In a dynamic contracting environment, increasing standards over time in light of past performance is known as the ratchet effect. Despite the recent theoretical attention given to the ratchet effect, models that include these effects have not been empirically tested against contract data. In...

Implementation of the Pathogen Reduction and Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (PR/HACCP) regulations has occurred across all U.S. meat and poultry plants. A probit model is estimated to determine which factors have affected the probability of red meat slaughter plant exit during...

This study estimates a set of unconditional own-price and expenditure elasticities across time for 49 processed food categories using scanner data and the FAST multi-stage demand system with fixed effects across time. Estimated own-price elasticities are generally much larger, in absolute terms,...

This study investigates the nature of price expectations in a competitive market. The approach is illustrated in an application to the U.S. pork market, which exhibits cyclical patterns and biological production lags. Pork price equations are estimated under different expectation regimes. The...

Concerns about the negative effects of U.S. meat and livestock imports on domestic livestock prices have increased interest in country-of origin labeling (COOL) legislation. An equilibrium displacement model is used to estimate short-run and long-run changes in equilibrium prices and quantities...

Contractual arrangements for joint machinery ownership between independent agribusinesses are explored. A two-farm economic simulation model of locations in Texas, Colorado, and Montana is developed to provide insight associated with sharing combines. Important variables include combine size...

We model a game between two players taking biosecurity actions and characterize the Nash equilibria and their properties for the cases of strategic complements and substitutes. Implications of the theoretical model are investigated using data for biosecurity behavior among producers...

Ocean acidification has the potential to adversely affect a number of valuable marine ecosystem services by making it more difficult, and eventually impossible, for many marine organisms to form shells and skeletons. Reef-forming corals, commercially valuable shellfish, and primary producers...

Two nonparametric tests are employed to investigate the potential information value of USDA crop and livestock reports. If daily returns on days that reports are released (announcement days) differ when compared to non-announcement days for a sizeable number of commodities from a set of seven...

We develop a theoretical model of optimal licensing schemes for quality-improving innovations. We consider an oligopolistic market where two downstream firms compete in price and the upstream innovator holds a technology that may create differentiation between the products. Our results show that...