Bison is an important and iconic mammal in the U.S. that is being reintroduced in many places after being driven nearly to extinction. This paper provides a nationwide assessment of the local economic impacts of bison reintroduction so that rural communities can take economic well-being into account when considering decisions regarding future bison restorations. We estimate the causal impacts of bison herd establishment on county-level income, employment, and population growth using staggered difference-in-difference and the synthetic control approaches. The simple positive correlation between local per capita income and bison herds might lead planners to think that bison reintroduction is good for the local economy. However, none of the causal inference analyses find statistically significant effects of bison reintroduction.

Christmas tree sales are considerable throughout the United States. Understanding the drivers of purchase for Christmas trees is critical for producers and stakeholders within states with tree production. Using data from a choice experiment in combination with latent class modeling, we find that tree height is important, but tree species is less important. Further, we show that local labeling does not influence all consumers. With respect to retail location, we show that nursery/greenhouse and choose-and-cut retail outlets are preferred by a majority of consumers but not by all consumers. Recommendations for the varying retail outlets are provided.

Expert and peer reviews and popularity are freely available both on the Internet and in printed materials for a variety of food products. Using two experimental studies with non-hypothetical tastings and auctions, we explore the impact of peer tasting popularity, actual peer ratings, and expert ratings on demand for wines consumers can or have tasted. We find that higher own wine ratings are associated with higher willingness to pay (WTP). Morevoer, higher peer and expert rating scores increase consumer WTP for wine even after controlling for the impact of consumers’ own ratings. Observed peer popularity also increases WTP for preferred wines.

Dairy farming in Europe faces profound environmental, social, and economic sustainability challenges, which are of significant policy interest. These challenges support the need for a transition toward the uptake of more sustainable dairy farming practices. This paper examines the effects of an advisory instrument “balanced sustainability information” on farmers’ preferences for more grass-based feeding systems using a between-subjects design and a discrete choice experiment among a sample of Swedish dairy farmers. Conceptually, we develop a state-dependent utility framework with Bayesian updating to motivate the impact pathway. Our results demonstrate that on average, balanced sustainability information has negligible effects on farmers’ feed choices, which could be a consequence of opposing responses to the information, among others. Considering farmer heterogeneity based on their identities and prior knowledge, we find support for some evidence of treatment effects. Our findings highlight important and policy-relevant critical reflections about overoptimistic expectations of information provision as an instrument to nudge behavioral change toward more sustainable farming practices.

The grain/oilseed industry is undergoing considerable structural change through mergers and new value-added businesses, which raises price-related questions. We analyze the level of price integration prior to and following a merger between two grain firms and the start-up of a producer-owned ethanol facility. This research utilizes error correction vector autoregression analysis to compute market integration structural change effects. We find evidence that market integration initially increases with the merger, but deteriorates with time following the merger. We find no significant localized change in the level of price integration for the case of a new value-added business.

This paper investigates the impacts of alternative federal dairy policies on the U.S. dairy sector. In addition to the current dairy price support program, five alternatives are investigated: (1) immediate deregulation, (2) gradual deregulation, (3) target price-deficiency payment program without supply control, (4) target price-deficiency payment program with supply control, and (5) mandatory supply control. An econometric model of the national dairy industry is used to simulate quarterly equilibrium price and quantity values at the farm and wholesale levels for each policy over the period 1980–90. Consumers are better off under both immediate and gradual deregulation, as well as the target price-deficiency payment scenarios because prices are lower, enabling them to consume more dairy products. Farmers, as a group, are better off under the two target price-deficiency payment program and supply control scenarios, where milk prices and producer surplus are highest.

Formula pricing of eggs is typically based on quotations issued by Urner Barry Publications, and egg producers worry that the quotes are systematically lower than equilibrium levels. Egg Clearinghouse, Inc. (ECI) provides a public forum for cash trading, intended to facilitate price discovery. Evidence from 1994–95 does not suggest that Urner Barry understates producer level prices on average. Granger causality tests indicate a feedback relationship between the Urner Barry quotes and ECI prices, with ECI leading during price upswings. Lead times appear to have fallen since the late 1970s and early 1980s, confirming earlier predictions regarding market efficiency.

Two issues lurk in the background of the papers by Lichtenberg, Taylor, and Cropper et al. The first is a specific question about the goal of regulatory policy. The second is a more global consideration regarding politics, technological change, and the future.

Cow-calf enterprises in the Northeastern United States are generally small and often the only agricultural enterprise of families with large off-farm incomes. In this paper, the economic viability of cow-calf enterprises to these investors is considered using a representative farm/economic engineering approach. Investments in farm real estate that is characterized by limited capability soil resources are found to yield negative labor and management incomes but to be economically viable when change in net worth and present value of family after-tax income are considered.

