The decision-making process by which academic departments within an experiment station allocate funds among commodities is examined. The decision to conduct research on some commodities and not on others introduces a problem of censored dependent variables. In order to overcome this problem, a...

Departments of agricultural economics face a changing environment. Some argue for the adoption of the Master of Agribusiness degree. I argue that agribusiness in not well differentiated from agricultural economics and that the forte of agricultural economics departments is teaching applied...

Agribusiness graduate students should do problem-solving and take business courses to understand the environment in which they will practice their theory. The longer we wait to teach them application, the greater are the chances of losing our critical mass in terms of relevancy and political...

This paper illustrates an alternative approach to estimating the occurrence of drought. The empirical Bayes methodology was developed because of deficiencies in time-series and regression analysis with respect to prediction of drought. This manuscript is comprised of (a) a discussion of...

Two potential projects in Washington are examined for their secondary impacts on the economy of the state. A major impact of these projects is to increase the energy costs to regional power consumers. After accounting for the negative impacts of rising energy costs, the long run state level...

Irrigation, under conditions where water has a high opportunity cost, could be interruptible with water use, only occurring when water is plentiful. Pacific Northwest case studies indicate interruption can substantially lessen the opportunity cost of new irrigation developments, although not...

Dissolved salts (salinity) adversely affect numerous urban and agricultural users of Colorado River water in California and Arizona. Congress in 1974 authorized a major salinity control program. Studies of general economic benefits from salinity abatement and the cost per unit of salinity...

An interregional, large-scale linear programming model is used to evaluate the economic impact of the energy crisis on U.S. agricultural production. The study examines the changes in crop production under energy minimization, an energy shortage, high energy prices, and high agricultural exports...