear estimation is used, as in this study, we must be cautious about placing specific behavioral interpretations on the resulting coefficients

A statistical analysis of certain institutional variables in the butter and margarine market

The objective of this study was to explain recent trends in per-capita butter and margarine consumption -primarily, to determine the relation between these trends and the repeal of legal restrictions on the distribution and consumption of margarine. As a first step in the study, a historical summary was made of pertinent state and federal laws. The effects of these laws then were determined by statistical analysis. In most cases the sample period was 1920-41, 1947-49. In the time-series analysis, no relation was found between the retail supply of margarine and margarine excise taxes. This is understandable, since less than one-fifth of the population has ever lived in states which levied excises on margarine. The cross-section analyses of data by states and cities, however, show that excise taxes reduce the retail supply of margarine. They reduce the number of stores selling margarine and raise the prices charged by those stores that do sell it. On the other hand, margarine distributors\u27 license fees seem to have no effect on the retail supply of margarine

Survey of Promising Developments in Demand Analysis: Economics of Product Characteristics

I have subtitled this paper Economics of Product Characteristics to identify the set of recent developments that will be covered and to inform you that not all recent developments will be dealt with. This paper will not cover the recent work in systems of consumer demand equations: e.g., the linear e3q\u3eenditure systems, additive-preference systems, Theil-Barten work, Houthakker and Taylor dynamic model. For discussions of these, see Barten (1977), Hassan, Johnson, and Green (1977), and Thell (1975, 1976). Another body of literature that I will not cover concerns probabilistic product-choice models, in which utility is a random function and the probability that a product is chosen depends upon the characteristics of the chosen product and of other products. Among the papers on this topic McFadden (1973, 1976) and Manski and Lerman (1977)

Experiments with autoregressive error estimation

Autocorrelated errors are recognized as potentially troublesome in regression analysis. Because of the computational problems encountered, however, few economists have estimated equations under the assumption of autocorrelated errors. Recently, relatively economical procedures have been developed for estimating equations containing autocorrelated errors. In this study, one of these procedures-autoregressive least squares (A.L.S.) -is applied to equations describing the behavior of various economic agents, by using different unit observation periods-year, quarter and month. Some of the results have been published elsewhere; some are published here. In addition to presenting some results of autoregressive error estimation, this report summarizes experience with the use of AL.S. Some equations presented here were estimated by a simultaneous equations method under the assumption of autocorrelated errors. The results of four different tests for autocorrelation in errors were compared: Durbin-Watson d statistic, Theil-Nagar d, Hart-von Neumann ratio and A.L.S. Essentially, the Theil-Nagar d test classes as significant those values of d that are significant or inconclusive in the Durbin-Watson test. The Theil-Nagard yielded evidence of autocorrelated errors most frequently; A.L.S., second most frequently; Hart-von Neumann ratio, third most frequently; and Durbin-Watson test, least frequently. The proportions of the equations in which each test provided significant evidence of autocorrelated errors are: Theil-Nagard, 66 percent; autoregressive least squares, 51 percent; Hart-von Neumann ratio, 37 percent; Durbin-Watson test, 26 percent

Games My PE Instructors Never Taught Me

This essay addresses four questions — 1) Are Pareto Efficient outcomes desirable? 2) Are they efficient? 3) Is Pareto Efficiency a useful concept? 4) Is it useful for public policy study? I will explore these issues by looking at effects of (a) differ ences in persons\u27 goals, (b) preferences for means used to attain goals, (c) limiting resources, (d) externalities, (e) inter-personal compari sons, (f) political contributions, (g) merit goods, (h) universal hedonism, (i) sacred values, (j) concern for equity, (k) cardinality vs. ordinality of utility and social welfare functions, and (^) theory of second best. One\u27s answers to these four questions depend upon one\u27s beliefs (i.e., one\u27s perceptions of what is) and upon one\u27s values (i.e., conception of what ought to be)

Evaluating Econometric Models And Forecasts

By validation I mean comparing values generated by a model with actual values to determine how well the model reproduces what it was intended to re produce. Clearly evaluation involves more than this. Evaluation involves judging the appropriateness of the estimation procedures and judging the use made of prior econotnic knowledge in constructing the model. A model can be validated by determining its performance during the sample period, or by deter mining its predictive performance in the post-sample period