This article examines the impact of extreme weather on dairy farm productivity in the northeastern U.S., accounting for the effects of extreme temperatures on dairy cow productivity and on feed production—the predominant feeding system in the region. Using a stochastic frontier production model and 2010–20 dairy farm-level data, we find that although heat stress impacts cow productivity negatively, it increases feed production. No discernable impacts of extreme cold temperatures were found. Additional results indicate the presence of significant labor-augmenting productivity and that larger farms experience larger productivity growth thanks to increasing returns to scale and allocative efficiency.

This article examines the relationships between livestock vaccinations, herd introduction decisions, and livestock disease–related outcomes. We develop a theoretical model and derive testable hypotheses about the relationships between these outcomes and practices and test them using two-stage least squares regression analysis. We find that vaccinations reduce disease-related livestock deaths, implying that vaccine availability and use may improve herd and household welfare. We do not find robust evidence of increase in disease-related illness due to herd introductions. Our results highlight the role of livestock vaccinations in safeguarding herd value, which is connected to broader household welfare for livestock keepers of Eastern Africa.

This paper presents a pedagogical exercise to explore the economics of price-based fisheries bycatch. In the exercise students experience the economic incentives that lead to bycatch due to highgrading; the discarding of low-value fish. We first discuss existing fisheries economics pedagogical activities and how our exercise is distinct. We then identify over forty economics, environmental studies, geography, management, and philosophy courses where the exercise could be played. Next, we describe the game and share results and student feedback. Finally, we provide discussion prompts and extensions to illustrate how incentives and policies can change fishing behavior to lead to sustainable fisheries.

We disentangle the effects of biodiesel incentives and shale oil expansion on the long-run equilibrium price relationships among biodiesel feedstocks and crude oil in the United States (US) and European Union (EU). We find that the 2005 Energy Policy Act in the US substantially increased the responsiveness of soy oil, canola oil, and corn oil prices to crude oil price movements. However, in recent years, expansion in the global supply of crude oil from shale oil extraction has offset the effects of US biodiesel incentives and blending mandates. In the EU, the Indirect Land Use Change Directive of 2015 substantially reduced the responsiveness of biodiesel feedstock prices to crude oil price movements.

To adequately capture the market structure of vegetables in Japan, it is necessary to develop an oligopolistic model due to the potential market power of producers vs. retailers. We first estimate the market power between producers and retailers by extending the bilateral oligopoly model. Next, we evaluate the role of the wholesale market and its effect on economic welfare. Our results indicate that the wholesale market benefits both producers and consumers through a reduction in retail margins. This study contributes to the industrial organization literature by developing a bilateral oligopoly model and empirically measuring the wholesale market system in Japan.

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.

In this article, we examine the joint influence of land access and gender of household head on household food insecurity by employing a logit model and using data from the 2015/2016 Nigerian General Household Survey. Our results show that female-headed households (FHHs) are more food insecure than male-headed households. However, with a 1-acre increase in their access to land, FHHs are 16 percent less likely to be food insecure. This finding provides policy insights into how improving access to arable land for land-poor FHHs can enhance food security in Nigeria.

U.S. per capita seafood consumption is historically high due to population and income growth and consumer preference shifts toward healthy protein options. Despite this expansion, U.S. fisheries, especially those in the Great Lakes region, no longer fulfill domestic demand due to pressure on fish stocks and regulatory constraints. Instead, aquaculture and imports fill the gap. Rainbow trout, yellow perch, and walleye—three species historically produced in the North Central Region (NCR)—exemplify such trends. To expand marketing opportunities for NCR aquaculture producers, this study estimates willingness to pay (WTP) for these species and several search and credence fish attributes. We designed and distributed a survey instrument to collect hypothetical choice experiment responses from U.S. seafood consumers. Using a random utility framework, we estimate mean total WTP for trout, yellow perch, and walleye of $19.99/lb., $15.89/lb., and $17.37/lb., respectively. Further, we identify average price premia of $1.64/lb., $1.97/lb., and $0.84/lb. for NCR-sourced, wild-caught, and fresh fillet attributes. Our analysis also captures regional preferences. Mean WTP estimates for yellow perch and walleye, which are native to the Great Lakes, are significantly higher inside the NCR. Further, trout commands a higher premium outside the NCR than within, suggesting potential market segmentation for the analyzed species.

