a dual definition for the factor content of trade and its effect on factor rewards in us manufacturing sector we introduce a dual definition of the factor content of trade fct using the concept of the equivalent autarky equilibrium estimating a symmetric normalized quadratic revenue function for the u s manufacturing sector between 1965 and 1991 we find that the fct for capital is positive while the fct for skilled and unskilled labor is negative suggesting that the leontief paradox is not present then the growth rate of the factor rewards is decomposed to the fct endowments and technological change effects we find that technological change is the most important determinant in explaining wage inequality between skilled and unskilled labor

fishing effort its testing specification and internal structure in fisheries economics and management abstract the concept of fishing effort is central to fisheries economics and management however effort is an aggregate index of inputs which can be consistently formed only under the condition on production technology of homothetic separability of inputs this paper develops the conditions under which effort can be consistently formed it then provides the first empirical test for effort and jointness in inputs in a fishery by estimating a multiproduct function for the new england otter trawl fleet after not rejecting input output separability and rejecting nonjointness in inputs the construction of a superlative index for effort is demonstrated through estimating a translog production function the implications of effort s internal structure for fisheries management are then considered

the environmental economic impact of woodland a two stage hedonic price model of the amenity value of forestry in britain woodland is an important part of the environment providing economic benefits through its use in commercial timber production and through its value as an amenity as well as providing recreation for visitors woodland is also important to local residents for whom it provides leisure opportunities and a source of aesthetic enjoyment it is well known that the price of a house may reflect a household s willingness to pay to live near an environmental amenity such as a forest and to gain access to it the nature of this relationship may be examined by applying the hedonic price technique an econometric method which investigates house prices and the variation in structural and environment characteristics over space this study uses a two stage hedonic price model to explore the impact of forest type on house price and to estimate the demand for broadleaved woodland for a sample of houses adjacent to forestry commission land

the effect of rent control on the price of rental housing an hedonic approach it is widely believed that rent control leads to a decline in the quality of rental housing this study examines the effect of rent control on the quality of rental housing in new york city quality change is linked to the suppression of rent below

estimating market prices and assessed values for income properties assessors perform property valuations for the purpose of tax assessment buyers and sellers make investment decisions culminating in a market price the valuation by assessors is supposed to be fair and equitable and to amount to a prescribed proportion of market value we investigate the property features considered by assessors in arriving at the assessed value and by buyers and sellers in arriving at the market price we also explore what factors appear to be considered differently by the assessors and the market thus contributing to overassessment or underassessment of property taxes the analysis deals with income properties centrally located in stockholm sweden

discussion of a simulation model for a competitive generation market two sets of authors discuss the paper a simulation model for a competitive generation market see ibid vol 15 no 1 p 250 6 2000 requesting comments and clarification on the proposed simulation tool for mainland spain s competitive electricity market the original authors responses to these discussions are also included

a cost function analysis of import demand for nigeria the article uses a translog cost function to examine the substitution relations among capital labour and imports the results show that capital has a substitute relation with domestic labour and import however labour and import have complementary relationship the implication of this finding is that liberalization policies if pursued vigorously could impart positively on the demand for labour in addition it suggests that economic growth could be enhanced through trade liberalization

supply response and the dispersion of price expectations nomic an0lysis is the implication of aggregation when doing market studies the conditions for exact aggregation under a variety of definitions and settings have been studied paris and rausser theil the focus of this paper is on supply response in agriculture several authors have studied the effects of and tests for differential supply response coefficients across individuals or areas when aggregating firms e g theil p 567 here these coefficients are assumed to be identical for every firm but another problem is examined when uncertainty is present it is well documented that farmers have diverse price expectations e g bessler the question occurs as to the effects of such different expectations on aggregate supply response it is found that the curvature of the supply function is a crucial component of the analysis for example if the supply function is strictly concave an increase in the dispersion of expectations will reduce supply in aggregate

farm policies and added sugars in us diets abstract we examine how us farm policies for sweetener crops have affected the consumption and composition of sweeteners in the us diet r d expenditures have lowered the unit cost of commodities used in sweeteners but have generated more technical progress in corn than in sugar crops increasing use of corn in food production ceteris paribus commodity programs have raised the price of sugar and decreased the price of corn thus high fructose corn syrup hfcs became an inexpensive substitute for sugar in food from 1970 on however the effect of policy on ingredient prices has become less important over time today the farm value share in sweetened food is below 5 and hfcs is a specialized input in many food items with limited substitution possibilities the current link between us sweetener consumption and farm policy is weak recent evidence from other high income countries shows little relationship between sweetener consumption and sugar policies

agricultural product supplies and input demands regional comparisons governmental agencies at federal state and local levels in the united states are heavily involved in intervention in agricultural input and output markets to effect desired social goals the most pervasive intervention activities occur at the federal level they are available throughout the nation to most producers of specified commodities how

