Estimates of the marginal internal rate of return to expenditures for research by the Maine Agricultural Experiment Station are presented. Estimates are performed using ridge regression under an array of specifications, including alternative functional forms, lag structures, costs of public funds, and variable specifications. The results are consistent with many previous results that imply an underinvestment in agricultural research.

The decade of the 1980s saw a resurgence of concern over the environmental and health effects of agricultural production that exceeded even the concern in the sixties generated by the publication of Rachel Carson's book, Silent Spring. Consumers worried about the health effects of pesticide residues on foods; conversion of wetlands to crop production was blamed for the decreased population of migratory waterfowl; rural residents worried about the effects of nitrates and pesticides found in their groundwater supplies; and sediment, nutrients, and pesticides in surface waters were blamed for the decline of estuaries such as the Chesapeake Bay and contributed to problems in freshwater and coastal fisheries.

The use of chemical pesticides frequently causes minor pests to become serious problems by disturbing the natural controls that keep them in check. As a result, it is possible to suffer heavier crop losses after pesticides are introduced than before their introduction. Efficient use of pesticides requires complete biological modeling that takes the appropriate predator-prey relationships into account. A bioeconomic model is introduced involving three key species: a primary target pest, a secondary pest, and a natural enemy of the secondary pest. Optimal decision rules are derived and contrasted with myopic decision making, which treats the predator-prey system as an externality. The issue of resistance in the secondary pest is examined briefly.

Without a doubt, climate change will be one of the most important environmental topics of the 1990s and will be high on the research agendas of many scientific disciplines in years ahead. While not yet universally accepted, it is now widely believed that anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide and other “greenhouse” gases have the potential to substantially warm climates worldwide. Although there is no consensus on the timing and magnitude of global warming, current climate models predict an average increase of 2.8°C to 5.2°C in the earth's temperature over the next century (Karl, Diaz, and Barnett). Changes in regional temperature and precipitation will likely accompany the global warming, but there is even less scientific agreement on the magnitude of these changes.

The U.S. is nearing the end of its ninth recession since the Second World War. This recession was caused by events outside of the agricultural sector, and the recovery will be due to factors outside the sector. Yet agricultural production, costs, and income will be affected by general economic conditions. This paper reviews current general economic conditions and examines their implications for the agricultural sector.

This article explores the speed of adjustment in Indian agricultural labor markets to changing economic circumstances. Agricultural wages in sixteen states during 1970–86 are analyzed. Results indicate that agricultural wages adjust quickly toward their long-run values, completing about one-fifth to one-fourth of the adjustment per year. Results also suggest strong linkages between the agricultural and nonagricultural labor markets. Interstate agricultural productivity differences have risen substantially in the last twenty-five years, and many feel this has led to a disintegration of the agricultural labor market. The findings suggest an indirect integration may be occurring through migration to nonagriculture.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) at the U.S. Department of Commerce produces long-term regional projections of income, population, per capita income and earnings, and employment by industry for regions, states, Metropolitan Statistical Areas, and BEA Economic Areas on a regular basis. The projections are prepared every five years and were last published in 1990.

Expected prices and expected net returns from cropping activities are used to estimate soybean acreage response in the Northeast. Futures prices and lagged cash prices constitute proxies for price expectations. Expected net returns appear as good or better than expected prices for estimating acreage response. Short-run and long-run elasticities of soybean acreage with respect to expected net returns from soybeans are estimated as 0.5 and 1.6 for the northeast region. Soybean acreage appears less responsive to changes in expected net returns than to expected changes in prices.

Preliminary forecasts using the Box-Jenkins methodology for supermarket scan data for ground beef and roast item movement are described. The functional form and the accuracy of the forecasts vary by product. Results suggest that further analyses incorporating price and advertising may increase the accuracy of the forecasts.

This study examines the notion that fresh-fruit prices follow a time trend separate from the effect of seasonal supply changes over the marketing season. In particular, quality changes and a limited marketing season are hypothesized to contribute to the seasonal changes in demand. The empirical results support these hypotheses for the Boston fresh-blueberry market.

