Consumer Acceptance of Genetically Modified Foods: Traits, Labels and Diverse Information

New experimental economic methods are described and used to assess consumers'�willingness to pay for food products that might be made from new transgenic and intragenic�genetically modified (GM) traits. Participants in auctions are randomly chosen adult consumers�in major US metropolitan areas and not college students. Food labels are kept simple and focus�on key attributes of experimental goods. Diverse private information from the agricultural�biotech industry (largely Monsanto and Syngenta), environmental groups (largely Greenpeace�and Friends of the Earth) and independent third-party information is used to construct the�information treatments. Food labels and information treatments are randomized, which is a�deviation from traditional lab methods. Auctions are best described as sealed bid random n-th�price and not the standard Vickery 2nd price auctions. I show that participants in these�experiments respond to both food labels and information treatments, but no single type of�information is dominant�

Setting Incentives for Collaboration Among Agricultural Scientists: Application of Principal-Agent Theory to Team Work

�The USDA is attempting to shift more research funds into competitive grants involving collaboration across disciplines on large projects. This type of research structure raises a host of information and incentive issues. The objective of this paper is to shed new light on principal-agent problems that are likely to arise in this new funding structure.incentives; Principal-agent model; team research; competitive grants; multi-disciplinary research

The Status of Labor-Saving Mechanization in Fruits and Vegetables

�The objective of this paper is to examine the status of labor-saving mechanization in U.S. fruit and vegetable harvesting. Fruit and vegetable harvest mechanization has several potential advantages: reduced harvest costs, eliminate problems associated with finding good quality harvest labor, permit longer harvesting days, and reduce exposure of harvest to human bacteria.�������� Commercial mechanical harvesters for processed tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, carrots, tart cherries, apples, grapes, peaches, plums and grapes are in the hands of growers. To my surprise, considerable progress has been made on fresh market sweet cherry, apple and berry harvesters, and in the next few years commercial sales of these machines are expected. A negative shock to labor harvest-labor availability or jump in the harvester wage or piece rate could rapidly accelerate adoption of the best mechanical harvesting technologies by growers and processors. �mechanized harvesting; fruits; vegetables; processing; fresh market; labor availability; United States

The Role of Agriculture and Human Capital in Economic Growth: Farmers, Schooling, and Health

This survey reviews the existing literature, identifying the contribution of agriculture, schooling, and nutrition to economic growth and development over time and across countries. Particular attention is paid to the roles of improvements in agricultural technology and of the human capital of farmers and farm people. Macroeconomic and microeconomic evidence related to the interactions between human capital, productivity and real income per capita have occurred over the past 250 years. We show that for most countries, development is a process of conversion from primarily agrarian economies to urban industrial and service economies. The evidence is that positive technology shocks to agriculture have played a key role in igniting a transition from traditional to modern agriculture and to long-term economic growth in almost all countries. Improvements in agricultural technologies improve labor productivity and create surplus agricultural labor that can provide workers for the growing urban areas. In some cases, improved nutrition helps raise labor productivity and allows individuals to work for longer hours, which makes human capital investments more attractive. The induced improvements in the skill level of a population have major implications for raising living standards, improving health standards, and altering time allocation decisions. In most currently poor and middle income countries, improved schooling has been more important than improved nutrition or caloric intake in explaining recent economic growth. Nevertheless, the poorest countries of the world continue to have a large share of their labor force in agriculture, and growth cannot occur until they experience their own agricultural transformation.

DYNAMIC INPUT DEMAND FUNCTIONS AND RESOURCE ADJUSTMENT FOR U.S. AGRICULTURE: STATE EVIDENCE

The paper presents an econometric model of dynamic agricultural input demand functions that includes research based technical change and autoregressive disturbances and fits the model to data for a set of state aggregates pooled over 1950-82. The methodological approach is one of developing a theoretical foundation for a dynamic input demand system and accepting state aggregate behavior as approximated by nonlinear adjustment costs and long-term profit maximization. Although other studies have largely ignored autocorrelation in dynamic input demand systems, the results show shorter adjustment lags with autocorrelation than without autocorrelation. Dynamic input demand own-price elasticities for six input groups are inelastic, and the demand functions poses significant cross-price and research stock effects.