are innovations relevant for consumers in the hospitality industry a hedonic approach for cuban hotels abstract this paper evaluates the impact of innovative activity in the hotel industry on the willingness to pay by consumers to this end we estimate a hedonic price function where innovation is identified indirectly through certain attributes that previous literature has linked with hotel innovativeness the test is performed on a representative sample of cuban hotels considering a large number of attributes of hotels and rooms to solve the usual problems of collinearity a million alternative models are estimated by choosing the variables included in a random manner and obtaining the final coefficients by means of an internal meta analysis the results are completed with a variance decomposition analysis the results highlight the importance of the attributes linked to innovation and internationalization on the determination of room prices in cuban hotels membership of international hotel chains high quality offers diversified rooms and adaptability to specific needs of each client

estimating the implicit price of energy efficiency improvements in the residential housing market a hedonic approach abstract in this study a hedonic price model has been used to examine the impact which efficiency improvements have on housing values our study represents an improvement over a previous attempt to examine this issue in that the independent variable used in our analysis is designed to reflect variation in structural efficiency levels among sample homes rather than variation in occupant lifestyles and preferences in addition a flexible functional form is used to prevent bias due to misspecification of the hedonic price equation the study results reveal that efficiency improvements are capitalized into housing prices in des moines iowa at the average efficiency level of homes in the sample an efficiency improvement which results in a 1 decrease in the level of expenditures necessary to maintain the house at 65 f in the average heating season will increase the expected selling price of the house by 11 63 the premium obtained for an equivalent efficiency improvement will be greater than 11 63 in a relatively efficient home and less than 11 63 in a relatively inefficient home without further information concerning the price expectations and discount rates utilized by des moines home buyers and the average remaining life of fuels saving investments in the sample it cannot be determined whether the housing market is pricing fuel savings efficiently regardless of whether or not the implicit price of fuel savings is the outcome of an efficient market information on this implicit price facilitates the estimation of an average resale value of fuel saving investments in addition the results of this study refute the hypothesis that efficiency improving investments are not capitalized into housing prices

imperfect price deflation in production systems numeraire prices that are measured with error create challenges for econometric estimation a straightforward approach for a model with linear input demands such as generated from a quadratic normalized profit function is proposed where the numeraire price is measured with error numeraire measurement error is likely because expected output price is measured imperfectly by actual output price an approach using generalized method of moments is developed to estimate such errors in variables systems that avoids use of extra sample data or additional structural specifications monte carlo examination of small sample properties shows promise measurement error is statistically significant using aggregate u s agricultural data

washington biofuel feedstock crop supply under output price and quantity uncertainty abstract subsidized development of an in state biofuels industry has received some political support in the state of washington usa utilizing in state feedstock supplies could be an efficient way to stimulate biofuel industries and the local economy in this paper we estimate supply under output price and quantity uncertainty for major biofuel feedstock crops in washington farmers are expected to be risk averse and maximize the utility of profit and uncertainty we estimate very large washington price elasticities for corn and sugar beets but a small price elasticity for a third potential feedstock canola even with the large price elasticities for two potential feedstocks their current and historical production levels in the state are so low that unrealistically large incentives would likely be needed to obtain sufficient feedstock supply for a washington biofuel industry based on our examination of state and regional data we find low likelihood that a washington biofuels industry will develop in the near future primarily using within state biofuel feedstock crops

estimating labor supply and production decisions of self employed farm producers abstract this paper proposes a model oriented towards integrating farm households production and consumption decisions into a unified theoretical and econometric framework it is argued that in contrast with other forms of economic organization farm households utility and profit maximization decisions are not likely to be independent econometric estimation of a farm household model using canadian data suggests that utility and profit maximizing decisions are not indeed independent and moreover that there are significant gains in explanatory power and efficiency by estimating the consumption and production equations jointly

supply and demand functions for multiproduct u s cash grain farms biases caused by research and other policies this study presents new estimates of supply and demand elasticities for u s multiproduct cash grain farms and estimates of input and output bias effects caused by public and private crop research extension and farmers schooling the study also shows that the social rate of return to public crop research is large about 62 percent

aggregation without separability tests of the united states and mexican agricultural production data the generalized composite commodity theorem gcct and testing procedure is extended to test for consistent aggregation of the united states and mexican agricultural production data in each category for which earlier tests rejected homothetic separability nonrejected gcct and separability hypotheses provide empirical support for aggregating all the united states agricultural outputs into as few as two categories crops and livestock mexican agricultural outputs also can be aggregated into as few as two categories support for aggregating all outputs into a single category is ambiguous in both countries and is only provided by the gcct

dynamic input demand functions and resource adjustment for us agriculture state evidence abstract the paper presents an econometric model of dynamic agricultural input demand functions that include research based technical change and autoregressive disturbances and fits the model to annual data for a set of state aggregates pooled over 1950 1982 the methodological approach is one of developing a theoretical foundation for a dynamic input demand system and accepting state aggreage behavior as approximated by nonlinear adjustment costs and long term profit maximization although other studies have largely ignored autocorrelation in dynamic input demand systems the results show shorter adjustment lags with autocorrelation than without dynamic input demand own price elasticities for the six input groups are inelastic and the demand functions possess significant cross price and research effects