This paper estimates single-index model (SIM) beta coefficients for the major cash crops of Ontario's agricultural-producing counties. Beta coefficients are estimated using per acre gross revenues weighted by (1) the proportion of each crop planted in each county and (2) equal weights. The results show that sometimes substantial differences arise from these procedures. Implications for government policy and farm-level risk-management strategies are discussed. A practical approach for using SIM for farm management purposes is presented and the effects of systematic and nonsystematic risk are discussed.

A national beekeeping-industry model, assuming rational expectations, is presented.

Consistent and asymptotically efficient estimates are obtained by a modified two-step two-stage least squares method. Based on parameter estimates, elasticities, and likelihood functions, a previously estimated modified adaptive expectations model explains industry behavior better than the rational expectations model. Simulation analyses of the models suggest the direction of the impacts of an ineffective federal honey support program from 1982 through 1985 is similar but the magnitudes are varied. The rational expectations model indicates the decrease in beekeepers’ revenue in this period is larger than the decrease identified by the modified adaptive expectations model.

Growing evidence of surface-water and groundwater contamination has led to demands for federal and state water quality protection policies. Agriculture will be an important target of such policies. Numerous instances of surface-water and groundwater contamination by pesticides and fertilizers have been recorded, and one study estimates that the drinking water of 50 million people in the U.S. is potentially contaminated by agricultural chemicals (Hallberg, Nielsen and Lee).

Agriculture's impact on the environment is a complex research problem. A challenge to future economic research is to account for the interrelationship between agricultural production activities, soil productivity, erosion, and water quality. It will become increasingly important to determine not only the economic consequences, but also the environmental effectiveness of alternative policies aimed at improving resource use and quality. The application of biophysical simulation models to environmental quality problems provides a means to better understand the complex interaction between agricultural production and environmental quality.

A telephone survey of all of the surviving families of people killed in farm accidents in New York between 1985 and 1987 (52 of 87 families interviewed, 60% response rate) found the average total annual present value of expected income foregone because of fatal farm accidents in New York is over $8.6 million (in 1987 dollars). Less than five years after the accidents, 67% of the families who operated the farms where the accidents occurred no longer operate them and 44% no longer live on the farms.

Chemical use in agriculture has, over the last fifty years, been the good, the bad, and the uncertain. By all accounts, agricultural productivity increased significantly in the last half century due in part to the introduction and expanded use of agricultural chemicals. More recently, however, some agricultural practices, including increased chemical use, are viewed as having a major impact on the larger ecosystem and as being an important source of environmental nonpoint pollution. Recent groundwater-monitoring programs in the United States sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have revealed contamination of underground water supplies by pesticides, nitrates, and other industrial organic chemicals. It has also been questioned whether the high rates of productivity growth that have characterized modern agriculture can be sustained with technologies that disrupt the ecosystem. While there is no doubt that production agriculture does affect the ecosystem, it is not obvious that these effects are necessarily widespread and deleterious to the environment or to long-run productivity, or, if they are, how they should be valued and traded-off with other social objectives.

The United States is facing a seemingly overwhelming problem of how to dispose of its solid waste. For disposal solutions to be viable, they must be environmentally sound and economically viable. Processing waste newspapers for farm-animal bedding offers a successful partial solution that meets both criteria. Centralized newspaper chopping is found to cost less than on-farm chopping. Both chopped and unchopped waste newspapers can be economically transported considerable distances. The use of waste newspapers for animal bedding is economically attractive at the farm level and can provide a partial solution to the solid-waste disposal problem.

Control of nonpoint sources of pollution has traditionally been within the domain of local decision makers in recognition of the critical importance of site-specific issues. More recently attention has turned to the issue of what can and should be done at the regional or national level, while recognizing the importance of site-specific attributes. This paper describes and illustrates an approach for analysis of nonpoint pollution problems that focuses jointly at the aggregate and disaggregate levels of the problem. The approach is based on linking two tools of analysis, the microparameter distribution model and the Geographical Information Systems (GIS). Although there are significant challenges to be overcome in implementing such an approach, linkage of these two policy tools has considerable promise in dealing with site-specific issues within an aggregate framework. Furthermore, GIS is potentially an important source of data for economists to exploit, given the momentum of GIS systems throughout the nation and given the relatively disaggregate nature of the data.