This study estimates the impact of carbon offset payments on land use choices, net producer returns, and carbon sequestration. Loblolly pine is added to traditional cropping choices as a designated carbon-sequestering crop. With a carbon offset price of $15 per ton, pine enters land use on 10 percent of pasture acres. At $30, loblolly pine significantly increases in acreage in areas traditionally planted in row crops. The analysis suggests that the addition of pine as a carbon-sequestering crop can affect land use, add to producer returns, and sequester additional carbon relative to producer choice sets that exclude pine.

A financial training program designed by Cooperative Extension specialists was provided to over 2,000 USDA/FSA borrowers from the Northeast during the period 1994–1999. Key to the success of the workshops was an in-depth, user-friendly curriculum that evolved over time, eventually replacing satellite-feed instruction with pre-taped videos. Cluster analysis classified nearly 70% of workshop participants as “Low Finance Priority” or “Low Finance Knowledge.” Farmers in these clusters received a relatively greater educational benefit from the program than those not in these clusters. Impact analysis indicated that perceived annual gain in farm net worth from application of workshop tools ranged from approximately $5,000 to $10,000. The training addressed the needs of producers typically isolated from Cooperative Extension because the workshop was the only extension program attended that year by nearly two-thirds of them.

The United States is facing a seemingly overwhelming problem of how to dispose of its solid waste. For disposal solutions to be viable, they must be environmentally sound and economically viable. Processing waste newspapers for farm-animal bedding offers a successful partial solution that meets both criteria. Centralized newspaper chopping is found to cost less than on-farm chopping. Both chopped and unchopped waste newspapers can be economically transported considerable distances. The use of waste newspapers for animal bedding is economically attractive at the farm level and can provide a partial solution to the solid-waste disposal problem.

The concept of nonparametric analysis, estimation, and inference has a long and storied existence in the annals of economic measurement. At least four rather distinct types of analysis are lumped under the broad heading of nonparametrics. The oldest, and perhaps most common, is that associated with distribution-free methods and order statistics. Similar in spirit, but different in emphasis, is nonparametric density estimation, such as the currently popular kernel estimator for regression. Semi-parametric or semi-nonparametric estimation combines parametric analysis of portions of the problem with nonparametric specification for the remainder, such as the specification of a specific functional form for a regression function with a nonparametric representation of the error distribution. The final type of nonparametrics is that associated with data envelopment analysis and revealed preference, although the use of the term nonparametrics for this research is perhaps a misnomer. This paper will briefly review each of the four types of analysis, leaning heavily on other published work for more detailed exposition. The paper will then discuss in more detail the application of the revealed-preference approach to four specific economic problems: efficiency, the structure of technology or preferences, technical or taste change, and risky choice. The paper is not complete, exhaustive, or detailed. The primary purpose is to expose the reader to a variety of techniques and provide ample reference to the relevant literature.

Classical economists differentiate between international and domestic trade on the assumption that perfect mobility among factors of production exists within a nation. This is a dynamic analysis. It assumes, however, a static model in terms of the immobility of factors of production between nations. J. S. Mill used such an analysis in his discussion of colonies and considered them part of the mother country, e.g. the West Indies was part of England. Mill stated that factors of production moved freely between England and her colonies.

Seasonal swings in milk production in Florida result in a need to import milk on a seasonal basis. A linear programming analysis is used to analyze alternate freshening-date distributions and project the cost savings to Florida dairy farmers from reduced milk imports.

There is some concern that geographic patterns of dairy cooperative membership, and customary relationships among milk assemblers and processors, may inhibit milk marketing efficiency in the Northeast. Raw milk assembly patterns and hard product manufacturing plant locations are here developed which minimize total regional costs of these functions. Solutions are highly sensitive to season, day-of-the-week, and capacity assumptions. Evidence strongly suggests that regional coordination of milk assembly and manufacturing would result in cost savings and in some re-alignment of present milk shipment patterns.

Dynamic programming techniques were used to evaluate the effects of alternative levels of normal flex acreage requirements on a Midwestern corn-soybean farm and a Southeastern cotton farm. Results indicate that increasing normal flex acres from the current level of 15 percent to 35 percent would provide inducement for farmers in both regions to plant more soybeans. In general, the cotton farm incurs considerably higher expected losses from the change. Thus, there are unequal regional consequences of such a policy change.

A proposed Yield Reserve Program designed to compensate farmers for any reduced yields resulting from nitrogen (N) application rates reduced to below recommended rates is evaluated. Assuming that farmers currently follow Extension recommendations for applying N, Yield Reserve Program participation reduces expected net revenue by $10 to $13/ha. The Yield Reserve Program reduces expected net revenue by $17 to $20/ha for farmers who apply N to maximize expected net revenue. Farmers' costs of participation increase with lower probabilities of inadequate rainfall and higher corn prices and decline with higher N prices. The Yield Reserve Program can significantly reduce N applications to cropland, which may reduce N content of surface waters, but the costs to taxpayers and farmers will depend on how the program is implemented.

