During the past 40 years, the returns to agricultural R&D have been on average in the range of 40-60% (Alston, et al 2000, Evenson 2001). Many agricultural economists see this high average as convincing evidence that there is significant underinvestment in public agricultural R&D (Ruttan 1980,...

Since corn is the primary feedstock used for producing ethanol in the U.S., and ethanol production yields byproducts that can be fed to livestock in combination with corn, addressing the effect of ethanol production on meat markets should consider not only demand and supply interdependence...

This study examines the relative price of a standard market basket of food items and a market basket of healthier alternatives. Because people in low-income neighborhoods may have fewer grocery stores and transportation alternatives, the effects of store size and competition on the price of a...

Replaced with revised version of paper 07/30/04.

The impacts of market reforms on prices volatility in developing countries are not well understood because analysts have not been able to predict the impacts. This study investigates whether the reforms have exacerbated the degree of spatial volatility of maize price in Tanzania using ARCH-M...

A censored demand system estimator is proposed by extending the sample selection model of Heckman. Censoring is governed by a selection mechanism which avoids the restricitve Tobit parameterization. Results of application to household consumption of beverages suggest the estimator produces...

This study uses revealed preferences of consumers to study the consumer benefits from soy milk. The study specifies and estimates structural demand and reduced form models of competition for different milk types using US supermarket scanner data. The introduction of soy milk is used to estimate...

Traditional measures of the benefits of technological change use producer prices. Consumer-oriented measures are more appropriate but they require knowledge of price impacts. They may diverge in the presence of distortions. This paper shows that in general equilibrium they are interrelated...