Hedonic pricing is used to value certificates of plant variety protection for soybean seed in New York. The estimated price premium of 2.3 percent (.7 ¢/lb.) is low, and another indicator that US Plant Breeders' Rights protection likely provides inadequate incentives for breeding investment....

A cost curve for livestock auction markets was estimated using a frontier function estimator. This estimator has the advantages of consistency and asymptotic efficiency (for certain disturbance specifications). The one-sided residuals satisfy theoretical requirements for cost curves and allow...