AN INTERSECTORAL, INTERREGIONAL MARKET EQUILIBRIUM SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS OF THE U.S. FOOD INDUSTRY (DUAL PROFIT FUNCTION, NONJOINTNESS, SEPARABILITY, REGIONAL SUFFICIENCY, UNITED STATES).

摘要

Over the past three decades, the U.S. food industry experienced various shifts in regional farm production, marketing supply, and retail demand due to changes in demographic, economic, technological, and political conditions. This study aims to examine the impacts of these changes on the food industry through the following objectives: (a) To evaluate the technological structure of U.S. agriculture; (b) To analyze the spatial characteristics of the food industry during the last thirty years; (c) To examine the effects of changes in economic conditions on the spatial equilibrium of the food industry.; To analyze the technological structure of U.S. agriculture, a restricted variable profit function is specified and the corresponding output supply and factor demand equations are derived and estimated simultaneously. Own-price and cross price elasticities among all outputs and inputs are derived. Separability between all outputs and inputs in rejected indicating the inappropriateness of using a single output measure. Nonjointness among all crops and nonjointness among all livestock products are not rejected implying that it is not appropriate to aggregate all crops and livestock products into two single output measures. Nonjointness among all products is rejected thus justifying the comprehensive multiproduct, multifactor approach used in this study.; The spatial characteristics of the food industry are analyzed by dividing the U.S. into ten regions and by assuming separability in six food product categories. Regional time-series data for these six food products at the farm, marketing, and retail levels are constructured. Three sufficiency ratios are estimated for the 1949-1982 period in order to identify the changing spatial structure of regional food production and consumption.; Market and partial equilibrium models are developed to determine the regional effects of changes in economic conditions on the food industry's spatial structure. A comparison of results from both models shows that generally, the partial model provides understated responses. Changes in economic conditions are found to generate more variable responses from the marketing sector than the farm and retail sectors. Results of this study also show significant variation in regional responses for most food products indicating the importance of including regional considerations in the spatial equilibrium analysis of the food industry.