In recent decades there has been a substantial increase in the scale of production and the use of production contracts in the hog sector. This paper explores empirically whether these two phenomena are related by examining whether the use of production contracts has allowed finish hog operations...

The increasing use of production contracts in the hog sector has reduced the number of spot market transactions, raised concerns about price manipulation and helped to spur legislation requiring price reporting by packers. Using data from the 2002 and 2007 Censuses of Agriculture, this study...

While nationwide growth in the production of organic agricultural products has seen rapid expansion, the number of certifi ed organic operations in Texas has remained relatively stagnant. Evidence shows a shift in consumer’s demands toward organic products, yet Texas producers have been...

This research evaluates the effects of entry by supercenters and warehouse club retailers on the location of retail grocery sales. Drawing on location theory and empirical works, spatial econometric convergence models are specifi ed and estimated. Because grocery shopping is generally a local...

Slotting fees are fixed charges paid by food manufacturers to retailers for access to the retail market. The role of the practice and its effects on market efficiency are highly controversial. To date, the literature has focused on the effect of the practice on retail prices; however, slotting...

This paper studies whether a seller achieves higher profits by providing consumers with information that allows them to distinguish between products from different countries, and how mandatory provision of such information impacts welfare. We analyze a model of multi-product monopoly with...

In this paper, the new empirical industrial organization approach with a dynamic model is simultaneously employed to measure the degree of oligopoly, oligopsony power, and cost efficiency in the U.S. beef packing industry. The oligopsony power is estimated with two effects: cash cattle...

‘Healthier food product’ has experienced a rapid growth rate in recent years in U.S. because of the increasing consumer demand for healthier and environmental friendlier lifestyle. This analysis is looking for price discrimination evidences by comparing price cost margins of regular food...

Both industry and firm characteristics influence the survival of a firm in an industry over time. Aging, size, structure are factors often discussed in the literature, but public intervention effects -through public quality labeling for example - may also have an effect that is examined here. We...