evaluating alternative price expectation models for multiproduct supply analysis abstract neoclassical economic theory provides an important conceptual framework for the analysis of agricultural production theory provides little guidance however in the actual specification of empirical models this paper applies an integrated approach for choosing between price expectation mechanisms in a multiple equation model when the alternatives are non nested nine alternative specifications of market price and policy information are developed price forecasting accuracy non nested tests of hypotheses and out of sample predictive accuracy are examined for agricultural production in iowa the results call into question the reliability of using forecasting accuracy as the sole guide to selecting a price expectation proxy

intellectual property rights and the welfare effects of agricultural r d the profound changes that have affected agriculture in modern times are perhaps best illustrated by the evolution of production techniques due to mechanization new chemical inputs such as herbicides pesticides and fertilizers genetic selection of crops and animals new crop varieties and countless other technical and organizational improvements these innovations have allowed a generalized increase in physical output while at the same time agriculture has suffered a massive exodus of labor forces towards the non farm sectors indeed a stylized fact of developed countries post war growth is that productivity in agriculture has grown faster than in other sectors jorgenson and gollop 1992 this remarkable record naturally begs the question of what is at its root and a view that commands considerable consensus is that agricultural productivity growth is due to past investments in scientific research and development r d

measurement of total factor productivity growth and biases in technological change in western australian agriculture this study investigates productivity growth in broad acre agriculture in western australia tornqvist indices of three output groups crops sheep products and other and five input groups livestock materials and services labour capital and land are constructed and discussed indices of total output and total inputs are also derived and used to form an index of total factor productivity that is observed to grow at an average annual rage of 2 7 the input and output indices are also used in the estimation of output supply and input demand equations derived from a flexible profit function the generalized mcfadden functional form is used because it is possible to impose global curvature upon it without loss of flexibility asymptotic chi square tests reject the hypotheses of hicks neutral technical change in inputs and in outputs technical change is observed to be materials and services saving relative to the other input groups and also appears to favour wool and sheepmeat production relative to the other output groups

how reliable is duality theory in empirical work the neoclassical theory of production establishes a dual relationship between the profit value function of a competitive firm and its underlying production technology this relationship commonly referred to as duality theory has been widely used in empirical work to estimate production parameters such as elasticities and returns to scale we generate a pseudo dataset by monte carlo simulations which starting from known production parameters yield a dataset with the main characteristics of u s agriculture in terms of unobserved firm heterogeneity decisions under uncertainty unexpected production and price shocks endogenous prices output and input aggregation measurement error in variables and omitted variables production parameters are not precisely recovered when performing econometric estimation based on the duality approach and the elasticity estimates are inaccurate deviations of own and cross price elasticities from initial median values given our parameter calibration range between 6 and 690 with an average of 90 also own price elasticities are as imprecisely recovered as cross price elasticities sensitivity analysis shows that results still hold for different sources and levels of noise and sample size used in estimation

dynamic factor demand equations in u s and canadian agriculture abstract this research provides one of the first empirical estimates of a data based dynamic factor demand model for american and canadian agriculture models such as these deserve more widespread use in the empirical analysis of agriculture these models have the advantage that they do not impose inappropriate dynamics on the data rather they permit the data to select the appropriate dynamics we use a model originally developed by anderson and blundell this model is a general first order dynamic model which contains as testable hypothesis several simpler models this model permits us to estimate the long run agricultural production structure as a subset of the dynamic parameter estimates we will test this long run structure for symmetry homotheticity and neutral technical change the estimated models may be used to test for three alternative dynamic structures in the limit dynamics may not be needed and we can test for the static long run equilibrium model two intermediate cases are the autoregressive and the partial adjustment models which are simpler than the general model but still include dynamics our results suggest that the long run equilibrium model is unsatisfactory in both countries a dynamic model is needed in both countries the two more restricted dynamic models are rejected the general dynamic model is required in canada the long run equilibrium structure is homothetic with neutral technical change in the united states homotheticity is also accepted but neutral technical change is rejected

dynamic model of fresh fruit promotion a household production approach many studies consider the dynamic effects of commodity promotion on demand but few derive the theoretical basis for these effects in a model of optimal consumer behavior this study develops a dynamic household production model of u s fresh fruit consumption which it uses to evaluate the effectiveness of advertising and promotion expenditures by the washington apple commission estimates from a dynamic dual generalized leontief system show direct advertising to be marginally more effective than retail promotion in increasing apple sales but advertising has positive spillover effects to sales of other fruits whereas promotion reduces sales of competing products

