The accelerated depreciation laws provide more revenue in earlier years of a new asset due to shielding of taxes. The laws seem designed to encourage farmers to purchase assets more often. This paper exams the optimal purchase period for a beef cattle farm buying replacement cows. While the...

Genetically modified (GM) cotton varieties have changed many aspects of cotton production in the United States. The advent of GM varieties has fueled the ongoing trend of increasing farm size and fewer farmers. Mississippi is no exception to this trend. The rapid adoption of GM cotton varieties...

Genetically modified (GM) cotton varieties have changed many aspects of cotton production in the United States. The rapid adoption of GM cotton varieties in Mississippi has allowed producers to alter certain production practices because of added benefits gained from GM varieties. This study...

A cow that fails to conceive must either be kept for a year without revenue or replaced by a bred heifer. This choice is a unique case of comparing investments with different economic lives because the potential replacement asset is just a newer version of the old asset. In this study, a net...

The 2002 farm bill is a big change from the 1996 farm bill. The new bill introduces greater complexity through direct and countercyclical payments. A comparison of the 1996 and 2002 farm bills is needed to estimate how all the changes affect farmers and to guide future farm bill policy. This...

Optimal hedge ratios are estimated for various weights of feeder cattle in four cash markets based on CME data from 1992 to 1999. Three-month uniform hedges are simulated for every weight, contract, and cash market combination. Hedging effectiveness is compared empirically across locations to...