Anderson, John D.

April, 2009

By: Anderson, John D.; Harri, Ardian; Coble, Keith H.
Alternative techniques for representing dependencies among variables in multivariate simulation are discussed and compared in the context of rating a whole-farm insurance product. A procedure by lman and Conover (IC) that is common in actuarial applications is compared to a new technique detailed by Phoon, Quek, and Huang (PQHl. Results suggest that rates derived from the IC procedure may be inaccurate because the procedure produces biased estimates of correlation between simulated variables. This situation is improved with the PQH procedure.

August, 2004

By: Lusk, Jayson L.; Anderson, John D.
Although several studies have estimated the costs of country-of-origin labeling (COOL), no previous study has documented how these costs will be distributed across the livestock sector or how producer and consumer welfare will be affected. This analysis presents an equilibrium displacement model of the farm, wholesale, and retail markets for beef, pork, and poultry that documents how producers and consumers will be affected by COOL. Findings reveal that as the costs of COOL are shifted from the producer to the processor and retailer, producers are made increasingly better off while consumers are made increasingly worse off. Further, an increase in aggregate consumer demand of 2% to 3% is likely sufficient to offset lost producer welfare due to COOL costs.

December, 2000

By: Anderson, John D.; Trapp, James N.
Elasticities calculated from an econometric model of cost of gain (COG) for cattle in feedlots indicate that COG is considerably less responsive to corn price changes than breakeven budgets assume. This difference in elasticities can lead to substantial errors in COG estimates obtained from budgeting. Size of error will depend upon the initial corn price and the magnitude of corn price change. Given average corn price levels and month-to-month changes, the error in budget-based net revenue projections will be about $3/head.

July, 1998

By: Anderson, John D.; Ward, Clement E.; Koontz, Stephen R.; Peel, Derrell S.; Trapp, James N.
Federal budgetary pressures raise questions regarding the importance of public market information. This study assesses the impact of price discovery and production efficiency of reducing public price and quantity information. The amount and type of information provided to Fed Cattle Market Simulator (FCMS) participants was varied by periodically withholding current and weekly summary information according to a predetermined experimental design. Results show that reducing information increased price variance and decreased marketing efficiency; that is, more cattle were delivered at weights deviating from 1,150 pounds- the least-cost marketing weight in the simulator. These factors, which increase costs, make the industry less competitive.