mitigating the price effects of growth control a case study of davis california american cities and suburbs have long used their zoning powers to exclude certain groups usually the poor or racial minorities davidoff and davidoff 1971 bosselman 1973 in the last decade many communities have adopted regulations that directly or indirectly control their socioeconomic composition as well as their rate of growth white 1978 dowall 1984 these communities typically justify growth control by asserting that new development does not pay its way the property tax revenues it generates do not pay for the services it requires that population growth will degrade the character of the community and that development will come at the expense of more desirable uses of the land farming or parkland schwartz et al 1979 regardless of the community s rationale for limiting growth the result may be the exclusion of poor households from the community studies of growth control support the assertion that growth control increases the price of housing in a community estimates of the increase in the market price of housing due to growth control have ranged from 13 to 50 percent katz and rosen 1980 gruen and gruen 1977 schwartz et al 1979 legal attacks on stringent growth control programs have been based largely on the public welfare and equal protection issue arguing that the increase in housing prices excludes lower income households from the community several communities have introduced growth controls with accompanying measures designed to reduce the increase in the price of housing an assessment of the effectiveness of these measures

hedonic amenity valuation and functional form specification this paper uses gis data to develop variables representing the physical extent and visibility of surrounding land use cover features in a hedonic model of a rural suburban residential housing market three equations are estimated to determine if views

dynamic fertilizer nutrient demands for corn a cointegrated and error correcting system past studies of the demand for fertilizer have typically been based on static models which assume that adjustments toward equilibrium are instantaneous this article builds on past studies by developing a dynamic model of nutrient demands of corn unit root and cointegration tests demonstrate that fertilizer demands of corn are dynamic therefore statistically correct estimates can be obtained using a dynamic model a set of error correction models for nitrogen phosphate and potash use in corn production are estimated results provide strong statistical evidence that nutrient demands of corn are price inelastic both in the short and the long run

research and extension expenditures and productivity in japanese agriculture 1960 1990 abstract this paper investigates the cause for the decline in the growth of productivity in japanese agriculture since the late 1960s for this objective it investigates the effects of research and extension r e activities on the extent and the direction of the bias of technological change in japanese agriculture for the period 1960 1990 based on the translog cost function framework empirical results show that the cost reducing effects of r e measured in terms of the absolute value of the cost r e elasticity increased slightly from 0 194 in 1960 to 0 205 in 1965 and then decreased consistently to 0 110 in 1990 this finding is broadly consistent with the finding of the decline or slowdown in agricultural productivity since the late 1960s the bias due to r e was found to be toward labor intermediate inputs and other inputs saving on the one hand and machinery and land using on the other labor saving and machinery using biases are consistent with the hicksian induced innovation hypothesis

reflections on agricultural r d productivity and the data constraint unfinished business unsettled issues sixty years ago t w schultz introduced the idea of the productivity residual to agricultural economics 1956 schultz s main message was that growth in conventional inputs accounted for little of the observed growth in agricultural output and that there was work to be done by agricultural economists to understand and ultimately eliminate this unexplained residual called productivity thus was launched the economics of agricultural productivity as a sub field within agricultural economics along with the economics of agricultural r d and innovation and related government policy much progress has been made in the decades since still critical issues remain unresolved this matters because agricultural innovation and productivity matter and so do the related policies that rest to some extent on our established understanding of the economic relationships in this paper i review some unsettled issues related to economic models and measures applied to agricultural r d and productivity and some unfinished business in terms of economic and policy questions that are not yet well answered before doing that i present some evidence on agricultural productivity and why it matters next with a nod to factology i present available productivity measures from the u s department of agriculture usda and international science and technology practice and policy instepp center and compare them in the context of translog cost function models in subsequent sections i use these and other data to develop new evidence related to two contentious questions a do farmers benefit from public agricultural r d b has u s agricultural productivity growth slowed in recent decades the answers are revealed within

the impact of site characteristics on housing cost estimates abstract hedonic housing regressions using micro data for owners and renters from the 1972 1973 consumer expenditure survey are presented by including tract characteristics and public goods in these regressions evidence is presented which indicates sensitivity of the physical housing variable coefficients to the choice of included site related characteristics furthermore omission of public good variables can result in misleading and possibly perverse coefficients on access intermetropolitan housing cost estimates however are shown to be relatively insensitive to the choice of site related characteristics

supply demand and technology in a multiproduct industry texas field crops the purpose of this paper is to examine the structure of agricultural production for six texas field crops cotton grain sorghum wheat corn rice and hay which account for nearly 95 of recent field crop value specific objectives are to a test the structure of technology to determine i if output and input utilization choices for individual products are independent of production decisions about other outputs and ii if products and or inputs can be consistently aggregated b estimate a coherent set of interrelated supply functions for the six commodities and input demand functions for fertilizer and hired labor because the empirical focus of this paper is specific to one state the results will be of limited value for interpreting specific production relationships elsewhere however the problem is of common interest in production agriculture and the techniques used demonstrate an important application of dual modeling