This study details the results of an experimental intervention designed to address the issue of price anchoring in the choice experiment framework. The intervention, which informs respondents of the tendency to anchor choices on potentially arbitrary pieces of information, is applied to a choice experiment used to examine consumers’ willingness to pay for local and/or organic tomatoes in Northern New England and develops three primary contributions. First, evidence from this study shows that anchoring effects are present. Second, providing information to consumers plays a mitigating role on these effects; price anchoring changes willing to pay estimates between 44% and 51% and exposure to anchoring-specific cheap talk is associated with a reduction in these anchoring effects between 60% and 80%. These results are explained through decreases in price sensitivity induced by increasing the mean price vector and subsequent increases in price sensitivity due to the information intervention. Finally, this study reveals that consumers are willing to pay a substantial price premium for locally grown tomatoes, from $0.96 to $1.12 per pound, offering some guidance for policy regarding growing practice and farm land use as regional coalitions support local agriculture expansion in the Northeast.

We utilize a Generalized Exact Affine Stone Index system to evaluate the structure of residential water demand that recognizes demand interrelationship between residential and bottled water in the United States, allowing for precommitted consumption. Further, we address expenditure and price endogeneity by accounting for the supply side of the price determination mechanism. A significant substitutability relationship between residential and bottled water is found, while substantial precommitments are established in both residential and bottled water consumption. Residential demand becomes price-elastic once the precommitted level is reached. Finally, ignoring substitutability, precommitments, or endogeneity distorts the demand structure, resulting in erroneous policy implications.

A hedonic model was employed to examine factors that influence the resale price of row crop planters on the used machinery market. Planter sale data from 2016 to 2018 were utilized to conduct the analysis. Results suggested that the primary factors impacting planter resale prices were make, age, condition, planter configuration, row number, and row spacing. As a function of age (depreciation), planter values were generally determined to decrease at a decreasing rate. Finally, it was determined that there was a significant interaction between the variables make and age, suggesting that different planter makes depreciate differently.

Given that nearly half of the Indian labor force is employed in agriculture, extreme weather events may harm most of the country’s population. By exploiting annual variation within Indian districts, I test whether greater temperature fluctuations significantly decrease the output value of 13 major crops. I find that a 1°C deviation above the annual mean temperature leads to a 21.3 percentage point decline in output value for a given year, indicating substantial losses from large fluctuations in temperature. I also find evidence that proportion of crop area irrigated and fertilizer usage mitigates the negative impacts of temperature shocks.

An Exact Affine Stone Index demand model is estimated to analyze the household-level demand for nine nut products (peanuts, pecans, almonds, cashews, walnuts, pistachios, mixed nuts, macadamia nuts, and other nuts) in the United States using Nielsen Homescan panel data from 2009 through 2015. The demands for all nuts are elastic. All nut products are necessities and substitutes for each other. Household sociodemographic characteristics are statistically significant drivers of the demand for nut products. Finally, the effects of changes in the magnitude of selected promotion expenditure elasticities for nuts are simulated to determine their impacts on prices and quantities demanded.

The dynamics of entry and exit are examined across different categories of farms depending on the timing of entry and/or exit through a detailed panel data set on Canadian agriculture. The decomposition highlights the differences in the groups of farms and provides information affecting entry and exit beyond what can be inferred from net exit numbers. While aggregate values show a gradual fall in farm numbers over time and suggest a sector in decline, the decomposition reveals that approximately one-third of farms in each census are new entrants but only half of these will be in operation by the time of the next census. The results of the analysis suggest that many of the factors that increase the probability of entry also increase the probability of exit; smaller operations, producing vegetable/horticulture goods, located in more densely populated regions, are more likely to enter the sector but also to leave farming. Multigeneration involvement and a possible succession plan also contribute to the longevity of the farm operation after it has been launched. The results also highlight the decline of the mid-size operations and the growing importance of large farms in the overall share of production.

