Trivial or irrelevant attributes are defined as attributes that do not create a meaningful difference in a brand's performance. The objective of this paper is to determine if and how trivial attributes affect consumers in their choice of variety/brands of food products including frozen green beans, orange juice, canola oil, and frosted strawberry toaster pastries. Sixty subjects participated in the experiment. Subjects understood that trivial attributes are less important than substantive attributes. Substantive (important) quality attributes and economic variables affecting choice were all perceived equal across brands by the subjects in the experiment. Two critical driving forces in determining the presence and direction of the effect of a trivial attribute on the consumer choice are the size of the choice set and the type of trivial attribute, i.e., product versus promotional attribute.

The majority of U.S. dairy farmers have invested in on-farm storage equipment with capacity for at least two days’ milk production. However, the remaining farms, with limited investment in storage capacity may have a major impact on milk assembly costs. The purpose of this study is to explore the impact daily milk pick-ups have on milk assembly costs and to compare these costs to the cost of increasing on-farm milk storage capacity.

Previous studies indicate that “hesitation” and “skepticism” are important barriers to the development of renewable energy industries in the United States. We examine whether key pecuniary and nonpecuniary characteristics of bioenergy crops underlie the hesitation argument. Based on a stated choice experiment, we find that Midwestern producers appreciate certain crop attributes that are found in switchgrass, but not in conventional crops. We also find that producers would be willing to grow switchgrass-like crops for net margins between $222/acre/year and $247/acre/year in marginal counties. We argue that farmers’ hesitation and skepticism toward bioenergy crops can be overcome.

U.S. dairy production has been consolidating into large-scale confinement operations. Large numbers of small- to medium-scale dairies have disappeared in the last two decades, and many more are disappearing. This article analyzes small- to medium-scale dairy operations in Maryland during 1995–2009 for changes in technology and efficiency through a novel two-stage DEA approach to examine productivity changes. Conventional confinement dairy operations and management-intensive grazing dairies are analyzed separately. The results show that both dairy systems have become more productive on the technological frontiers, yet the rate of technical change for graziers was less than half the rate for confinement.

The agriculture and food sectors contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions. About 15 percent of food-related carbon emissions are channeled through restaurants. Using a contingent valuation (CV) method with double-bounded dichotomous choice (DBDC) questions, this article investigates U.S. consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for an optional restaurant surcharge in support of carbon emission reduction programs. The mean estimated WTP for a surcharge is 6.05 percent of an average restaurant check, while the median WTP is 3.64 percent. Our results show that individuals have a higher WTP when the surcharge is automatically added to restaurant checks. We also find that an information nudge—a short climate change script—significantly increases WTP. Additionally, our results demonstrate that there is heterogeneity in treatment effects across consumers’ age, environmental awareness, and economic views. Our findings suggest that a surcharge program could transfer a meaningful amount of the agricultural carbon reduction burden to consumers that farmers currently shoulder.

The Bishop-Simpson model, a variant of the traditional shift-share approach, is utilized for investigation of the development of the southern New Hampshire regional economy over time. Emphasis is placed on the strengths of the new technique in counteracting some of the limitations of traditional shift-share analyses. The B and S technique gives a clearer picture than the traditional shift-share approach of the relative advantages and disadvantages for region in terms of its specialization in slow or fast growing industries.

This study examines the effectiveness of price versus nonprice promotion programs for U.S. poultry exports. A comparative static simulation framework is specified for this purpose. The elasticities needed for the simulation model are estimated using seemingly unrelated regression and time-varying parameter regression techniques. Results from this study indicate that a price subsidy is more effective than nonprice market promotion programs in raising export demand for U.S. poultry.

Following Weitzman (1974), there is ample theoretical literature indicating that choice of pollution control instruments under conditions of uncertainty will affect the expected net benefits that can be realized from environmental protection. However, there is little empirical research on the ex ante efficiency of alternative instruments for controlling water, or other types of pollution, under uncertainty about costs and benefits. Using a simulation model that incorporates various sources of uncertainty, the ex ante efficiency of price and quantity controls applied to two alternative policy targets, fertilizer application rates and estimated excess nitrogen applications, are examined under varying assumptions about agricultural income support policies. Results indicate price instruments outperform quantity instruments. A tax on excess nitrogen substantially outperforms a fertilizer tax in the scenario with support programs, while the ranking is reversed in the scenario without support programs.

In this study, moving average price stabilization schemes were analyzed under the assumption of rational expectations. It was shown that moving average price schemes may induce cyclical behaviour into market prices where no cyclical pattern previously existed. Moving average price stabilization schemes are important to Canadian agricultural policy analysis because they are a characteristic of stabilization programs in Canada. Indeed, the Agricultural Stabilization Act, introduced in 1975, and the Gross Revenue Insurance Program, introduced in 1991, use moving average prices to calculate returns to producers.

