Mjelde, James W.

April, 2011

By: Wolfley, Jared L.; Mjelde, James W.; Klinefelter, Danny A.; Salin, Victoria
Contractual arrangements for joint machinery ownership between independent agribusinesses are explored. A two-farm economic simulation model of locations in Texas, Colorado, and Montana is developed to provide insight associated with sharing combines. Important variables include combine size (efficiency), yield losses resulting from untimely access to equipment, the penalty structure for untimely delivery, and cost-sharing and depreciation deductions claimed between producers. Combine sharing is risk-reducing in most cases. The gains to both parties are lowest when harvesting periods overlap. While the value of sharing is positive under many scenarios, benefits from sharing are small relative to total farm revenue.

December, 2001

By: Lee, Andrew C.; Conner, J. Richard; Mjelde, James W.; Richardson, James W.; Stuth, Jerry W.
Large-scale brush-control programs are being proposed in Texas to increase off-site water yields. Biophysical and economic simulation models are combined to estimate the effects of brush control on representative ranches in four ecological regions of the Edwards Plateau area of Texas. Net present values of representative ranches in three of four regions decrease with brush control. Cost shares necessary for ranches from the three regions to break even range from 7% to 31% of total brush-control costs. Any large-scale brush-control program will therefore require a substantial investment by the state of Texas.

December, 1992

By: Mjelde, James W.; Harris, Wesley D.; Conner, J. Richard; Schnitkey, Gary D.; Glover, Michael K.; Garoian, Lee
Concepts associated with stochastic process containing multiple transition matricies are discussed. It is proved that under certain conditions, a process with m transition matrices has m unique limiting probability vectors. This result extends the notion of discrete Markov processes to problems with intrayear and interyear dynamics. An example using a large DP model illustrates the usefulness of the concepts developed to applied problems.