It is proposed that “real” research issues are socially relevant, provide findings with utility beyond the profession, and are anticipatory. An industrializing agricultural sector, an evolving political economy of agroenvironmental policy, an increasingly transnational economy, and rapid population growth are important sources of change to which research on real agroenvironmental issues must respond. Specific, identified “real” research issue areas include: benefit-risk assessment methodology; agroenvironmental regulation for industrialized agriculture; trade agreements and environmental quality; the recreation-tourism-agriculture interface; sustainable development; and the formation of preferences. The nature of identified issues suggests more interdisciplinary research, and advances in theory and methodology.

The paper develops an adaptive model of perishable commodity dissipation based on the individual's price expectations and risk perception. A two-step, state-space procedure for modeling nonstationary time series is presented. The method combines an impulse response model for estimating deterministic components with an innovations model for the remaining stationary stochastic noise. Combined parameters are used to generate forecasts and to derive a measure of risk in a nonstationary price environment. Defined as the variance (covariance) of out-of-sample forecast error, the measure of risk is the difference between the historical estimate of the stationary noise auto-covariance and the variance (covariance) of out-of-sample forecasts. The optimal marketing strategy for a hypothetical salmon processor who sells to Japanese wholesalers is developed to illustrate the model. The solution is obtained using quadratic programming algorithm.

There exists no mechanism for federal agencies, national laboratories, industry, and academic institutions to set a national environmental research agenda. Moreover, funding for social science research is inadequate for providing a sound scientific basis for making environmental policy. Despite this lack of leadership, it is quite possible to define an environmental economic research agenda that could lead to improved policies for protecting and managing the environment. The present paper makes some recommendations from an insider's viewpoint.

Radial and nonradial measures of technical efficiency are calculated empirically for Florida vegetable farms using DEA (data envelopment analysis) techniques. Use of the nonradial measures to calculate overuse of chemical inputs by inefficient farmers is demonstrated and the potential for reduced environmental loading of pesticides and fertilizers by improving efficiency is evaluated.

In this study, moving average price stabilization schemes were analyzed under the assumption of rational expectations. It was shown that moving average price schemes may induce cyclical behaviour into market prices where no cyclical pattern previously existed. Moving average price stabilization schemes are important to Canadian agricultural policy analysis because they are a characteristic of stabilization programs in Canada. Indeed, the Agricultural Stabilization Act, introduced in 1975, and the Gross Revenue Insurance Program, introduced in 1991, use moving average prices to calculate returns to producers.

This paper reviews prior research by agricultural economists on the demand for food products using scanner data. Thereafter, a differentiated product's oligopoly model with Bertrand price competition is developed and used to specify brand level demand and oligopoly price reaction equations. The model has sufficient detail to estimate brand level price elasticities and price response elasticities which in turn can be used to estimate three indices of market power. The first index estimated is the familiar Rothschild Index. The paper develops estimates two new indexes, the observed index and the Chamberlin quotient for tacit collusion. It concludes with comments on how the proposed method for the measurement of market power in a differentiated oligopoly can be improved.

Social desirability (SD) represents the problem of subjects responding with social norms rather than individual values. This paper briefly surveys the SD literature and considers its relevance for contingent valuation (CV) studies. In an empirical study, undergraduate students were administered the Mariowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale, as well as CV questions. High SD scores were hypothesized to imply a greater likelihood of offering a protest reason for a zero bid and to increase bids for socially desirable commodities. While all hypotheses were not supported, the empirical results suggest that SD can influence CV responses and should not be dismissed prematurely.

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are becoming increasingly important to virtually all of the natural and social sciences. Applied economists will find that GIS can make valuable contributions to many of the problems with which they are concerned. Moreover, a great deal of the science behind GIS technology would benefit from the contributions of applied economists. This paper presents some initial suggestions for the ways in which GIS may be important to economics and the GIS related issues concerning which applied economists could provide useful insights.

The effects of managerial ability on farm financial success are analyzed for a 1990 sample of Pennsylvania commercial dairy farms using structural latent variable techniques. Latent factors related to dairy, crop, and financial management are used with herd size to explain farm financial success, measured by net farm income. Results indicate the relative importance of each management variable toward farm financial success.

Decision support systems are generally geared to short-term tactical decision making. As an alternative, this paper develops a mathematical programming model to evaluate long-term strategic alternatives in the context of farm-level agricultural production where a broiler farm considers long-term implications of diversification into commercial aquaculture. The model considers a ten-year strategic planning horizon, incorporates financial risk and return considerations, and accommodates capacity variations. Results indicate that a diversification strategy significantly increases farm profitability over a strategic planning horizon while simultaneously maintaining financial risk below a predetermined tolerance level and return on investment above a predetermined level.