productivity growth and the effects of r d in african agriculture this article measures and compares total factor productivity growth in african agriculture under contemporaneous and sequential technology frontiers over the period 1970 2004 the sources of productivity growth are examined using a fixed effects regression model and a polynomial distributed lag structure for agricultural r d expenditures while conventional estimates show an average productivity growth rate of only 0 3 per year the improved measures under sequential technology show that african agricultural productivity grew at a higher rate of 1 8 per year technical progress rather than efficiency change was the principal source of productivity growth agricultural r d weather and trade reforms turned out to have significant effects on productivity in african agriculture with a rate of return of 33 per year r d is shown to be a socially profitable investment in african agriculture while a strong r d expenditure growth of about 2 per year in the 1970s led to strong productivity growth after the mid 1980s stagnation of r d expenditure in the 1980s and early 1990s led to slower productivity growth in the 2000s consistent with recent economic recovery in africa evidenced by stronger agricultural gdp growth rates results showed that policy reforms as well as improved weather contributed to the recovery of agricultural productivity after the mid 1980s

output supply and input demand system of commercial and backyard poultry producers in indonesia indonesia s domestic broiler production has grown rapidly in part because of a ban on imports of poultry parts and strict inspection and meat certification requirements whether indonesia will continue to protect the domestic broiler sector and import feed grains and other inputs or whether it will directly import meat products is a relevant question to many stakeholders this study uses a normalized quadratic function to estimate the output supply of commercial and backyard broiler producers in indonesia and the input demand for three major inputs day old chicks feed and labor data come from three datasets a 1996 household survey and 1996 and 2000 surveys of commercial producers for the most recent dataset the own price elasticity in both the output supply and feed input demand equations were found to be significant the signs of the elasticities were theoretically consistent with a positive supply and negative demand elasticity the magnitudes of the elasticities were smaller than expected the supply elasticity was 0 285 the inelastic supply explains the high border protection imposed by indonesia which in turn implies that any income driven expansion in the quantity of broiler product demanded would be quickly constrained by rising prices consequently supply from imports would become attractive and would dampen any incentive for growth in the domestic sector this result cast doubt on the long term sustainability of indonesia s import substitution policy regime

modeling the length and shape of the r d lag an application to uk agricultural productivity this article updates total factor productivity tfp growth in uk agriculture from 1953 2005 and shows that public and private research and returns to scale explain tfp cointegration and causality tests are used to investigate the validity of attempts to explain uk agricultural productivity with r d and related technology variables then the length and shape of the lag structures are modeled and compared with the structures that are commonly imposed on the data the rates of return ror to r d using the data determined lags differ considerably from those obtained by imposing lag shapes these comparisons show that the ror to public r d are sensitive to the lag shape as well as its length and that the omission of other technology variables such as mechanical and chemical patents pertaining to agriculture and farm size can bias the ror

the specification of hedonic indexes for urban housing most studies evaluating the effect on housing prices of regulatory programs for controlling urban growth use econometric methods hedonic price models without considering the research design aspects of the task this article examines the strengths and

research and productivity in mexican agriculture partial and total factor productivity tfp measures of mexican agriculture are calculated for 1960 90 the long run effects of research and international transfer of technology on tfp are examined over the 1940 90 period using cointegration procedures tfp increased at an average annual rate of 2 5 exceeding the corresponding growth in the united states 2 1 tfp grew particularly fast in the 1960s and 1970s a 1 rise in research investment increased tfp by 0 13 and a 1 increase in u s tfp translated into a 1 11 increase in mexican tfp the average annual rate of return to research investment is about 64

technology and efficiency in a panel of italian dairy farms an sgm restricted cost function approach this article employs a short term specification of the symmetric generalised mcfadden sgm cost function capable of accommodating quasi fixed factors and variable returns temporary equilibrium and scale economies are investigated while maintaining the consistency of the estimated model with microeconomic theory and approximation properties it also makes use of a two step procedure to estimate first the technology parameters and then time varying efficiency at farm level no distributional assumptions are required on efficiency as we consider a fixed effect model a balanced panel of italian dairy farms during the years from 1980 to 1992 serves as the case study the results suggest a rigid productive structure during the pre and post quota period moreover italian milk producers are found to exhibit considerable excess capacity and rather low input technical efficiency

the demand for imports in korea a production analysis approach abstract balance of trade problems in the united states and other highly industrialized countries have resulted in cries for korea to liberalize its import policies this paper uses a translog cost function to investigate korea s demand for imports and the effects of trade liberalization on the demand for the country s domestic inputs this study suggest that the domestic inputs and imports are substitutes and that as the proportion of investment goods in korea s gdp increases the demand for imports will also increase thus further liberalization of korea s import policies could present short run problems in the domestic input markets

sample selection and biases in local house value indices abstract analysis of cross sectional or intertemporal variations in house values among localities requires reliable house value indices however prior studies applying the hedonic method to transaction data have reported price series that may be biased our paper investigates a possible cause of bias and uses a censored regression technique extended to an intertemporal model to derive an unbiased index we apply our method to 1971 1991 data from the miami florida msa and find evidence in time varying amounts of bias our results suggest that prior studies using the hedonic method and samples consisting only of sold houses have understated the intertemporal variability of house prices

