This article is the further development and refinement of quarterly models of U.S. field crops, drawing upon the theory of pricing, production, and storage under uncertainty. The decisions of storage industry and farm production are taken into account. The findings of this research are both...

Productivity growth in the Canadian processed food industry has lagged behind that in the United States because of a relatively low rate of R&D investment. Although U.S. firms generally have a technological advantage over Canadian firms, marginal rates of return to R&D are higher in Canada.

AGCO Corporation is a success story in the agricultural machinery sector. Utilizing marketing strategies of out-sourcing, cross-over selling, and a full line of products, AGCO markets its own way. In 7 years, AGCO has 18 brands sold through 7,000 dealerships in 140 countries. Acquisition and...

The relationship between price volatility and competition is examined. A theoretic, vector autoregressions on farm prices of wheat and retail prices of derivatives (flour, bread, pasta, bulgur and cookies) are compared to results from a dynamic, simultaneous-equations model with theory-based...

A variety of crop revenue insurance programs is now available. These programs require measurement of price risk. This article investigates the appropriateness of distributional assumptions underlying current and proposed alternative actuarial methods. Our results find that prices are best...

We evaluate the importance of the competitiveness and productive efficiency of the food processing sector for predicting policy outcomes, and the sector's performance under selected government interventions. Our model is based on firm-level decisions and focuses explicitly on the effects of...

This paper examines the potential for adverse selection when farmers are offered a portfolio of insurance policies. We analyze the risk characteristics farmers who bought alternative insurance instruments in 1996-97. Inability to differentiate farmers according to risk types results in pooling...

A dynamic dual model of investment under uncertainty is applied to a panel of Finnish hog farms. Stochastic dynamic programming is used to characterize duality relations. The model accommodates irreversibility and/or asymmetric adjustment costs. Results have important implications for Finland's...

This paper considers an agricultural production model of sequential nitrogen application under risk. Because of random shocks between successive production stages, optimal fertilization decisions depend on the magnitude of farmers' risk aversion (risk premium), and the possibility for farmers to...

Recent changes in dairy industry structure and policy have brought the role of cooperatives into question. Analysis of milk marketing institutions and their association with cooperative marketing functions sheds light the interdependency of government involvement in milk marketing. We examine...