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...

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...

Among all economic cycles that alternately bring cheer and despair to their participants and continuously challenge the ingenuity of analysts, none presents so rhythmic a pattern as does the cycle in cattle numbers. Many studies of the cattle cycle have been attempted but few published. This...

The demand for U.S. feed grain is estimated using a six-equation simultaneous model. Four different utilizations of feed grain and feed grain price as well as the number of animal units fed are estimated. The reduced form of the model is used to provide forecasts of the endogenous variables for...

Methods have been developed recently for continual evaluation of structural stability for model specification CUSUM and CUSUMSQ tests suggested by Brown, Durbin, and Evans employ recursively ! calculated residuals to permit the examination of structural stability Easily developed plots can be...