There is apparently a growing awareness of the role of non-structural measures as an important part of an overall flood damage reduction program. This awareness has come in part with the realization that structural measures often provide a false sense of security to floodplain occupants and can, then, result in increased food damages — contrary to their intended purpose. To be sure, restrictions prohibiting all development in flood prone areas is a polar case (which will eliminate all damages). There are no a priori reasons to believe that all uses should be prohibited from all floodplain areas. Some of these areas can, in fact, be put to economic use by land use management such that benefits derived outweigh costs associated with such development.

The objectives underlying this investigation, then, are (i) to develop a methodology useful to planners at several levels for efficient floodplain management, considering both structural and non-structural measures and (ii) to demonstrate the usefulness of the methodology by applying it to a selected floodplain in the Connecticut River Basin.

The quantity of solid waste arising from household consumption activities commands considerable public concern. Information about the level and composition of consumption residuals and their relationship to household consumption activities is scarce. Such information is quite basic to a better understanding of solid waste problems and to formulating policies aimed at coping with them.

This paper focuses on linking solid waste from food consumption activities to consumer behavior. The theoretical framework used in conceptualizing the solid waste generation process and its relationship to household consumption behavior is presented in Section II. A four - equation model involving relationships for total household food expenditure, value of food consumed at home, value of meals eaten away-from-home and total household solid waste generated by food consumption activities is set forth in Section III. Data and estimation are discussed in Section IV. The quantities of glass, metal, plastic and paper associated with selected food consumption activities and selected food expenditures, and the statistical estimates of the four-equation model, are analyzed in Section V. Some concluding remarks are given in Section VI.

In September 1974, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that it planned to make major changes in its grading of beef. The changes would redefine criteria for eating quality, particularly requiring less marbling for each grade.

The announcement was strategically timely: consumers had been restive over what they regarded as high prices for beef, while the poor 1974 corn crop made it economical to produce less fat in the beef carcass. Moreover, meat, packers and many cattle feeders had been demanding a grade revision which would permit shorter feeding, less waste fat and lower prodduction costs.

Economic entomologists have historically concerned themselves with reducing or preventing insect damage. These goals have led to the “economic threshold” concept used by entomologists to define a pest population level at which controls should be initiated (National Research Council, pp. 240). Stern (1966) defined it as “… the pest population density at which control measures should be determined to prevent an increasing population from reaching the economic injury level.” A serious attempt was made by J.C. Headley to define the economic threshold as the “ … population (of pests) that produces incremental damage equal to the cost of preventing that damage” (Headley, p. 105). Although logically sound, Headley's model, designed to quantify its definition, fails to treat the time dimension properly as shown in Hall and Norgaard's two-variable model (Hall and Norgaard, pp. 199-201). This two-variable model holds only under rather strong assumptions (Borosh and Talpaz, pp. 642-643), and a priori considers only a situation with a single pesticide treatment policy. A multiple treatment case was developed (Talpaz and Borosh, pp. 769-775) with equal physiological time intervals between treatments, which may apply to some special cases. An interesting effort to introduce increasing pest resistance was made by Hueth and Regev (pp. 543-555).

Shellfish harvesting, processing and marketing are components of an old, established industry in southeastern coastal areas. This traditional industry, with proven production records and established markets for its high-quality shrimp, is being subjected to difficult circumstances which could result in a significant restructuring of various segments of it. Processors are faced with very expensive control outlays required to reduce pollution levels in coastal waters. These pollution control problems are particularly perplexing for both old and new firms, since solutions lead only to higher processing costs in a competitive market, heavily influenced by international conditions.

Financial effects of effluent discharge guidelines are already being felt by processors in those states where early compliance dates are being specified by State environmental protection agencies. In many instances State standards are more stringent than those of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In addition, alternative waste treatment methods have been rejected by some State agencies, resulting in higher costs for meeting specified effluent discharge guidelines.

Entomologists and other pest control specialists recognize that pest mobility creates difficulties when control is left to individual property owners. Control of mobile weeds, insects or contagious diseases has characteristics of a public good with high exclusion costs and near equal availability to all people in the affected area. If abatement benefits for areas to which the pest is spreading are not considered, there will be under production of abatement. Cooperatives, county abatement districts or state and federal agencies are often set up to administer area-wide abatement efforts. Economies of scale in pesticide treatments, coordination of efforts to limit spatial spread of the pest (quarantine activities) and scale economies in technology to reduce adverse side effects of pesticides are given as justifications for public or large-scale pest control programs.

