Calf and Yearling Prices in the Western United States: Spatial, Quality, and Temporal Factors in Satellite Video Auctions

This paper investigates spatial, quality, and temporal factors impacting prices of calves and yearlings in the western United States using satellite video auction data and a hedonic regression framework. Prices received by western ranchers are discounted by approximately the costs of shipping cattle to the Midwest for processing. Other key results include identifying the presence of temporal price premiums for seller-offered forward contracts, providing new estimates of the marginal value associated with key quality attributes and management practices and finding support for the price benefits of third-party quality certification. We also link variability in estimated valuations for value-added attributes to the stage of the cattle cycle.