SABIIA - Sistema Aberto e Integrado de Informação em Agricultura (Sabiia)

Richards, Timothy J.; Nganje, William E.; Acharya, Ram N..

Concerns regarding the safety and integrity of the fresh produce supply chain are becoming all too common in the media. In 2006, an outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 from farms in Central California sickened almost two hundred people and lead to the deaths of three. Estimated costs to the industry ranged from $100 per month to $200 million until spinach sales returned to normal. By some accounts, the spinach industry has yet to recover and may not for years to come. The incident, however, has lead to a host of initiatives from industry officials, legislators and fresh produce retailers to ensure the safety of fresh produce. The necessary technology and best practices knowledge exists, yet some growers have not made the investment required to ensure that such...

Cost and Efficiency in Alberta Dairy Production

Palavras-chave: Agribusiness; Agricultural and Food Policy; Farm Management; Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety; Industrial Organization.

Ano: 2008

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/49888

Richards, Timothy J.; Jeffrey, Scott R..

This study investigates the relationships between farm size, milk yield, cost of production, and technical efficiency in the Alberta dairy industry. Estimates of a stochastic production frontier are obtained with two alternative methods; an iterative "average frontier: (AF) procedure and a maximum-likelihood composed error (CE) term method. An index of technical efficiency is calculated for every herd in the sample, with the AF method resulting in an average efficiency ratio of 85 percent, and the CE method producing an average efficiency ratio of 83 percent. Regressions of production cost on milk output, herd size, and efficiency are used to test for the effects of size economies, yield economies, and technical efficiency on production cost. These results...

Food Safety and Defense Risks in the U.S.-Mexico Produce Chain

Palavras-chave: Livestock Production/Industries.

Ano: 1996

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/24094

Sales Promotion and Cooperative Retail Pricing Strategies

Nganje, William E.; Richards, Timothy J.; Bravo, Jesus; Hu, Na; Kagan, Albert; Acharya, Ram N.; Edwards, Mark R..

Tipo: Journal Article

Palavras-chave: Agribusiness; Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety; I18; I28; L51.

Ano: 2009

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/94707

Supermarket retailers make strategic pricing decisions in a high-frequency, repeated game environment both in buying and selling fresh produce. In this context, there is some question as to whether a non-cooperative equilibrium can emerge that produces margins above the competitive level. Supermarket pricing results from tacitly collusive equilibria supported by trigger price strategies played in upstream markets. Upstream activities are, in turn, driven by periodic retail price promotions. We test this hypothesis using a sample of fresh produce pricing data from 20 supermarket chains in markets distributed throughout the U.S. Our results support the existence of tacitly collusive non-cooperative equilibria in upstream and downstream markets.

Comparative Statics Effects for Supermarket Oligopoly with Applications to Sales Taxes and Slotting Allowances

Palavras-chave: Dynamics; Game theory; Nash equilibrium; Perishables; Supermarkets; Tacit collusion; Trigger prices.; Demand and Price Analysis.

Ano: 2004

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/28542

Hamilton, Stephen F.; Richards, Timothy J..

A Two Stage Model of the Demand For Specialty Crop Insurance

Palavras-chave: Industrial Organization.

Ano: 2007

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/9744

Richards, Timothy J..

Proposals for reform of the federal multiple-peril crop insurance program for specialty crops seek to change fees for catastrophic (CAT) insurance from a nominal fifty-dollar per contract registration fee to an actuarially sound premium. Growers argue that this would cause a significant reduction in participation rates, thus impeding the program's goals of eventually obviating the need for ad hoc disaster payments and worsening the actuarial soundness of the program. The key policy issue is, therefore, empirical one - whether the demand for specialty crop insurance is elastic or inelastic. Previous studies of this issue using either grower or county-level field crop data typically treat the participation problem as either a discrete insure / don't insure...

Market-Based Instruments for the Optimal Control of Invasive Insect Species: B. Tabaci in Arizona

Palavras-chave: California; Crop insurance; Discrete/continuous choice; Grapes; Multinomial logit.; Risk and Uncertainty.

Ano: 1998

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/28546

Richards, Timothy J.; Ellsworth, Peter; Tronstad, Russell; Naranjo, Steve.