price effects of rent control on controlled and uncontrolled rental housing in toronto a hedonic index approach this paper examines the price effects of rent controls with exemptions on rent controlled and non rent controlled housing in toronto a model of rent determination in the controlled and uncontrolled markets is presented the paper then applies a hedonic pricing technique to develop indices of the uncontrolled rent relative to the controlled rent for standardized sets of housing characteristics approximately one half of the difference in observed rents is attributable to quality differences between markets and one half to the effect of rent controls

formulas and flexibility in trade negotiations sensitive agricultural products in the world trade organization s doha agenda many trade negotiations involve large cuts in high tariffs while allowing smaller cuts for an agreed share of politically sensitive products the effects of these flexibilities on market access opportunities are difficult to predict creating particular problems for developing countries in assessing whether to support a proposed trade agreement some widely used ad hoc approaches for identifying likely sensitive products such as the highest bound tariff rule suggest that the impact of a limited number of such exceptions on average tariffs and market access is likely to be minor applying a rigorous specification based on the apparent objectives of policymakers in setting the prenegotiation tariff enables more accurate assessment of the implications of sensitive product provisions for average agricultural tariffs economic welfare and market access under the doha negotiations the analysis concludes that highest tariff rules are likely to seriously underestimate the impacts on average tariffs and that treating even two percent of tariff lines as sensitive is likely to have a sharply adverse impact on economic welfare the impacts on market access are also adverse but much smaller perhaps reflecting the mercantilist focus of the negotiating process

output response to prices and public investment in agriculture indonesian food crops abstract this paper analyzes dynamic food crop supply response in indonesia the effects of technology prices and investments on output growth for rice corn soybean and cassava are examined the analysis generates crop wise area yield and input demand parameters suitable for the evaluation of price and investment policies and shows the large impact of public investment in agricultural research extension and irrigation on long run output growth in indonesia elimination of the fertilizer subsidy and reinvestment of the resulting fiscal savings in research extension and irrigation would produce large benefits

mexican agricultural trade under the gatt expected effects from partially lifting tariff barriers on the mexican agricultural sector are investigated using a restricted profit function rpf approach short run and intermediate run effects of the implementation of gatt minimum tariff provisions on mexican agricultural trade are examined specification tests reveal the appropriateness of the rpf approach that exports should not be aggregated with non traded production into a single output and that the farm sector behaves as an almost price taking profit maximizing firm policy simulations suggest important short run changes in agricultural trade and chemical use and intermediate run changes in agricultural trade labour wage chemical use capital investments and net farm income

stock size harvesting costs and the potential for extinction the case of sealing starting in the 1960s considerable opposition to the canadian and norwegian harp seal hunt off newfoundland developed it was alleged that the seal hunt was unethical and that the seal population had been seriously depleted the purpose of this paper is to analyze the production function for the seal hunt based on data for the norwegian seal hunt particular attention is paid to the question whether free entry to the fishery will cause overexploitation this depends critically on the characteristics of the production function in particular the extent to which harvesting costs depend on stock size

multiple input multiple output production choices and technology in the u s wheat region duality theory motivates a translog expected profit function consistent with multiple products price uncertainty preseason climate constraints acreage control policies and possibly nonhomothetic technology although multiple outputs are allowed enterprise specific data is not necessary instead time series measures of output revenues and expected prices input expenses and prices and fixed input flows are employed appropriate measures of elasticities of choice returns to size and biases in technological change are derived results indicated decreasing returns to size rather limited though complementary responsiveness of choices to price changes and the nature of biases in technological changes

modelling technical change in italian agriculture a latent variable approach this paper presents an alternative approach to the measurement of technical change it is based on the latent variable level of technology that enters explicitly the input demand system and on a hypothesis about the innovation generating process by adding measurement error equations the behavioral system can be viewed as a multiple indicators multiple causes mimic model the parameter estimates are obtained with a maximum likelihood estimator which involves the implicit covariance matrix the analysis refers to italian agriculture and the results provide some evidence on the nature and level of technical change during the years 1961 1991

short and long run adjustments in dairy production a profit function analysis a dual profit model is developed to analyse the structure of dairy technology using farm level data for vermont potential short and long run effects of milk price reductions on output supply input demand farm size and profitability are studied the observed levels of the quasi fixed inputs family labour and herd size are found to be significantly lower than their optimal or long run equilibrium values which is consistent with a continuing shift towards fewer and larger dairy farms the analysis suggests that lower milk prices threaten the short run survival of small and medium size farms and reduce the optimal farm size in the long run