Nonparametric techniques have recently come into vogue in agricultural economics: Applications abound in both consumer and producer models of the agricultural economy. Moreover, several distinct approaches to nonparametric analysis exist. There are nonparametric statistical techniques, semiparametric estimation techniques, nonparametric revealed-preference analysis of consumption data, and nonparametric analysis of production data. Both revealed-preference analysis and nonparametric analysis of production data rely on the basic fact, which provides the foundation for much of modern duality theory, that convex sets can be completely characterized by their supporting hyperplanes. This observation allows one to apply simple mathematical programming (in particular, linear programming) methods to analyze production and consumption data. My task today is to provide an overview of nonparametric programming approaches to production data. Thus, I will not address any of the other topics cited above. However, I would be remiss if I did not mention the close connection between these subject areas and what I intend to survey today. Moreover, one should also recognize that very closely related to the literature on nonparametric programming analysis of production data are the fields of estimation of efficiency frontier via statistical methods. (A useful survey here is Lovell and Schmidt).

The effect of retail grocery market structure on the speed of adjustment of retail food prices to changes in producer prices, real wages, and the cost of energy was examined for SMSAs. Evidence failed to support the implication of the Mason-Bain paradigm that increased concentration reduces market efficiency as reflected in speed of retail price adjustment. Evidence of strong intertemporal relationships between change in producer prices and retail prices found for the categories meat, poultry, fish, eggs and cereal and baker products provide support to the hypothesis of cost-push inflation.

Potatoes suitable for frozen french fries are harvested in the fall and then apportioned for the rest of the year by processors. This involves storage in either fresh or frozen form. Participants in both the fresh and french fry market consider the level of frozen french fry stocks to be an important determinant of activity in these markets and therefore use stock information to form price expectations [Phillips et al., 16–18]. The ability to forecast the future level of stocks with some accuracy would undoubtedly be an additional aid in developing market strategies. This paper provides one means of forecasting frozen french fry stocks.

The disposal of industrial and municipal wastes is a complex and costly problem. The combination of increases in population, affluence, and industrial activity is generating growing volumes of water borne waste that must be disposed of or recycled. In 1972 for example, the estimated volume of wastewater generated in Rhode Island was 179 million gallons per day (MGD). This represented an average of 185 gallons per day for each Rhode Island resident and indications are that this volume is increasing each year.

Since World War II U.S. Agriculture has seen regional shifts and greater concentration in the production of certain commodities. Technological and infrastructural developments in irrigation, plant varieties, cultivation techniques, transportation, storage, and processing have lowered the barriers of time and space, thus allowing remote regions to compete with and even dominate the traditional production areas. The U.S. potato industry offers an excellent example of this. Processed potatoes have become the dominant food use form and production has shifted westward and become more concentrated both with respect to time and location. In 1947, 44 percent of U.S. potato production was in the seven largest potato states for the fall crop, 35 percent was produced in the nonfall crops, and eight percent was processed. By 1978, 75 percent was produced by the seven leading states for the fall crop, 14 percent in the early nonfall crops, and 59 percent was processed. Because many of these changes involved the adoption of relatively energy intensive techniques, the existence of low and fairly stable energy prices until 1973 aided this change. The increases in energy costs since 1973 raise questions about the long-run stability of recent patterns of production and consumption.

This study develops a model to examine the impacts of uncertainty about crop production and irreversibility of program participation on determining land rental payments and least-cost land retirement targeting in the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP). Results show that under risk aversion only, the marginal cost of abatement and the average land rental payment are less than those under risk neutrality. However, under uncertainty and irreversibility, the marginal cost of abatement and the average land rental payment are considerably higher than those under risk neutrality or risk aversion only. It is important to incorporate uncertainty and irreversibility into the design of land rental payments and in determining participation constraints.

Although population, employment and income rose throughout the country during the 1960's, growth in New York was less rapid than in the country at large. Population in the state increased by 8.7 percent in the 1960–70 decade, compared with 10.7 percent in the nation. Per capita incomes also rose during the period but by only 65 percent in the state, compared to 78 percent nationwide; the ways in which New Yorkers were earning a living changed dramatically. Manufacturing employment by place of residence declined by 13.4 percent between 1960 and 1970, but nearly a quarter of all jobs in the state remained in manufacturing. Agriculture and agriculturally related jobs declined; the largest growth areas were trade and services. Outstripping the growth in the nation as a whole, employment in the trade and service sectors accounted for two-thirds of all jobs in New York by 1970.

This study tests the causal direction between captive supply and cash market price in the U.S. cattle procurement market. Finding the correct causality should provide useful information to the decades-long debate on packers’ anti-competitive behavior in the U.S. cattle procurement market. It should also help researchers find better econometric specifications for the cash price-captive supply relationship. Two causality tests—the Granger test and the Modified Wald test—were conducted. Overall test results indicate that captive supply causes cash market price, and it favors the price-dependent model.