Setting Incentives for Scientists Who Engage in Research and Other Activities: An Application of Principal-Agent Theory

 The objective of this paper is to develop an optimal incentive system for multitaskingscientists in universities or professors under repeat contracting. With the aid of a principalagentmodel under repeat contracting, we show that (i) when a second task is assigned to aprofessor and the two tasks are related, the size of the optimal incentive rate for the first task isreduced in some situations but not others relative to that of a single task, (ii) with an increasein the noise in the technical relationship of the second task or imprecision in outputmeasurement, the optimal incentive rate for that task is reduced and for the first task may bereduced or increased , (iii) with greater efficiency of the professor in producing the secondoutput, as reflected in ability relative to cost of effort, the optimal incentive rate for the firsttask generally decreases, (iv) if the output of the professor’s two tasks are negativelycorrelated then the optimal incentive rate on the first task declines as the size of thiscorrelation increases. The size of the guarantee is always reduced as the professor’s ability fora task increases, but is increased as his cost of effort, noisiness of the technology ormeasurement of output, or correlation between the two outputs increases. It is also possiblethat, as a professor undertakes several difficult-to-measure tasks, the incentive rate will bereduced to the point that an optimal compensation system will involve only a guaranteedsalary, which is a very weak incentive for effort. Selective audits may be useful in thesesituations.incentives; Principal-agent model; Multitask; scientists; professors; respeat contracting; linear contracts

An Economic Analysis of the Impact of Food Prices and Other Factors on Adult Lifestyles: Choices of Physical Activity and Healthy Weight

This paper examines women’s and men’s decisions to participate in physical activity and to attain a healthy weight. These outcomes are hypothesized to be related to prices of food, drink and health care services and products, the respondent’s personal characteristics (such as education, reading food labels, adjusted family income, opportunity cost of time, occupation, marital status, race and ethnicity) and his or her BMI at age 25. These decisions are represented by a trivariate probit model that is fitted to data for adults in the NLSY79 panel with geocodes that have been augmented with local area food, drink and health care prices. Separate analyses are undertaken for men and women due to basic physiological differences. Results include: Women and men who read food labels are more likely to participate in moderate and vigorous physical exercise, and women are less likely to be obese. Women with more education are more likely to be obese but educated men are less likely to be obesity. Higher prices for fresh fruits and vegetables and non-alcoholic drinks increase likelihood of obesity for females but not for males; and a higher price for processed fruits and vegetables reduce likelihood of obesity for females but not for males. A larger BMI at age 25 has wage effects later in life and also increases the probability of being obese.Physical Activity, Obesity, Food Prices, Adult, United States, Consumer/Household Economics, Health Economics and Policy, Labor and Human Capital, I10, D10, J24,

New Econometric Evidence on Agricultural Total Factor Productivity Determinants: Impact of Funding Sources

This paper examines the impact of public and private agricultural research and extension on agricultural total factor productivity at the state level. We test the hypothesis that the composition of agricultural experiment station funding—share of funding from impact of federal competitive grants and contracts and from federal formula and state government appropriations---affects the productivity of public agricultural research using data for the 48 contiguous states over 1970-1999.  Our results show not only that sources of funding matter, but that an increase in federal competitive grant funding at the expense of federal formula funding would lower the productivity of public agricultural research. Furthermore, our simulation results show that a few states would most likely gain by a re-allocation of federal formula to grant and contract funding but most would lose.

RATES OF RETURN TO PUBLIC AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH IN THE PRESENCE OF RESEARCH SPILLOVERS

This study uses new state data to examine the contributions of public agricultural research, extension, and infrastructure to agricultural productivity. The estimated social rates of return (which take into account spillover effects) are high and imply a need for federal or regional institutions to coordinate public agricultural research funding.Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Determinants of the Demand for State Agricultural Experiment Station Resources: A Demand-System Approach

This paper presents new econometric evidence on state government’s demand for resources to support local agricultural experiment station research.  The econometric model consists of a complete-demand system covering four major resource sources, and it is fitted to annual observations on 48 contiguous states, 1970 to 1999.  These results show that forces of total SAES budget size, national ranking of agricultural college and university programs, state demographics, and state’s agricultural-output composition impact a state government’s demand for resources for state agricultural experiment stations.