It has been widely argued recently that agriculture is undergoing a process of vertical integration with allied industries. One of the worldwide ways of vertical integration in agriculture is contract farming. Contract farming is a continually evolving process. Worldwide applications of contract...

In the United States, the federal government is increasingly using requirements for informational labeling on food products to influence 1) consumers' knowledge and purchasing patterns and 2) manufacturers' product offerings and marketing practices. We discuss the economic rationale behind these...

The Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) approach to assuring food safety was first mandated in the United States in 1995 for the seafood industry, with full implementation to take place by December, 1997. The survey instruments included in this Working Paper were developed as...

In the past 15 years, industrial-organization economists have significantly expanded the range of algorithms for calculating welfare losses due to imperfect competition. We compare eleven empirical estimates of economic losses due to market power in 47 U.S. food manufacturing industries, almost...

This paper estimates the relationships between market structure and the Lerner index of monopoly constructed from price data on processed food products sold through grocery stores. A theoretical model of a differentiated oligopoly specifies two determinants of price-cost margins: the...

Many individuals are predicting a "second green revolution" in agriculture from the introduction of growth stimulants into the livestock industries. An economy-wide approach is used to determine the affects on prices and quantities of introducing growth stimulants in the domestic dairy and pork...