CASH MARKET OR CONTRACT? HOW TECHNOLOGY AND CONSUMER DEMAND INFLUENCE THE DECISION

Abstract

The use of contracts for producing and marketing agricultural commodities has become nearly universal in some sectors. Two factors are most frequently cited as being responsible for the use of agricultural contracts. The first, a demand-side factor, is the development of strong consumer preferences for specific qualities. The second, a supply-side factor, is technological change. In this paper, we use a principal agent framework to model how consumer demand and technology enter into a firm's decision to use contracts or the cash market.Demand and Price Analysis, Marketing,