An inverse live-hog demand model was estimated to analyze whether there has been a recent increase in the magnitude of live-hog, own-quantity demand flexibility. Estimating the impact of processing capacity-utilization rate changes on live-hog prices was a second objective of this research. Results indicate that live hog prices have become more responsive to changes in hog slaughter, slaughter weight, cold storage stocks, and changes in the processing capacity-utilization rate. Finally, model results indicate that the sharp increase in processing capacity-utilization rates, the increase in average dressed weight, and the increase in hog slaughter all had a negative effect on the live-hog prices.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries has conducted several buyback programs to reduce harvesting capacity in fisheries. These programs have attempted to maximize capacity reduction given a fixed budget. However, restructuring issues have not been considered. We explore the possibility of satisfying three different buyback objectives. We examine the black sea bass trap fishery and determine the number of vessels given different allowable catch levels and objectives of maximizing technical efficiency, capacity utilization, and vessels in the fishery. We find considerable variation in the number of vessels allowed to remain in the fishery given the different objectives.

In this paper, we investigate the ability of a modified real business cycle (RBC) model to reproduce asymmetries observed for macroeconomic variables over the business cycle. To replicate the empirical skewness of major U.S. macroeconomic variables, we introduce a capacity constraint into an otherwise prototypical RBC model. This constraint emerges because of the assumption of kinked marginal costs of utilization, where the kink is located at a utilization rate of 100%. We find that a model with a suitably calibrated cost function reproduces the empirical coefficients of skewness remarkably well.