The USDA's Market Access Program (formerly Market Promotion Program) recently underwent a major change to redirect all branded products export promotion funds to small domestic firms and cooperatives. The redirection responded to criticisms by the General Accounting Office of past allocations of branded products export promotion funds to large, experienced exporters. This study uses a firm-level analysis to examine whether firm size and export experience matter in how effectively firms use the promotion funds to increase their revenues. The results support neither the GAO criticisms nor the recent program redirection.

Institutions of higher education span as great a range of size, illustrating as great a variation in fixed and variable inputs, as most of the firms that economists have occasion to study: farms, marketing concerns, recreation businesses, and the like. In the educational field, professionals at the smaller schools frequently look to their counterparts at larger institutions for innovation and leadership. This is, perhaps, a natural outgrowth of the age, prestige, and scope of academic enterprise which typify most of the larger universities.

Using data from a survey of Pennsylvania food processors, we investigate what firm-level characteristics make a processor more or less likely to buy agricultural inputs and ingredients though contracts. We find that over 20 percent of Pennsylvania processors use contracts, and over 44 percent of agricultural inputs (based on value) are purchased under contract. We also analyze the two related questions of what firm attributes, attitudes, or other factors make a firm more likely to use contracts at all, and what factors lead a processor who does contract to use them more intensively.

This paper examines the elimination of all agricultural policy distortions in all trading countries and agricultural production decisions in the United States, as well as subsequent environmental quality in the presence and absence of nondegradation environmental standards. The results suggest that trade liberalization has the potential to increase domestic production and boost agricultural returns by as much as 8.5 percent. Consumer surplus would likely fall, and the discharge of nutrients, sediment, and pesticides would likely increase. However, environmental policies can limit these adverse environmental impacts and mute the potential decrease in consumer surplus, while leaving increased returns to agricultural production.

A key organizational decision for retailers is whether to self-distribute or rely on a wholesaler-supplied network and yet little is known about the impact of this strategic choice on store-level productivity. We estimate a stochastic frontier model for food retailers that accounts for selectivity effects linked to the choice of distribution strategy. We find that adoption of data-sharing technologies has a positive impact on store-level gross margins of stores in self-distributing chains. Technical inefficiency among U.S. food retailers leads to a gross margin that is around $5,000 less for a conventional food retailer and about $7,670 less for a supercenter.

The performance of restricted estimators such as Almon and Shiller in modeling advertising carryover is tested and compared to the unrestricted OLS estimator, using 1971–1988 monthly New York City fluid milk market data. Results indicate that in the absence of autocorrelation and multicollinearity among the lagged advertising variables, the unrestricted OLS estimator is still the preferred estimator, based on Mean Square Error and Root Mean Square Percent Error criteria. In this case, the Almon and Shiller estimators perform equally well, although next only to the OLS estimator. In the presence of autocorrelation or multicollinearity however, the restricted estimators may outperform the OLS estimator, in a MSE sense, with the flexible Shiller estimator (which subsumes the Almon) being more desirable.

Leasing of agricultural land is gaining in importance in North America. The impact of leasing on soil management practices is examined in an area in the Canadan province of Ontario. Prevailing land contracts are insecure and the rental land market appears to be imperfect in the area. Under these conditions leasing leads to undesirable soil management practices and consequently to a lower state of conservation and to lower crop productivity over time. A difference in soil management and crop productivity has been observed between owner-operated and rented land.

American agricultural production is viewed by starving masses in the world as a great white knight; it can come charging into their lives and rescue them from starvation, malnutrition, and misery. Over the years we have maintained a granary that fed many millions of starving people. Now that these granaries are essentially depleted, there is a demand on the part of the World Health Organization, members of Congress and others that we replenish these reserves and continue to serve this role, rescuing people from starvation.

Land ownership characteristics such as the quantity of land owned, quality of land parcels, and location of land describe important dimensions of landed wealth. Landed wealth is expected to be an important factor influencing support for rural land use control. This factor was not discussed in the April (1999) article by McLeod, Woirhaye, and Menkhaus (1999).

We suggest that this factor contributes to understanding variation in support for rural land use control.

Contract grazing is compared with retained ownership of cattle using two frameworks—decision theory and portfolio analysis. The study area is West Virginia. Contracting is optimal under a wide range of price and weather scenarios and decision criteria. It also dominates other alternatives based on labor efficiency measures. The optimal portfolio consists of contract grazing and pasture rental, with the results insensitive to small changes in contract grazing returns. The decision theory and portfolio analyses are complementary; together, the two sets of results provide a comprehensive view of the optimal production alternative. Because different agents employ different decision criteria, this approach can increase the utility of results to decision makers and contribute to better decisions.