This study estimates the economic impact of outdoor recreation as a contributor to total value of forest resources in an area which has been heavily infested by Mountain Pine Beetle. The area of study was the Island Park are in eastern Idaho's Targhee National Forest. Targhee is a popular recreation area west of Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. Recreationists use the area for both destination and non-destination purposes. The recreation opportunities of this area include water sports, hiking and related outdoor activities. It is classed as one of Idaho's major recreation areas.

In context of the phrase “Rural Development”, so much a part of the current vocabulary of social scientists, the term ‘rural’ is often poorly defined and loosely used. Partly because of the great diversity in definitions of rural, both expressed and implied, a coherent and comprehensive rural development literature has not emerged. Obviously, rural development refers to the development of whatever is rural. The aim of this paper is to deal only with the question of what is rural, leaving the matter of what consitutes development to other writers.

Regional analysis has been accepted as a subdiscipline of economics. The signal importance and outlines of the discipline were perhaps most clearly stated in a survey by Meyer in 1965: He asserted that the most characteristic feature of regional analysis was its pragmatic origin. Regional analytic models seem to have grown out of needs to understand and analyze regional problems, despite significant conceptual and data problems. Conceptually, all classical economic theory is involved. In addition, more modern dimensions of location and equilibrium of multiple economies must be confronted. Data problems are magnified by the spatial dimension, since the accounting series implied for most aggregate analysis is available only on a national basis.

To understand the sources of change in productivity, that appropriate public policy and programs can be developed to increase productivity growth, a reliable and updated measure is needed. The term “productivity” discussed here refers to total factor productivity, or the ratio of value of total agricultural output to that of all inputs used in agricultural production.

The first comprehensive work on the measurement of productivity change in U.S. agriculture was done by Loomis and Barton in 1961. Since then, this index has been updated annually as an offical USDA agricultural productivity index. The weakness of using index numbers lies in the arithmetic formula used. It implies a specific functional form of the production function that may not accurately describe the data. Thus, a need arises to consider an alternative estimate of productivity.

Public opinion surveys indicate that the local property tax is the least popular of all taxes paid by Americans, yet in almost every state such a tax is levied for the support of local government and/or public schools. The major economic argument against the property tax is its inequities — both vertical and horizontal. Several studies have focused on the vertical equity of property taxes in Oklahoma, but the question of horizontal equity remains unexplored. The research reported in this paper deals with the nature of horizontal inequities in the taxation of rural land in Oklahoma and with the impact of state-wide equalization on rural land values.

During the first 4 months of 1975, Congress considered a number of amendments to the Agricultural and Consumer Protection Act of 1973. The amendments were principally directed toward raising loan rates and target prices for major U.S. crops and support rates for dairy. Pressure for raising target prices and loan rates was largely due to substantial increases in input prices occurring since the enactment of the August, 1973 Act. Between July of 1973 and December of 1974, the index of prices paid for production items, interest, taxes and wage rates increased by 22 percent. Farmers and farm leaders expressed fear that high yields, coupled with the full production stance of the Administration,, could throw the crop sector into a cost-price squeeze, depressing farm income. Given these circumstances, proponents of the amendments argued that target prices and loan rates under the Act of 1973 gave farmers inadequate protection from low prices.

Enterprise competition among beef, hog and crop alternatives in the South has been recognized by a number of analysts; Potential enterprise adjustments in this region must be evaluated before reliable decisions affecting the beef industry can be made. This paper is concerned with an appraisal of normative adjustments in southern beef production and related enterprises over an intermediate period of time.

All those who have worked closely with farmers know that uncertainties in farming are great. They stem from many sources — natural forces such as weather, disease, variation in market prices, etc. Some uncertainties, e.g., weather hazards such as hail, can be insured against; others can be reduced by increased wealth. Farmers can also reduce uncertainty through contracting, as these may specify price and quantity.

