Short-run and long-run technical and allocative efficiencies were computed for 395 New York dairy farms using data envelopment or nonparametric procedures on 1990 Dairy Farm Business Summary data. The farms were, on average, more allocatively efficient in the short run than in the long run, but were more technically efficient in the long run than in the short run. Stanchion barns were as efficient as milking parlors, and milking more than two times per day did not increase efficiency.

The performance of restricted estimators such as Almon and Shiller in modeling advertising carryover is tested and compared to the unrestricted OLS estimator, using 1971–1988 monthly New York City fluid milk market data. Results indicate that in the absence of autocorrelation and multicollinearity among the lagged advertising variables, the unrestricted OLS estimator is still the preferred estimator, based on Mean Square Error and Root Mean Square Percent Error criteria. In this case, the Almon and Shiller estimators perform equally well, although next only to the OLS estimator. In the presence of autocorrelation or multicollinearity however, the restricted estimators may outperform the OLS estimator, in a MSE sense, with the flexible Shiller estimator (which subsumes the Almon) being more desirable.

Various methods have been used to estimate risk indices with historical data. An industry perception of increasing milk price risk over time provides a standard for evaluating several techniques used to measure historical risk. Risk measures from a regression model and an ARIMA model were consistent with the perception of increasing risk.

Supply functions, elasticity estimates, and nonjointness test results consistently indicated that few commodities compete economically in the production of six major Texas vegetables (cabbage, cantaloupes, carrots, onions, potatoes, and watermelons). Significant bias effects caused by government-supported commodities, fixed inputs, and technological change were observed and measured. Nonnested test results for the hypothesis of sequential decision making by vegetable producers were inconclusive, but they gave greater likelihood support to sequential than to contemporaneous decision making.

This study investigates the effects on the U.S. cotton industry of textile trade liberalization using a multi-market equilibrium displacement model. The simulation results suggest that textile trade liberalization would induce small changes in the total demand for U.S. cotton but would affect considerably U.S. cotton demand structure, making U.S. cotton growers more dependent on world markets. The welfare analyses reveal that textile trade liberalization would result in a small welfare loss for U.S. cotton producers. As expected, textile trade liberalization also would lead to considerable substitution of imports for domestic production and substantial declines in prices of all textile products.

Many countries of the Western Hemisphere in recent years have shown interest in participating in preferential trading arrangements (PTA) in anticipation of expanding exports. Results in this paper show that export expansion depends upon the type of agreement that is formed and who else is participating. Trade of two agricultural commodities are examined; wheat, and fruit and vegetable juices. Five PTAs are examined, each including the United States and one or more Western Hemisphere countries.

With the rapid increase in consumption of some livestock products in Indonesia, expansion of domestic production of these commodities may enhance smallholders' incomes, increase rural employment and add to the country's trade balance. Policy analysis matrices (PAMs) were constructed to estimate divergences between private and social costs and returns in poultry and pig production in selected regions of Indonesia. In each case, producers' use of capital was subsidised but feed input private costs exceeded social values, and output prices received by producers fell short of values based on world prices. Production of all products as import substitutes was socially profitable, but in many instances private returns to farmers were negative. Product price and feed cost divergences were the major policy-induced distortions. Reform of these policies was estimated in a static partial equilibrium framework to lead to supply expansions of each livestock product, a contraction in livestock product consumption, and therefore additional net foreign exchange earnings from the poultry and pig sectors of around $320 million.

Lesser developed countries (LDCs) serve as both customers and competitors for agricultural commodities produced in the Southern region of the United States. This paper focuses on the impacts of LDCs on exports of the major agricultural commodities produced in the South (cotton, rice, tobacco, poultry, and, to a lesser extent, citrus and peanuts). First the importance of LDCs as export markets for Southern commodities is explored. Then the role LDCs play as producers and exporters of these commodities is considered. Finally, these separate roles are combined into an index of LDC competitiveness with Southern agricultural commodities. Data analysis shows that Southern agricultural interests truly are divided over the role LDCs play in Southern agriculture, where poultry and rice rank highest, and peanuts lowest, in terms of a LDC markets/competition index. Thus, it is not surprising that calls for protectionism (e.g., the Bumpers' Amendment) should arise from the South.

This article reviews and critiques the frontier literature dealing with farm level efficiency in developing countries. A total of 30 studies from 14 different countries are examined. The country that has received most attention is India, while rice has been the most studied agricultural product. The average technical efficiency (TE) index from all the studies reviewed is 72%. The few studies reporting allocative and economic efficiency show an average of 68% and 43%, respectively. These results suggest that there is considerable room to increase agricultural output without additional inputs and given existing technology. Several of the studies reviewed have sought to explain farm level variation in TE. The variables most frequently used for this purpose have been farmer education and experience, contacts with extension, access to credit, and farm size. With the exception of farm size, the results reveal that these variables tend to have a positive and statistically significant impact on TE. This paper shows that considerable effort has been devoted to measuring efficiency in developing country agriculture using a wide range of frontier models. Despite all this work, the extent to which efficiency measures are sensitive to the choice of methodology remains uncertain.