Cost containment is a concern for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), a Federal food assistance program providing participants with key foods and beverages. Since WIC is not an entitlement program, the amount of aid available to cover those who are...

Analysis of changes in the industrial composition of economic activity (structural change) is important for informed policy making. Such analysis can best be undertaken using a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model. CGE models recognize links among industries arising from their roles as...

U.S. dairy production is consolidating into fewer but larger farms. This report uses data from several USDA surveys to detail that consolidation and to analyze the financial drivers of consolidation. Specifically, larger farms realize lower production costs. Although small dairy farms realize...

The distribution of commodity-related payments and Federal crop insurance indemnities to U.S. farmers has shifted to larger farms as more and more U.S. agricultural production is done on those farms. Since the operators of larger farms tend to have higher household incomes than other farm...

The controversy on the convergence of socialism and capitalism has recently been focused on China. In this paper, an industrial organisation framework is used to portray the key features of "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics." The structure of supply and demand and the process of price...

The mutual interest of industry and government to improve the competitiveness of agri-food industries presents an information management challenge for leaders and policy makers. The paper examines the case for a template for benchmarking economic, environmental and social indicators along...

Crop production is shifting to much larger farms. Since government commodity payments reflect production volumes for program commodities, payments are also shifting to larger farms. In turn, the operators of very large farms have substantially higher household incomes than other farm households,...

Marketing quota and price support programs for peanuts and tobacco were a longstanding feature of U.S. farm policy, from the 1930s until the Government enacted quota buyouts, in 2002 for peanuts and 2004 for tobacco. Quota owners were compensated with temporary payments, but elimination of the...