Most crops grown in the U.S. Central Cornbelt are sold on highly developed public markets with daily prices and offerings. While target prices for soybeans and corn exist, price uncertainty still remains at the time farmers make decisions. Futures markets have long been available. However, few farmers use futures markets to predetermine prices in their crop planning process. One reason for this is that while use of futures markets can remove price risks, biological weather risks remain.

With current high food prices and increasing talk about a world food crisis, there is renewed interest in production agriculture and in the allocation of resources to agriculture. It would seem, therefore, that estimates of agricultural production functions and their associated marginal products would be useful to those responsible for resource allocation to the agricultural sector. This paper intended to give policymakers information on which to base decisions relative to the impact of investments in agricultural research and extension activities. The level of appropriations to such activities can be considered a proxy measure of technology. Most researchers familiar with this area feel that the total effect of new technology on production does not occur at one momemt in time, but may be spread over a number or years. Considering this, a distributed lag on research and extension expenditures was incorporated into the production function estimated in this paper.

Management of agricultural business firms, such as grain and supply cooperatives, is becoming increasingly complex. Such complexity is a result of growth in size and intricacy of cooperatives over the last decade or more, and of processes of expansion of traditional functions and adoption of new ones. Currently, there is little research information available about the management function, and even less which is specific to agricultural business firms. Several studies have shown that the most important reason a cooperative fails is probably management. Yet, there is seldom any testing of senior management performance.

In assessing the prospective utility or value of a research program there are three important considerations: (1) potential impact the research will have on the scientific field involved, (2) probable benefits to industry or the public sector and (3) probability of success of projects in achieving these goals. Various studies have been made that emphasize the first and second objectives, i.e., trying to determine both scientific merit and economic value or return on investment in research projects and programs. This paper will be concerned with the latter objective; estimating the probable success of projects which were part of an organized agricultural research program conducted by USDA over a 25 year period.

Within spatially complex economic systems, it is given that change in a commodity's production in one region engaged in interregional competition will influence the price of that commodity in all trading regions. Mathematical programming models provide useful tools to predict such price alterations for specified production changes. Unfortunately, only running and analyzing many alternative formulations of such a model can generate an understanding of the relationships among regions involved in interregional competition. Specifically, this paper addresses itself to formalizing this process and providing quantitative measures summarizing the impact of regional changes in production upon prices in all regions. This paper is concerned with quantitatively estimating the influence of a change in fed beef production for given regions upon prices of fed beef for all regions of the United States. From estimates of these relationships, economic measures of isolation of regions and the impact of changes in import levels upon regional prices will be developed. Thus, unlike much previous research in the area of interregional competition in the beef industry, focused upon finding an “optimum” solution to a mathematical programming model, this research examines the basic economic relationships among regional production and regional prices implied by an interregional competition model.

An important function of agricultural economics is to determine the competitive potential for beginning or expanding production of a commodity in a specified area. This problem is approached through budgeting techniques and/or more sophisticated models such as linear or reactive programming. Many examples using LP or reactive programming algorithms are available. In two recent studies, reactive models were used to examine the market for potatoes and sweet cherries. These studies provided an insight into the relative competitive position among producing areas and among consuming centers. To reach a solution, the competitive assumption of LP or reactive models requires independence of supply functions for producing regions and demand functions for consuming markets. Thus, frequently the demand price for a given commodity in a market is estimated as a function of volume in that market and perhaps time, income or other variables. The resulting equation is used by inserting the mean value of all explanatory variables except volume, resulting in an equation that has price as a function of volume, plus a constant, and is compatible reactive programming.

Proteins are one of the basic and essential nutrients consumed by man. Both animal and vegetable sources provide proteins in the human diet. Many proteins derived from animal sources are nutritionally adequate because all essential amino acids are present. However, proteins from vegetable sources are often deficient in one or more essential amino acids. Therefore, vegetable protein must generally be supplemented with other proteins in order to provide good nutition. However, vegetable proteins can provide a satisfactory diet if the individual is judicious in selecting foods.

A study of 1955 data indicated that approximately 55 percent of the protein component of the American diet came from animal sources. A recent analysis indicated that red meats contributed approximately 30 percent of the animal source to total protein. Dairy products, poultry, and fish contributed the balance. Similarly, wheat flour provided approximately 15 percent of total vegetable protein intake with other cereals (rice, corn, barley and rye), legume seeds (beans, peas and soybeans), and nuts constituting the balance.