A Hotelling–Faustmann Explanation of the Structure of Christmas Tree Prices

We examine the relationship between a tree price and a tree age (height) using a Hotelling–Faustmann type model of optimal plantation management, which accounts for the possibility of replanting and biological growth. The model predictions are tested using the data on Christmas tree prices in North Carolina collected in December 1997. The estimates show that, in general, the rates of change in prices between adjacent age cohorts reflect a competitive equilibrium in the capital market thus supporting the Hotelling–Faustmann paradigm.     

Do Alternative Marketing Arrangements Increase Pork Packers' Market Power?

In this article we use structural econometrics to formally test whether the use of the alternative marketing arrangements (AMAs) by pork packers is the source of their market power on the spot (cash) market for live hogs. We specify the pork packers' conjectures of the change in the industry total market procurement of live hogs through the spot market with respect to their AMAs stocks. The test is carried out using the mandatory price reporting data. Our results show that pork packers have statistically significant market power on the spot market for live hogs, but the source of that market power cannot be narrowed down to the existence of AMAs stocks.     

Dynamic Incentives and Agent Discrimination in Broiler Production Tournaments

The objective of this paper is to test whether broiler processors, after observing their contract growers' abilities in the sequences of repeated short-term contracts, strategically allocate production inputs of varying quality. The strategy can either consist of providing high-ability agents with high-quality inputs or providing low-ability agents with high-quality inputs. The first strategy would stimulate the career concerns type of response on the part of the growers, whereas the second strategy would generate a ratchet effect. We test these hypotheses by using the broiler contract production data. The results show no significant input discrimination based on grower abilities that would lead to either career concerns or ratchet effect type of dynamic incentives.     

Structural Estimation of Rank-Order Tournament Games with Private Information

In this article we propose and solve a game-theoretic model of a rank-order tournament with private information. Using the contract settlement data from a poultry company, we estimate a fully structural model of a symmetric Nash equilibrium of this game. We show that growers' equilibrium effort depends on four factors: the spread in piece rates between the performance brackets, the number of players in each tournament, the number of performance brackets used, and the density of growers' private shocks. We use estimates to simulate how changes in the tournament characteristics affecting equilibrium effort impact the growers' and the integrator's welfare.     

The Relationship between Contracting and Livestock Waste Pollution

This paper investigates factors and mechanisms that influence the relationship between contracting and animal waste pollution. The questions raised are whether contracting worsens livestock waste management problems and how to apportion the burden of regulation between the contracting parties in a socially optimal way. The paper shows that the potential linkages between contracting and animal waste depend on scale, specialization, and concentration of animal units, as well as on division of inputs and contract settlement rules. The long-run apportioning of an increase in costs of environmental compliance depends on the integrator's market power for grower services.     

Testing for the principal’s monopsony power in agency contracts

We develop a test for the presence of the monopsony power of the livestock integrator (principal) on the market for contract growers (agents) and estimate the model with the data on swine industry contract settlements. A natural test for the monopsony power of the principal would compare the estimated values of the marginal revenue products with the actual payments that agents receive for their services. The problem with implementing this approach comes from the fact that agents’ abilities and actions are unobservable. Our approach is based on estimating the slope of the inverse supply function for grower input using generalized method of moments (GMM) estimators. The model specifies the relationships between the observable consequences and unobservable grower characteristics imposing the first order conditions for principal’s profit maximization. The results show that the null hypothesis of no market power cannot be rejected.

Regulating Broiler Contracts: Tournaments versus Fixed Performance Standards

Grower discontent with tournaments as mechanisms for settling poultry contracts can largely be attributed to the group composition risk that tournaments impose on growers. This article focuses on the welfare effects of a widely advocated regulatory proposal to prevent integrator companies from using tournaments and replace them with schemes that compare performance to a fixed standard. The analysis shows that the mandatory replacement of tournaments with fixed performance standards, absent any rules that regulate the magnitude of the piece rate, can decrease grower income insurance without raising welfare. However, replacing tournaments with fixed performance standards can simultaneously increase income insurance and welfare, provided that the magnitude of the piece rate is also regulated.