Diet is important in determining positive health outcomes. Income constraints are often provided as an explanation for poor dietary choices made by households. We test this hypothesis by exploiting shocks to household budgets driven by changes in house prices. Using a comprehensive panel of household food purchases matched to house price data, we find that house prices have a positive impact on food expenditure, but no impact on diet quality. We also find that the total quantity of food purchased increases as budget constraints are relaxed suggesting that changes in quantity are the primary driver of the expenditure change. Finally, we demonstrate that the impact of budget constraints is larger for lower income and younger age households.

This study analyzes consumers’ preferences for nutrition and convenience attributes in ready-to-heat meals, using grocery scanner data applied to a Berry, Levinsohn, and Pakes model. Households’ preferences for convenience meals stem on saving time. Also, households prefer convenience meals with higher contents of sugar, fat, sodium, cholesterol, and fiber, and lower in calorie content. Results prove that consumption of convenience foods implies a high intake of ingredients with negative consequences on dietary quality and health. Findings showcase the importance of the advancement and adoption of alternative food processing technologies that would circumvent the production of convenient foods high in non-healthy ingredients.

We investigated two potential mechanisms facilitating local food procurement in schools, food hubs, and funded farm to school policies. Using all three waves of the USDA’s farm to school census, we assessed the factors that support school districts that have stated an intention of beginning a farm to school program. We find that neither food hubs nor funded policies have an impact on farm to school programming. Instead, it is large-scale farms that play a role in the farm to school supply chain. Coupled with the positive impact of school size and receipt of increased federal funding, this suggests that while both cost and transactional barriers impact school procurement, current policy solutions are insufficient. This study improves our understanding of the role of facilitation mechanisms on farm to school implementation in the United States.

Water supply unreliability in many public water systems stems from aging infrastructure. We measure unreliability by the issuance of boil water notices (BWNs) within one year prior to single-family residential sale observations. Using a spatial quantile regression framework on transactions between 2012 and 2017, we find statistically significant, negative relationships between BWNs and residential properties. The estimated impacts of unreliability on residential housing prices, however, are not uniform across the distribution of prices. Specifically, we find that BWNs have a larger impact on medium- to low-priced houses (at or below the 60 percent quantile) compared with high-priced houses. An aggregate marginal willingness-to-pay value of $4.2 million was computed for a one-day reduction in annual BWN throughout Marion County.

Federal administrative data present a valuable opportunity for food and agricultural industry locational outcome research. We review issues with aggregated U.S. public data and summarize current methods. An example empirical approach combines federal administrative and secondary data. We compare results with differing levels of industrial aggregation. Results indicate locational determinants vary in magnitude, sign, and significance across industries and their sub-industries, as well as between employers and non-employers – nuances commonly missed with public data. We conclude by emphasizing that studies relying on public (more-aggregated) data may miss locational outcome relationships or inappropriately generalize to sub-industries and suggest data access changes.

In October 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) released a report classifying processed meat as a type 1 carcinogen. The report prompted headlines and attracted immediate public attention, but the economic impacts remain unknown. In this paper, we investigate the impacts of the IARC report on selected processed meat prices and purchases using retail scanner data from US grocery stores. We compare changes in prices and sales of selected processed meat products to a constructed synthetic control group (using a convex combination of nonmeat food products). We find a significant decrease in bacon prices in the wake of the IARC report release, but we find no evidence of a sales reduction. We find no significant changes in price and sales for ham and sausage. The pattern of price and quantity changes are consistent with downward shifts in demand and outward shifts in supply for bacon and sausage following the release of the IARC report.