Luckstead, Jeff

September, 2022

Impacts of Bilateral Trade Agreements between the United States and Latin American Countries on Agri-Food Trade

By: Luckstead, Jeff
Between 2004 and 2012, the United States enacted bilateral trade agreements with Chile, Peru, Panama, and Colombia. Using bilateral trade panel datasets of agri-food commodities, we estimate a structural gravity model to analyze the trade creation and trade diversion effects of these agreements. The agreements resulted in substantial increases in intramember trade for aggregate agri-food trade among member countries, ranging from 53.73% for the Chilean agreement to 354.03% for the Peruvian agreement. Substantial heterogeneity exists when the aggregate commodity is disaggregated and when US exports to and imports from the four Latin American countries are considered.
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May, 2021

Impacts of COVID-19-Induced Labor and Income Shocks on the Broiler Supply Chain

By: Luckstead, Jeff ; Devadoss, Stephen
We use a broiler supply-chain model to examine the impacts of COVID-19-induced labor shortages and income reduction throughout the sector. Results show that the labor shock has negative effects on production throughout the supply chain, causing meat shortages and the average retail price to rise by 11:11%. The income shock lowers both quantities and prices in the supply chain. The combined production effects of both shocks are generally more pronounced, as they reinforce each other. However, retail prices move in opposite directions, with labor shock increasing prices and income shock reducing prices, leading to a 5:44% net increase in the average retail price.
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January, 2020

Implications of U.S. Immigration Policies for North American Economies

By: Devadoss, Stephen; Zhao, Xin; Luckstead, Jeff
We develop a four-sector (labor-intensive agriculture, capital-intensive agriculture, service & construction, and manufacturing) general-equilibrium model of North American countries to analyze the effects of tighter U.S. immigration policies. Results show that these policies erode the comparative advantage of U.S. labor-intensive agriculture, causing U.S. production and exports to fall and other countries to expand their exports to the United States. In Mexico, low-skilled labor demand in labor-intensive agriculture increases as production rises. The effectiveness of U.S. tighter immigration policies depends on the substitutability between U.S. domestic and undocumented workers. Immigration policies exacerbate the wedge between Mexican low-skilled wage rate and the undocumented wage rate, intensifying the underlying cause for unauthorized entry.
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May, 2019

Trade and Investment Liberalization in the Processed Food Market under the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement

By: Luckstead, Jeff; Devadoss, Stephen
We investigate the impacts of Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) liberalizations of trade and investment barriers on processed food markets. Using a four-region monopolistic competition model with heterogeneous food-processing firms that incorporates domestically operating, exporting, and multinational enterprise (MNE) firms, we quantify the effects of tariff elimination, fixed trade cost reduction, and foreign direct investment (FDI) cost reduction under CETA on prices, domestic sales, bilateral trade flows, affiliate sales, productivity, number of firms, and aggregate output. Our results highlight that trade liberalization promotes bilateral exports but reduces foreign affiliate sales, and, in contrast, lower FDI costs expand MNE affiliate sales but curtail bilateral exports.
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September, 2016

The Impact of Agricultural Subsidies on the Corn Market with Farm Heterogeneity and Endogenous Entry and Exit

By: Devadoss, Stephen; Gibson, Mark J.; Luckstead, Jeff
We develop a model with farm-level heterogeneity in productivity and endogenous entry and exit decisions to analyze the effect of price supports and direct payments on the U.S. corn market. The analytical results show that, contrary to the existing literature, removal of direct payments augments productivity while removal of price supports does not impact productivity, and direct payments can lead to larger production distortions than price supports under certain conditions. The simulation results corroborate the theoretical findings in that if both policies are equal in magnitude, then direct payments result in larger price, output, and welfare distortions than price supports.
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May, 2016

Imperfect Competition, Trade Policies, and Technological Changes in the Orange Juice Market

By: Dhamodharan, Mahalingam; Devadoss, Stephen; Luckstead, Jeff
Orange juice processors in Florida face stiff competition from São Paulo processors. The United States imposes a specific import tariff to protect domestic processors. São Paulo processors also export to the European Union, which imposes an ad valorem tariff on orange juice. Under oligopolistic competition with endogenous firm entry and exit, this paper analyzes how the changes in tariff policy and productivity impact the market structure in Florida and São Paulo; prices; quantities; and welfare in the United States, Brazil, and the European Union. Free trade and an increase in São Paulo productivity benefit U.S. and EU consumers and São Paulo processors. In contrast, U.S. tariff reduction adversely impacts Florida processors.
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January, 2015

Imperfect Competition between Florida and Sao Paulo (Brazil) Orange Juice Producers in the U.S. and European Markets

By: Luckstead, Jeff; Devadoss, Stephen; Mittelhammer, Ron
We develop a strategic trade model to analyze the oligopolistic competition between Florida and São Paulo processors in the U.S. orange juice market and São Paulo processors in the European orange juice market. We obtain analytical results of the effects of changes in trade liberalization. A structural econometric model is derived from the theoretical model, and the new empirical industrial organization literature is used to estimate the market power of Florida and São Paulo producers. We simulate the effects of U.S. and European tariff reductions on prices, quantities, and trade volume
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