Estimating how the use of production contracts affects farm productivity is difficult when unobservable factors are correlated with both the decision to contract and productivity. To account for potential selection bias, this study uses the local availability of production contracts as an...

The U.S. hog industry has experienced dramatic structural changes and rapid increases in farm productivity. A stochastic frontier analysis is used to measure hog enterprise total factor productivity (TFP) growth between 1992 and 2004 and to decompose this growth into technical change and changes...

The increasing size and specialization of hog operations reflect structural change in U.S. swine production during the past 15 years. The number of farms with hogs has declined by over 70 percent, as hog enterprises have grown larger. Large operations that specialize in a single phase of...

Antimicrobial drugs are fed to hogs at sub-therapeutic levels to prevent disease and promote growth. However, there is concern that the presence of antimicrobial drugs in hog feed is a factor promoting the development of antimicrobial drug-resistant bacteria. This study uses a sample-selection...

Rapid change in the size and ownership structure of U.S. hog production has created new and varied challenges for the industry. This report describes an industry becoming increasingly concentrated among fewer and larger farms, and becoming more economically efficient. These changes have not come...

The costs and benefits of policies designed to regulate the use of production contracts will depend in part on the impact of these contracts on farm productivity. In this paper we measure the impact of contracting on 1) partial and total factor productivity and 2) the production technology for...

This study analyzes a national survey of U.S. hog producers within a principal-agent framework in order to examine factors affecting contractor and grower success in hog contracting. Several factors had differential impacts on contractor and grower returns. Results suggest that there may be a...