buying beauty on prices and returns in the art market this paper investigates the price determinants and investment performance of art we apply a hedonic regression analysis to a new data set of more than one million auction transactions of paintings and works on paper based on the resulting price index we conclude that art has appreciated in value by a moderate 3 97 per year in real u s dollar terms between 1957 and 2007 this is a performance similar to that of corporate bonds at much higher risk a repeat sales regression on a subset of the data demonstrates the robustness of our index next quantile regressions document larger average price appreciations and higher volatilities in more expensive price brackets we also find variation in historical returns across mediums and movements finally we show that measures of high income consumer confidence and art market sentiment predict art price trends this paper was accepted by wei xiong finance

modeling farm households price responses in the presence of transaction costs and heterogeneity in labor markets we develop a farm household model to analyze price responses of farm households this model incorporates various types of transaction costs as well as labor heterogeneity nonproportional variable transaction costs or labor heterogeneity imply that production and consumption decisions become nonseparable even when the household buys or sells labor an empirical model is estimated using data from midwest poland the results show that nonproportional variable transaction costs and labor heterogeneity significantly influence household behavior not all price elasticities however change significantly if these are neglected

a bayesian approach to assessing the robustness of hedonic property value studies hedonic price models are widely employed to estimate implicit prices for bundled attributes residential property value studies dominate these applications using a representative cross sectional property value data set we employ bayesian methods to translate a range of priors in covariate selection typical of hedonic property value studies into a range of posterior estimates we also formulate priors regarding measurement error in individual covariates and compute the ranges of resulting posterior means finally we empirically demonstrate that a greater and more systematic use of prior information drawn from one s own data and from other studies can break the collinearity deadlock in this data

asymmetric adjustment of dynamic factors at the firm level presents a study which addressed the deficiencies of previous studies the specification and estimation in the modeling of asymmetry and zero gross investment in the agricultural industry reference to previous studies on asymmetry information on the standard dual model results of the study

long run profit functions for multiproduct firms a long run specification of the multiproduct profit function is developed from the restricted profit function the multiproduct restricted profit function and the envelope condition are used to estimate the optimal long run levels of the quasi fixed factor formulas for long run marshallian elasticities of substitution and transformation economies of scope product specific and overall economies of scale and economic measures of capacity utilization are developed for the translog functional form the methodology is illustrated by a case study of the new england otter trawl industry

multiproduct supply and input demand in u s agriculture two sets of u s agricultural output supply and input demand relationships including cross price effects are reported for five commodity groups and four variable input groups for the 1951 82 period they are obtained by direct econometric estimation on u s data and by geographic aggregation from published econometric estimates for each of ten regions comprising the contiguous forty eight states the supply and demand formulations are specified on the assumptions of competitive behavior and an underlying normalized quadratic profit function the effects of upward sloping input supply curves are examined at the national level

testing for input substitution in a regulated fishery input restrictions are commonly used to prevent rent dissipation in fisheries this paper examines whether these schemes are successful by calculating the degree of input substitution between restricted and unrestricted inputs conventional elasticities of substitution cannot be used when the firm faces controls on the use of some inputs in this case the appropriate measure of substitution the elasticity of intensity must be used data from the british columbia salmon fishery provide evidence of input substitution possibilities for two vessel types these results call into question the usefulness of input control schemes

effects of subsidies in russian dairy farming this study develops a microeconometric model of specialized dairy farms in the moscow region using panel data over the period 1995 2001 the model is used to analyze the role of subsidies on profit as well as input and output allocation theoretical conditions for short term profit maximization are not rejected by the data differences between farms allow for a fixed effect specification the dairy producers in the region demonstrate a low responsiveness to market signals but technology change becomes important labor land and livestock had low shadow prices although subsidies have a distorting effect on the input output mix this study shows they relieve the credit constraints on dairy farms and have an important positive influence on farm profit

the substitution between moves and quits if a worker s workplace and residence locations do not maximize utility quits and moves are substitutes a quit or a move alone is more likely than both together records of a single company confirm this simultaneous bivariate probit estimates of move and quit behavior demonstrate that uncontrolled shocks to quits and moves are negatively correlated furthermore when the company relocated from the central business district to a suburb of its metropolitan area the occurrence of either a quit or a move virtually precluded the occurrence of the other among employees whose journeys to work were lengthened by the relocation copyright 1991 by royal economic society

housing values census estimates disequilibrium and the environmental cost of airport noise a case study of atlanta abstract two unresolved issues about airport noise property value studies are addressed the first issue concerns the comparability of empirical results from aggregate census data vs individual sales values and the second issue concerns the homogeneity and stability of results from housing price studies over time and across markets hedonic price models from two sets of data for a residential area near the atlanta international airport are estimated at two points in time 1979 1980 and 1970 1972 the available data yield similar estimates of the noise discount over time and from the prices of individual house sales vs owner appraised census block aggregates