Invasive insect species represent perhaps one of the most significant potential sources of economic risk to U.S. agricultural production. Private control of invasive insect species is likely to be insufficient due to negative externality and weaker-link public good problems. In this study, we compare a system of Pigouvian taxes with tradable permits for invasive species control. While the emissions control literature shows that taxes are preferred to permits under cost uncertainty, invasive species control involves correlated cost and benefit uncertainty, so we expect a quantity-based system to be preferred. Monte Carlo simulations of optimal steady-state outcomes confirm our expectations.

DYNAMIC COMPLEMENTARITY IN EXPORT PROMOTION: THE MARKET ACCESS PROGRAM IN FRUITS AND VEGETABLES

Palavras-chave: Externalities; Invasive species; Optimal control; Permits; Spatial-temporal model; Taxes.; Environmental Economics and Policy; Public Economics; Risk and Uncertainty; H23; L51; Q28; Q57..

Ano: 2010

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/61189

To justify public subsidies for export promotion, export markets must fail to provide incentives for exporters to recognize the benefits of spillover or long-term benefits of promotion. This paper tests for these failures in dynamic dual model for horticultural export supply. Results show significant spillovers and dynamic effects.

Firm-Level Competition in Price and Variety

Palavras-chave: International Relations/Trade.

Ano: 1998

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/20851

DYNAMIC STRATEGIC INTERACTION: A SYNTHESIS OF MODELING METHODS

Consumer product manufacturers often compete in dynamic, multi-firm oligopolies using multiple strategic tools. While existing empirical models of strategic interaction typically consider only parts of the more general problem, this paper presents a more comprehensive alternative. Marketing decision are dynamically optimal, consistent with optimal consumer choice, and responsive to rival decisions. Using a single-market case study that consists of five years of four-weekly data on ready-to-eat cereal sales, prices, and new brand introductions, we test several hypotheses regarding the nature of strategic interaction among several rival manufacturers. We find that cereal manufacturers price and introduce new brands cooperatively in the same period, but...

Tipo: Journal Article

Palavras-chave: Cereal; Differentiated products; Dynamics; Oligopoly; Product line rivalry; Strategic interaction; Demand and Price Analysis; D43; L13; L66; M31; Q13.

Ano: 2006

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/43788

Media Advertising and Ballot Initiatives: An Experimental Analysis

Richards, Timothy J..

Tipo: Journal Article

Palavras-chave: Research Methods/ Statistical Methods.

Ano: 2002

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/27983

Richards, Timothy J.; Allender, William J.; Fang, Di.

NEW VARIETIES AND THE RETURNS TO COMMODITY PROMOTION: WASHINGTON FUJI APPLES

Palavras-chave: Marketing.

Ano: 2011

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/114814

The Fugi apple variety is relatively new in the U.S. As a new product, questions concern the relative impact of consumer learning by experience, by variety-specific promotion, or by generic apple promotion. Estimates show each to have a positive impact. Changes in producer surplus provide a base-scenario benefit-cost ratio of 11.98.

Market Power in the Carbonated Soft Drink Industry

Palavras-chave: Crop Production/Industries; Marketing.

Ano: 1998

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/20784

Allender, William J.; Richards, Timothy J..

We investigate the strategic pricing for leading brands sold in the carbonated soft drink (CSD) market in the context of a flexible demand specification (i.e. random parameter nested logit) and a structural pricing equation. Our approach does not rely upon the often used ad hoc linear approximations to demand and profit-maximizing first-order conditions. We estimate the structural pricing equation using four different estimators (i.e. OLS, LIML, 2SLS, and GMM) and compare the implied deviation from Bertrand-Nash competition. Our results suggest that retailers, on average, price CSD brands below their cost, likely a result of the competitive retailing environment. We also find CSD wholesalers price their brands significantly more cooperatively than...

Market Power in Non-Metro Banking

Palavras-chave: Market Power; Carbonated Soft Drinks; Econometrics; LIML; Agribusiness; Agricultural and Food Policy; Demand and Price Analysis; Industrial Organization.

Ano: 2011

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/104222

Richards, Timothy J.; Acharya, Ram N.; Kagan, Albert.

Banks in non-metropolitan areas compete in a spatially-differentiated environment. This paper estimates a structural model of the supply and demand of banking services in which pricing power depends on the distance between rival banks. A spatial econometric model finds that approximately 38.0% of economic surplus derives from spatial market power.