As the most densely populated area of the nation, New Jersey and the Northeast stand as a laboratory in which concepts and institutions might be developed and tested to preserve valuable nonrenewable farmland for multiple social uses including an ability to provide open space and life-sustaining food and fiber. In this context, there is a need to carefully consider the idea that actions by government and society generate or destroy economic values in property through the creation or modification of institutions and social organization. It is also true that the lack of action by government may result in the wasteful destruction of amenities which may be held in high regard by many individuals in society.

While the use of gear restrictions to regulate fishing activity seldom has the objective of improving economic efficiency, it is capable of achieving that result under some conditions. It can also reduce economic efficiency. This paper explores the way several factors affect the sign and magnitude of welfare gains from fishing gear restrictions. These factors include, among others: the fixity or variability of the price of fish and the presence or absence of diminishing short-run average product of effort. Some generalizations are offered regarding the characteristics of fisheries in which gear restrictions are most likely to produce welfare gains.

In any society a loss of confidence in the capacity of contemporary institutions and leadership to deal with current problems creates anxieties and feelings of loss of control. A classical reaction to such stress is efforts to return to earlier, presumably simpler, institutional forms and lifestyles, thereby regaining control and the lost sense of purpose and direction. Today in the Northeast, as in much of the nation, many people are alarmed by the recent disturbances and shocks to the American way of life: the energy shortage, the threat of nuclear disaster, high unemployment and prices, faltering state and local finances, and a recurring credibility gap at all levels of government. The perceived inability of institutional forms to deal with these concerns has fostered a re-examination of individual, local and regional goals and a rediscovery of more traditional values based on self-reliance. One manifestation of this phenomenon is the promotion in the region by some professionals and laymen alike of a policy of self-sufficiency in agricultural production.

The investment potential of warm-season grasses is compared with that of cool-season grasses, with special emphasis on hill-land beef production. In addition to evaluating relative costs and returns for various grazing systems, a sensitivity analysis is conducted. The results are then illustrated for a representative hill-land farm in West Virginia, and both an optimal and a set of quasi-optimal solutions are generated within the linear programming framework. In general, warm-season grasses are found to be a superior investment alternative for hill-land beef producers.

This study empirically compares the retirement values of dairy farm investments to tax-deferred retirement investments that are funded with bank certificates of deposit or common stock. For a successful dairy farm, the results indicate that tax-deferred retirement plans that generate rates of return similar to certificates of deposit or common stock mutual funds are probably not as good an investment as reinvesting farm earnings back into the farm business.

One potentially serious problem in evaluating the effectiveness of extension programs is that participants are not picked at random. Self-selection can be a problem, and it can be compounded if extension officials concentrate on the most progressive farms. This study explores the relationships between adoption of maize high-yielding varieties (HYVs) and participation in field trials intended to foster HYV usage, drawing on data from Swaziland. Results indicate that it is impossible to say if field trials had any effect on adoption. Participating farms used more HYVs, but this could have been due to self-selection or the government's selection process.

Policy issues surrounding Federal programs for land retirement as a means of curtailing soil erosion are discussed in this paper. The analysis is structured around productivity differentials observed for New York cropland rated as highly erosive, moderately erosive, or nonerosive.

Two approaches to formal multiple objective decision analysis are described, illustrated and compared. These two approaches, generating techniques and goal programming, are illustrated by the solution of a simple numerical example. This solution combined with some lessons from the field of psychology provide a basis for some judgments on the relative merits of the approaches.

The paper develops an adaptive model of perishable commodity dissipation based on the individual's price expectations and risk perception. A two-step, state-space procedure for modeling nonstationary time series is presented. The method combines an impulse response model for estimating deterministic components with an innovations model for the remaining stationary stochastic noise. Combined parameters are used to generate forecasts and to derive a measure of risk in a nonstationary price environment. Defined as the variance (covariance) of out-of-sample forecast error, the measure of risk is the difference between the historical estimate of the stationary noise auto-covariance and the variance (covariance) of out-of-sample forecasts. The optimal marketing strategy for a hypothetical salmon processor who sells to Japanese wholesalers is developed to illustrate the model. The solution is obtained using quadratic programming algorithm.

Milk supply response by dairy farmers in Delaware was analyzed employing distributed lag price structures for number of milk cows and milk production per cow. A polynominal distributed lag model is fitted to quarterly data with deflated prices for the period 1966 to 1978. The variations in the number of milk cows is explained by about 98 percent. Farmers react positively to milk prices after 1–2 years, while wages and feed prices have a negative impact on cow numbers. Milk production per cow shows positive adjustments to milk prices after 6 to 15 months. Technology and feed prices influence also milk production While the short-run price elasticity of milk production is only .2, the long-run aggregate elasticity grows to 2.8 percent. Intermediate-run projections of milk supply were also performed with the model.