This article tests the efficiency of the hog options market and assesses the impact of the 1996 contract redesign on efficiency. We find that the hog options market is efficient, but some options yielded excess returns during the live hogs period but not during the lean hogs period. Our findings...

Cow-calf producers face an annual decision on when to sell their calves. They can sell them at any point between weaning and slaughter, with the objective of finding the profit maximizing selling point. This paper investigates the use of price signals to determine profit maximizing selling...

This report sets out some broad ideas about how poverty evaluation could be conducted for ACIAR research projects. As with good benefit–cost analysis, there are good practices that need to be observed when undertaking poverty analysis. While poverty is a broad concept, and can be addressed...

This study estimates the technical, allocative and economic efficiency obtained from the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach using farm level survey data to a sample of 100 poultry farmers in Bangladesh for the year 2007. The results from the DEA approach show that there is substantial...

This paper uses microlevel data from the Agricultural Resource Management Survey to examine the changes in the distributions of household wealth and to assess the role farm subsidies play, among other factors, in affecting these distributions. The empirical analysis relies on the concept of the...

The increasing use of production contracts in the hog sector has reduced the number of spot market transactions, raised concerns about price manipulation and helped to spur legislation requiring price reporting by packers. Using data from the 2002 and 2007 Censuses of Agriculture, this study...

In recent decades there has been a substantial increase in the scale of production and the use of production contracts in the hog sector. This paper explores empirically whether these two phenomena are related by examining whether the use of production contracts has allowed finish hog operations...

The relationship between complete-feed prices and ingredient prices is estimated in order to analyze the effect of higher commodity prices on feed costs, with particular attention paid to the substitutability of corn distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS). Using the historical price...

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