Public Goods, Hysteresis, and Underinvestment in Food Safety

Palavras-chave: Financial Economics.

Ano: 2007

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/9720

Richards, Timothy J.; Nganje, William E.; Acharya, Ram N..

Despite the economic damage inflicted by a foodborne disease outbreak, firms at all points in the supply chain appear to be reluctant to invest in the necessary food safety technologies and practices. We argue that these investments are subject to both hysteretic and public good effects, and construct a theoretical model of food safety investment, calibrated to describe the 2006 E. coli outbreak in California spinach. Both effects are found to induce delays in food safety investments, but the public good effect dominates. We suggest a number of policy options that improve incentives to contribute to the public good.

Tipo: Journal Article

Palavras-chave: Food safety; Hysteresis; Investment; Public goods; Real options; Simulation; Food Security and Poverty.

Ano: 2009

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/57627

A TWO-STAGE MODEL OF THE DEMAND FOR SPECIALTY CROP INSURANCE

Knox, Lyle; Richards, Timothy J..

Legislators are considering raising catastrophic (CAT 50% coverage) crop insurance premiums. However, estimates of a two-stage coverage-choice and participation model using county-level data from California grape growers show that the demand for CAT insurance is price-elastic, therefore, premium increases will worsen the financial performance of the grape-insurance program.

WEATHER DERIVATIVES: MANAGING RISK WITH MARKET-BASED INSTRUMENTS

Palavras-chave: Crop insurance; Discrete / continuous choice; Grapes; Multinomial logit; Research Methods/ Statistical Methods; Risk and Uncertainty.

Ano: 1999

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/21681

Richards, Timothy J.; Manfredo, Mark R.; Sanders, Dwight R..

Accurate pricing of weather derivatives is critically dependent upon correct specification of the underlying weather process. We test among six likely alternative processes using maximum likelihood methods and data from the Fresno, CA weather station. Using these data, we find that the best process is a mean-reverting geometric Brownian process with discrete jumps and ARCH errors. We describe a pricing model for weather derivatives based on such a process.

THE ECONOMIC VALUE OF PUBLIC RELATIONS EXPENDITURES: FOOD SAFETY AND THE STRAWBERRY CASE

Palavras-chave: Risk and Uncertainty.

Ano: 2002

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/19074

New Varieties and the Returns to Commodity Promotion: Washington Fuji Apples

Food safety has become an important issue affecting public health and grower profits. Outbreaks of foodborne illnesses are typically accompanied by press accounts of the incident and a decrease in demand. This study estimates the short- and long-run impacts of adverse and positive information delivered through print media on strawberry grower profits. Positive information may arise as apart of the promotional efforts of grower associations. It is found that adverse information reduces grower profits, but that positive information can partially offset their effects. It is suggested that grower groups could redirect funds used for promotion to food safety initiatives.

Tipo: Journal Article

Palavras-chave: Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety.

Ano: 1999

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/30804

The Fuji apple variety is relatively new in the U.S. As a new product, questions concern the relative impact of consumer learning by experience, by variety-specific promotion, or by generic apple promotion. A two-stage (LES/LAIDS) model incorporating both types of promotion is used to estimate the effect of generic and variety specific promotion, as well as consumer experience, on the demand for Fuji apples. Estimates show each to have a positive impact, and also show new or specialty apple varieties to be relatively price inelastic, but income elastic. Grower returns to promotion are calculated with an equilibrium displacement model of price changes and producer surplus. Changes in producer surplus provide a base-scenario benefit:cost ratio of 14.73....

NATIVE AMERICAN OBESITY: AN ECONOMIC MODEL OF THE THRIFTY GENE THEORY

Palavras-chave: Apple demand; Experience; LAIDS; New products; Producer surplus; Promotion; Varieties.; Marketing.

Ano: 1998

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/28541

Native American obesity and the associated health conditions are generally thought to result in part from a genetic predisposition to overeating fats and carbohydrates, called the "thrifty gene." Although coined by nutritional scientists, this study maintains the origin of the thrifty gene lies in economics. Apparently harmful overconsumption and addiction constitute economically rational behavior if the increment to current utility from adding to one's stock of "consumption capital" is greater than the present value of utility lost in the future due to ill health and the costs of withdrawal. Tests of these conditions for such "rational addiction" are conducted using two-stage household production approach. The results obtained by estimating this model...