Attributes for two value-added seafood products derived from underutilized crawfish are analyzed using conjoint data from seafood restaurants in the southern region of the United States. Preferences for the products' form, price, and flavor attributes were tested. Statistical tests revealed that the attribute interactions were not significant, and part-worth utilities for all main effects were estimated using an additive preference model. Results indicate that the new crawfish products should be marketed as a high-quality fresh soup base or seafood stuffing, priced between 30% and 50% of the cost of fresh crawfish tail meat.

This study examines the Law of One Price (LOP) in international commodity markets using fractional cointegration analysis. For proper evaluation of the LOP, fractional cointegration analysis seems to be appropriate because of its flexibility in capturing a wider range of mean reversion behavior than standard cointegration analysis. Out of nine pairs of price series examined, fractional cointegration supports the existence of the LOP in eight cases, as compared to three cases using standard cointegration procedures. Overall, these results suggest that there is a long-run tendency for the LOP to hold for commodity prices.

Complete agricultural trade liberalization between the United States and the European Union is examined with respect to the agricultural sector. A static, partial equilibrium model, distinguishing among the European Union, the United States, and a politically passive rest of the world, is used to simulate agricultural free trade. The results of this research reveal how European Union and United States adoption of free trade affects domestic and world prices, production, consumption, self-sufficiency, and welfare.

Geographic concentration in U.S. hog production from 1974-96 is investigated using a measure based on Theil's entropy index. For the U.S. as a whole, geographic concentration is occurring at a slow rate, both for hog farms and hog numbers. However, for particular states, primarily in the new Southern Atlantic production region, concentration is high and increasing at a rapid pace. Concentration was increasing for the 23-year period for 16 out of the 20 states in the analysis. Results indicate that geographic concentration by augmentation is occurring to the greatest degree in Arkansas, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania.

This study examines the motivation behind contracts and vertical integration in the pork industry, and simulates the effects of potential improvements in coordination. Incentives related to lowering costs of measuring and sorting hogs, and protecting against opportunistic behavior associated with specific assets, can result in hog quality improvements. A framework for simulating the effects of increased coordination through contracts and vertical integration was developed and used to evaluate potential improvements in leanness. Although simulations suggest only modest changes in pork prices and supplies, gains in consumers' surplus could be substantial for larger demand shifts due to quality improvements.

One method of implementing value-based marketing is a component pricing system. This research develops and evaluates alternative component pricing systems for pork. Two electronic technologies for estimating carcass components (optical probe and electromagnetic scanner) were evaluated on two sets of data representing different populations. Model accuracy increased as additional components were added.

Changes in income distribution are estimated for the U.S. South over the 1970 and 1980 decades using Gini coefficients for county-level, real family income. To explicitly investigate causal relationships between economic growth and inequality, a two-stage least squares model was estimated. In the 1970s, more rapid increases in inequality were associated with a reduced income growth rate, ceteris paribus, while in the 1980s, the opposite was true. Faster rates of income growth were associated with more rapid increases in inequality during the 1980s, but rates of income growth had no effect on changes in inequality during the 1970s.

The 1996 farm bill challenges agricultural producers to pursue conservation objectives while allowing flexibility and reducing subsidies. The nature of this challenge for semi-arid rainfed, wind-erosion-prone agriculture is explored via a behavioral model. Simulations of farm-firm decision making under scenarios in the southern Texas High Plains are evaluated. Results indicate that the removal of subsidies, while lowering farm incomes, does not, under most assumptions, alter cropping system choice. Alternatively, under a variety of assumptions, the imposition of an erosion tax shuts down cropping.

Data from 100 farming-dependent counties in the U.S. are used to measure the impact of acreage reduction programs on the level of the rural nonfarm population. Results of a simultaneous equation model suggest that the programs had a negative influence on the number of rural nonfarm people, reducing the rural nonfarm population in these counties by an estimated 15-16% over the 1960-90 period.

The sensitivity of farm inventory investment to movements in cash flow is tested. Inventories should be sensitive to shifts in cash flow because inventory investment is readily reversible and inventories are a significant portion of assets. Investment models estimated with Kansas farm panel data indicate that: (a) farms absorb internal finance shocks by adjusting inventories, (b) the inventory investment of livestock and high-debt farms are more sensitive to movements in cash flow than crop and low-debt farms, and (c) inventory investment is more sensitive to cash flow during the 1981-86 bust and the 1987-92 recovery than during the 1975-80 boom.

Finite mixture estimation (FME) is compared to estimated generalized least squares (EGLS) in the estimation of economies of size and production cost frontiers for Alabama dairy farms. FME provides several unique insights into the economic forces behind recent changes in Alabama's dairy industry. FME provides estimation of a stochastic average cost frontier with known statistical properties, which it was not otherwise possible to obtain using available stochastic frontier estimation packages.

The forest and agriculture sectors are linked by having a portion of their land bases suitable for use in either sector. A substantial part of the southern land base is suitable for either forestry or agriculture use, with most of forestation on U.S. agriculture land in the South. We examine how land exchanges between forestry and agriculture are influenced by specific federal conservation and farm support policies, including changes in the Conservation Reserve Program. Reallocation of land is a significant part of the sectors' responses to the policies, along with intensification of timber management on existing southern forests.

Mathematical programming formulations can yield faulty answers. Models can be unbounded, infeasible, or optimal with unrealistic answers. This article presents techniques for theory-based discovery of the cause of faulty models. The approaches are demonstrated in the context of linear programming. They have been computerized and interfaced using the General Algebraic Modeling System (GAMS), and are distributed free of charge through new GAMS versions and an online web page.