auction implementation problems using lagrangian relaxation lagrangian relaxation lr is used as an auction method for bidding in a deregulated environment this paper focuses on the problems that occur while using lr as an auction method identical or similar units can prevent lr from finding the optimal solution if the units are similar lr may have trouble selecting some of them for the optimal solution a feasible solution may thus not be found since a heuristic selection of which unit data to alter has to be applied this is inequitable to the unit s not selected and may result in lawsuit s because the dispatcher has to use heuristic selection there is no fair solution to these problems the authors suggest previously published methods to implement auctions sensitivity analysis has also been applied in this paper to show that the percentage difference of similarity between units may affect the solution found

a symmetric normalized quadratic gnp function and the u s demand for imports and supply of exports this paper reports estimates of a gnp function for the united states using data covering most of the postwar period and it introduces a new functional form the symmetric normalized quadratic variable profit function which is a natural extension of recent work by diewert and wales this functional form allows convexity in prices and concavity in fixed inputs to be imposed globally empirical results indicate that the demand for imports is less price elastic than the supply exports that an increase in labor endowment favors trade and that a deterioration of the terms of trade mostly hurts labor

input demands and inefficiency in u s agriculture markov chain monte carlo mcmc methods are used to estimate a seemingly unrelated regression sur system of input demand functions for u s agriculture our demand functions have flexible forms and allow for nonrandom technical inefficiency concavity constraints are imposed at individual data points and the distributions of measures of relative technical efficiency are constrained to the unit interval results are evaluated in terms of characteristics of the posterior distributions of parameters measures of relative technical efficiency and other nonlinear functions of the parameters

public regulation and the structure of production in multiproduct industries an application to the new england otter trawl industry this article considers the problem of managing multispecies fishing industries as one of regulating the production of individual multiproduct firms the multispecies new england otter trawl industry is examined within this framework empirical results derived from estimating a multiproduct profitfunction indicate that management consistent with the structures ofmultiproduct production and costs would directly regulate inputs little support is provided for applying the traditional bioeconomic model to the fishery studied

attributes determining condominium prices in bangkok in thai the housing market particularly the condominium sector in bangkok has been rapidly expanding in this paper the hedonic price model is used to analyze the housing attributes that determine the price of condominiums in bangkok the box cox technique is used to find an appropriate functional form of the model the data of condominium prices and 20 attributes of 146 condominium units were collected from 42 sales offices during 1 31 january 2011 the results indicate that the attributes determining the price of condominium in bangkok were project location proximity to sky train and subway unit location unit size furniture total number of units in a project land size waiting duration before construction is completed reputation of developers parking space common fee for maintenance and services and number of bedrooms the estimated coefficients indicate relative prices of the attributes which can be used as reference prices for buyers developers and banks

convergence in u s productivity growth for agriculture implications of interstate research spillovers for funding agricultural research state crop livestock and aggregate agricultural total factor productivity tfp data 1950 82 are examined for evidence of convergence to a single tfp level convergence or to a steady state rate of growth or conditional convergence our empirical results do not support convergence but do support convergence the rate of convergence is variable and depends on research and development r d spillins from other states private r d and farmers schooling the finding of strong positive interstate spillover effects implies that independent state planning of agricultural research is inefficient and cooperation across states boundaries including establishment of new political jurisdictions for financing public agricultural research can enhance efficiency

induced innovation in u s agriculture time series direct econometric and nonparametric tests the hypothesis of induced innovation is tested for u s agriculture using a high quality state level panel data set and three disparate testing techniques time series direct econometric and nonparametric we find little support for the hypothesis that conclusion is robust across testing techniques however as with all empirical tests of this hypothesis conducted to date ours focus only on the demand side of the hypothesis the hypothesis could have been rejected simply because the marginal cost of developing and implementing input saving technologies for the relatively expensive inputs is greater than for the relatively cheap inputs copyright 2009 oxford university press

hedonic prices and the demand for housing attributes in a third world city the case of ibadan nigeria this paper estimates the demand functions for a set of housing attributes for the city of ibadan nigeria using rosen s two step estimation procedure the empirical results reveal that the most im

a simulation model for a competitive generation market the simulation of a wholesale electricity market should go beyond a simple optimization based on the operating costs of the generating units a model of a competitive electricity market must consider the market structure the strategy of the market participants and any other factor that lead to prices different from costs this paper presents cosmee a model of a wholesale electricity market based on simple bids that estimates expected bid prices and quantities system hourly prices and generation schedules taking into account the bidding strategies of generators and the structure of the market the model reflects the profit maximizing behavior of the market agents subject to different types of constraints cosmee has been used to simulate a real wholesale market

a cost function analysis of import demand and growth in south africa abstract this study investigates the substitutability relationships among capital labor and imported inputs for south africa utilizing the estimates obtained from an aggregate cost function our results are consistent with the hypothesis that capital is a substitute for both domestic labor and imports but that labor and imports are complementary inputs this latter result suggests that relaxing south african trade restrictions may have a positive impact in both the long and the short run on the demand for domestic labor other results suggest that the reduction of market impediments may also positively impact the production of investment goods and economic growth