Grading of agricultural commodities for quality is ubiquitous. By ensuring a minimum level for product qualities that can range over a broad spectrum, grading mitigates the asymmetric information problem, eliminates the repetition of costly inspection, and harmonizes pricing. Despite the...

Agricultural and wildlife trade is subject to sudden, disruptive import restrictions arising fromconcerns over sanitary and phytosanitary safety and the conservation of natural resources.These restrictions can create significant international price differences that encourage thesmuggling of...

Agricultural and wildlife trade is subject to sudden, disruptive import restrictions arising from concerns over sanitary and phytosanitary safety and the conservation of natural resources. These restrictions can create significant international price differences that encourage the smuggling of...

Fruit and vegetable imports to the U.S. have been growing, but fumigation, 25 the main treatment for quarantine pests on fruit and vegetables, faces an uncertain regulatory climate.Irradiation can act as an alternative treatment for foodborne pests, but it requires labeling and large investments...

This paper models the market for beef products when quality production is stochastic and quality information is asymmetric between producers and consumers. Independent sorters act as intermediaries to enhance market efficiency by guaranteeing minimum quality levels. Market shares, effort levels,...

Grading of agricultural commodities for quality is ubiquitous. By ensuring a minimum level for product qualities that can range over a broad spectrum, grading mitigates the asymmetric information problem, eliminates the repetition of costly inspection, and harmonizes pricing. Despite the...

While the combination of several or more models is often found to improve forecasts (Brandt and Bessler, Min and Zellner, Norwood and Schroeder), hypothesis tests are typically conducted using a single model approach 1 . Hypothesis tests and forecasts have similar goals; they seek to define a...

Model selection is often conducted by ranking models by their out-of-sample forecast error. Such criteria only incorporate information about the expected value, whereas models usually describe the entire probability distribution. Hence, researchers may desire a criteria evaluating the...