This paper investigates the impacts of alternative federal dairy policies on the U.S. dairy sector. In addition to the current dairy price support program, five alternatives are investigated: (1) immediate deregulation, (2) gradual deregulation, (3) target price-deficiency payment program without supply control, (4) target price-deficiency payment program with supply control, and (5) mandatory supply control. An econometric model of the national dairy industry is used to simulate quarterly equilibrium price and quantity values at the farm and wholesale levels for each policy over the period 1980–90. Consumers are better off under both immediate and gradual deregulation, as well as the target price-deficiency payment scenarios because prices are lower, enabling them to consume more dairy products. Farmers, as a group, are better off under the two target price-deficiency payment program and supply control scenarios, where milk prices and producer surplus are highest.

Dynamic programming techniques were used to evaluate the effects of alternative levels of normal flex acreage requirements on a Midwestern corn-soybean farm and a Southeastern cotton farm. Results indicate that increasing normal flex acres from the current level of 15 percent to 35 percent would provide inducement for farmers in both regions to plant more soybeans. In general, the cotton farm incurs considerably higher expected losses from the change. Thus, there are unequal regional consequences of such a policy change.

The effects of socioeconomic and demographic factors on the consumption of food energy, protein, vitamin A, vitamin C, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, calcium, phosphorus, and iron are examined. Socioeconomic and demographic factors analyzed are urbanization, region, race, ethnicity, sex, employment status, food stamp participation, household size, weight, height, age, and income. Several of these factors significantly affect consumption of certain nutrients. Income is an important factor affecting the consumption of vitamin A, vitamin C, and calcium. Income elasticities are relatively small at low income levels. For example, income elasticities range from 0.016 for calcium to 0.123 for vitamin C at an income level of $20,000.

The random nature of soil loss under alternative land-use practices should be an important consideration of soil conservation planning and analysis under risk. Chance constrained programming models can provide information on the trade-offs among pre-determined tolerance levels of soil loss, probability levels of satisfying the tolerance levels, and economic profits or losses resulting from soil conservation to soil conservation policy makers. When using chance constrained programming models, the distribution of factors being constrained must be evaluated. If random variables follow a log-normal distribution, the normality assumption, which is generally used in the chance constrained programming models, can bias the results.

Policies to reduce nitrate leaching are evaluated using a mixed integer linear programming model of a representative Michigan cash grain farm. At spring 1993 prices, elimination of the current deficiency payment program is found to be more efficient at reducing leaching than a nitrogen input tax, a tax credit on biologically fixed nitrogen, a rotation payment, or obligatory use of the Integrated Farm Management Program Option (IFMPO). However, elimination of the deficiency payment program would significantly reduce farm income. Modeling risk management and nitrate leaching dynamics are useful extensions of this research, as is estimating the benefits from averting nitrate leaching.

Natural resource-based economic development efforts are becoming increasingly popular. Interest focuses on industries that export from a state, in order to expand the state and local economic base. The Northern and Central Appalachian states should be ideally positioned to benefit from forest-based resources, as they have extensive hardwood forests, a favorable growth-to-drain ratio, and easily accessible national and international markets. This paper examines the export levels of several hardwood product industries and uses tobit analysis to examine establishment and location characteristics related to higher export levels.

Using yield data for a sample of 123 dryland wheat producers in Montana, the effects of three area yield contracts, including the contract currently offered by the United States Federal Crop Insurance Corporation and two individual yield contracts on individual farm yield variability, are examined. The results indicate that while the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation area yield contract provides all farmers in the sample with some protection against yield variability, a simpler, actuarially equivalent “almost ideal” area yield contract provides substantially larger reductions in yield variability. However, actuarially equivalent individual yield contracts provide levels of protection against yield variability similar to those obtained under the “almost ideal” area yield contract at much lower premiums.

AJAE per capita page counts provide one measure of an institution's research strength. In this article we refine Willis et al.'s measure of department size and, based on the refined measure, recompute departmental rankings for North American institutions. Results indicate that Northeastern United States departments are more widely represented among the top 20 institutions than 20 years ago and that two Canadian institutions—Guelph and British Columbia—rank in the top 12. The median AJAE publication frequency for the top 30 research institutions is about one article per research faculty member every 12 years. The AJAE page-count measure was found to be highly correlated (R2 = 0.82) with citation counts, whether narrowly or broadly defined. Thus, AJAE page counts appear to provide a simple yet valid representation of institutional research productivity.

Response rates are one indicator of a survey's data quality, as a great deal of importance has been placed on the mail survey's response rate. However, a telephone survey's response rate usually is not reported. Even if one is reported, the numbers used in the calculation are rarely defined making the response rate interpretation unclear. Using a recent telephone survey of Pennsylvania dairy managers, this paper demonstrates how telephone survey data should be reported. Essentially, every research report should include a discussion of how the survey was conducted, a disposition table, and well-defined formulas used to calculate response rates.

An imperfect competition model of the U.S. milk market is developed for analyzing the impacts of dairy policy deregulation. Estimated degree-of-competition parameters indicate that the U.S. milk market has become more competitive over time. The usefulness of the model is demonstrated by showing the relative differences of dynamic simulation results of the imperfect competition model with the results of a conventional exogenous fluid differential model.