Rapidly expanding ethanol production in the U.S. was given further impetus with the passage of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 mandating a minimum production of 7.5 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2012. The availability of the by-product feeds of ethanol production (corn gluten feed and meal...

Four alternative payment rules were examined to evaluate their ability to accomplish the objectives of the development rights purchase program. Paying the true economic value for the development rights does not allow the program to target high quality agricultural land. Modifying the payment...

In 1998, the Sara Lee Corporation implemented a corporate strategy of deverticalization. Bil Mar Foods, Inc., a subsidiary of Sara Lee responsible for the processing of packaged meat products, followed the strategy by shutting down its turkey slaughter facility in Zeeland, Michigan. As a...

Heterodox scholarship at Michigan State University (MSU) was influenced by the institutional economics of John R. Commons at Wisconsin. But it was far from monolithic and had many other sources and originality of its own. A case can be made that the center of institutional economics moved across...

A framework which permits estimation of economically optimal stocking rates for alternative economic parameters and alfalfa forage availability was developed and applied to a controlled grazing experiment conducted with Holstein steers (243 kg) placed on direct seeded alfalfa pastures in Central...

This paper summarizes the current state of the social capital paradigm from the viewpoint of the authors. The paper presents and defends a social capital definition based on sympathetic relationships. The paper also summarizes an expanded set of rational preferences that depend on social...

As the United States attempts to recover from the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., an issue of increasing concern is the impact of these events on the U.S. economy. One of the most frequently asked questions today, for example, is "Are we in a recession or are we...

This report is an output of the 2005/06 project "Supermarkets and Agricultural Development in Mexico" funded by USAID via USDA, implemented by Michigan State University, directed by Thomas Reardon. One component of the project involves analysis of the participation of wholesalers in the main...