This study suggests that confidence intervals for WASDE forecasts of corn, soybean, and wheat prices may be improved if they are estimated using an empirical approach. Empirical confidence intervals are calculated following Williams and Goodman's (1971) method and use historical forecast errors...

Previous research found that country elevators that are the first in their area to grade wheat and pay quality-adjusted prices would receive above-normal profits at the expense of their competitors. Because of spatial monopsony, these early-adopting elevators would pass on to producers only 70%...

Experimental economics procedures such as laboratory experimental auctions are increasingly being used to measure consumers' willingness-to-pay. A sealed-bid, fourth-price Vickrey-style auction was used to measure consumers' willingness-to-pay for flavor in beef steaks. Two hundred and...

As opposed to a normal market, an inverted market has a negative price of storage or spread. Market inversions in nearby spreads rarely occur during early months of the crop year since stocks are usually abundant after harvest. However, market inversions frequently occur when the spreads are...

Standard models of hedging behavior assume that either hedgers wish to minimize net price variation or they wish to balance variation versus profits. These models treat variation as risk and fail to distinguish between variation that is random and variation that is not random over time. Newer...

Fats and oils play a prominent role in U.S. dietary patterns. Recent concerns over the negative health consequences associated with fats and oils have led many to suspect structural change in demand conditions. We consider short run (monthly) demand relationships for edible fats and oils. In...

An inverse live hog demand model was estimated to analyze claims that the live hog own quantity demand flexibility's magnitude has increased in recent years. A second objective of this research was to estimate the impact changes in processing capacity utilization rates have on live hog prices....

One step-ahead forecasts of quarterly live cattle, live hog, and broiler prices are evaluated under two general approaches: accuracy-based measures and the ability to categorize price movements directionally or within a forecasted range. Results suggest USDA price forecasts are not optimal....

This organization (NCR-134) began 20 years ago to serve as a meeting ground for applied commodity price analysts in academic, business and government positions. The primary objective was to foster interaction, and discuss recent applied research and extension applications, and emerging related...

This study used hedonic modeling to assess the marginal implicit value of bred heifer characteristics and of carcass characteristic expected progeny differences of bred heifer calves. Using data for 692 pens of Show-Me Replacement Heifers Inc. heifers marketed over the 2001 through 2004 period,...