A set of price-dependent demand equations explains the Interdependent nature of monthly demand relationships for 10 meat commodities The analysis uses a model with a mixed structural-time series approach. the model's forecasting capability is significantly better than that of the traditional...

Optimal hedging level, minimum-risk hedging level, and hedging effectiveness are defined in a manner consistent with portfolio theory and used to analyze hedging potential in cattle feeding. Estimated upper limits on optimal hedging levels ranged from 0.56 to 0.88 unit of short futures per unit...

Technological progress in animal production in the last 30 years has been substantial in some ways, negligible in others. On the one hand, livestock production per animal unit of breeding stock has shown gains of the same order as those in crop production per acre of land. But on the other hand,...

Opinions differ among economists as to how effective statistical analyses using time series data can be in identifying factors affecting demand and in measuring their influences. Although this presentation may not materially modify these opinions, it should at least succeed in making even the...

Costs of seven methods of handling beef by retail firms are explored, considering number and size of stores per firm and distance from the packer. The least costly method is centralized cutting into retail cuts by retail firms. Larger store size reduced per unit costs significantly for all...

There are a number of estimation methods available to the econometrician. They range in complexity from least squares, which takes only a few minutes with pencil and paper for a simple problem, to full information maximum likelihood, which requires a large-capacity electronic computer for...

A new method of pricing milk to farmers at butter-nonfat milk plants that will reflect accurately and equitably the true net farm values of milk of various fat contents is urgently needed. On completion of a regional research study on the costs and efficiencies of 12 specialized butter-powder...

The study reported in the following paper was based on a survey conducted by the Institute of Statistics, North Carolina State College. The survey was designed to assist the Livestock and Poultry Statistics Branch, of the Agricultural Estimates Division to isolate factors that may account for...

Simulations of the U.S. dairy industry under a variety of conditions indicate that milk price variability would be considerably greater in the absence of price supports. Milk production would also be more variable, but significantly less than would milk prices. Summary statistics for the 1955-78...