A real option analysis of dry-grind corn ethanol plants compared to a standard net present value analysis (NPV) shows that the option values increase entry prices and lower exit prices of investment and disinvestment considerably. For a large plant, the gross margin of ethanol price over the...

Agricultural studies have often differentiated and estimated different technologies within a sample of farms. The common approach is to use observable farm characteristics to split the sample into several groups and subsequently estimate different functions for each group. Alternatively, unique...

This paper empirically estimates cost functions for two milking technologies, stanchion and parlor, using farm level data from New York dairy farms for the years 1993 through 2002. A translog cost function was estimated along with input cost share equations for each milking technology by...

This paper is about aging and the ability to perform under pressure on the PGA tour. Performance increases with golfing skill, but may first increase and then decrease with age as experience interacts with changes in physical condition. Similarly, mental fortitude or the ability of a golfer to...

The production and profit impacts of recombinant Bovine Somatotropin (rbST) on select New York dairy farms were estimated using data over the years 1994 through 2004, by comparing matching farms which use and do not use rbST. The use of rbST increases milk production per cow and decreases the...

The impact of inputs on the four decomposed milk outputs of fluid milk, butterfat, protein, and other solids were estimated using an output distance function, with New York dairy farm level data. Differential impacts of inputs on component production indicate that milk component composition can...

Changes in individual states' agricultural production diversity and variance of cash receipts were measured over the 30-year period 1960 through 1989. Diversity was measured using a general index, of which the inverse Herfindahl and the Entropy are special cases. Cash receipt variability was...

A production function highly concave in inputs will have a dual profit function less convex in prices. Even large variations in prices will cause little variation in input usage and output, resulting in poor profit function estimates. This is demonstrated using Monte Carlo simulation with...

Buy-sell arrangements for the death of a co-owner may be funded with life insurance. The mechanisms and details of buy-sell arrangements were discussed. The decision whether to use life insurance was modeled using the expected utility theorem. State dependent utility was used since a surviving...

A Box-Cox functional form was estimated from corn-nitrogen data previously used to report optimal nitrogen use from a quadratic production function. Results suggest that less nitrogen should be app1ie.d than recommended using the quadratic function, but with more nitrogen being applied if poor...