Year
2000
Recently developed techniques are adapted and combined for the modeling and simulation of crop yields and prices that can be mutually correlated, exhibit heteroskedasticity or autocorrelation, and follow nonnormal probability density functions. The techniques are applied to the modeling and simulation of probability distribution functions for the returns of three tropical agroforestry systems for coffee production. The importance of using distribution functions that can more closely reflect the statistical behavior of yields and prices for risk analysis is discussed and illustrated.
The nature of indemnities and reliance on futures price averaging during two distinct time intervals throughout the production year imply Crop Revenue Coverage (CRC) insurance behaves like an exotic put option. Treating this type of insurance as a derivative security, an analytical model is developed and an algorithm for solving the model to place a lower bound on insurance premiums is presented. Monte Carlo simulation, taking into account the path-dependent nature of an Asian-type option, is then used to determine lower-bound estimates for insurance premiums on corn gross revenue under specified price and yield distributions.
A dynamic econometric model relating wholesale meat prices to retail prices and wholesale meat demand is estimated using monthly data on U.S. prices and quantities of beef, pork, and chicken. The hypothesis that meat retailing costs are separable is rejected; that is, the data support joint costs in meat retailing. The hypothesis that there are fixed proportions between wholesale meat inputs and retail meat outputs is accepted.
This study presents a theoretical and empirical analysis of the distribution of generic advertising benefits across individual producers. We develop a closed-economy partial equilibrium model that allows for the presence of producer heterogeneity in supply response. Analytical results indicate that producers having less elastic supply response capture more benefits per dollar expended than producers with more elastic supply response. The extent of unequal distribution depends on parameters characterizing industries. The inequality may not be a significant problem for some industries, especially where the firm-level supply elasticities are not substantially different among producers, but it may be an important issue when industries have substantial differences in firm-level supply elasticities and firm sizes, and experience large demand shifts due to advertising programs
Exclusive contracts (often called “captive supplies”) between processors and farmers are in increasingly important feature of modern agriculture. We study an interesting empirical regulatory occurring in markets that feature both contract and spot exchange: the spot price is inversely related to the incidence of contract use in the market. We use a spatial model and a noncooperative game approach to show that processors can use exclusive contracts to manipulate the spot price in certain situations. Captive supplies in these settings represent geographic buffers that reduce competition among processors. However, in markets where the spatial dimension is less important, captive supplies are ineffective as barriers to competition because firms have incentive to “jump” across a captive supply region to procure the farm product.
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