Our study investigates the fed cattle grid pricing system and its premium and discount incentive mechanism over time. We hypothesize that the influence of an animal's carcass quality attributes on a price grid's incentive mechanism can be revealed by evaluating the effect of carcass quality on...

Empirical results suggest that the grid premium and discount structure is slowly adjusting carcass quality incentive/disincentive market signals to encourage marketing on a grid and discourage marketing by the pen. If this trend continues, grid market share of steer and heifer slaughter volume...

Beef industry data suggest that carcass yield and quality grades have shown little improvement over the last six years. Trend analysis of grid market share and carcass quality suggests that grid pricing has not made sufficient progress in achieving the goals envisioned for it as a value based...

Weekly grid market share by volume for slaughter steers is compared to slaughter heifers. Summary statistics indicate average grid market share for steers (42%) is 27% higher than slaughter heifers (33%). The literature indicates that pregnancy and increased dark cutter incidence associated with...

The relationship between publically reported weekly grid premiums and discounts for specific carcass characteristics and the percentage of those characteristics reflected in total weekly slaughter volume (i.e., proportional slaughter volume) is investigated. Granger Causality and multi-lag VAR...

The ability of the former voluntary price reporting system to generate market transparency in U.S. livestock markets was called into question by producer groups and academic research prior to the new federal system of mandatory price reporting being implemented. The market transparency issue is...

The Livestock Mandatory Reporting Act (MPR) of 1999 was implemented in April 2001. Empirical evidence indicates a significant change in intra-week price dispersion associated with publicly reported fed cattle grid premiums and discounts occurring after MPR implementation. The research objective...

Legislative authorization for the Livestock Mandatory Reporting Act of 1999 was renewed in October of 2006. One of the cited justifications for implementing mandatory reporting was that the voluntary reporting system for the slaughter cattle cash market was unable to provide accurate and timely...