عنوان

Livestock Long Term Forecasting, Metaphylaxis Treatment, and Contracting Incentives

TLpq2376748815

انگلیسی

Livestock Long Term Forecasting, Metaphylaxis Treatment, and Contracting Incentives

[Thesis]

Maples, William E.

Brorsen, Wade

Oklahoma State University

2019

87

Ph.D.

Oklahoma State University

2019

This dissertation discusses three separate topics concerning the livestock industry. The first chapter presents an updated version of the Economic Research Services livestock baseline model. The livestock baseline model is used to make ten year projections for the livestock sector. The model consists of production, demand, and price transmission sections for the beef, pork, broiler, and turkey sectors. The updated model largely maintains the overall structure of the previous model and mainly focuses on re-estimating the equations with current data. This updated livestock baseline model will aid the ERS in making more accurate ten-year projections for the United States livestock sector. Chapter two discusses the impact of metaphylaxis use on cattle productivity and health. The overuse of antibiotics in livestock production is undergoing public pressure, and metaphylaxis usage raises concern as it can potentially lead to healthy animals receiving an unnecessary dose. A unique data source was provided by a commercial feedlot in the U.S. Southern Plains region with an operating capacity greater than 50,000 head. Propensity score matching is employed in an attempt to determine the effect of metaphylaxis treatment on feedlot cattle. Due to endogeneity issues, propensity score matching is unable to identify the effect. The third chapter presents a performance based contracting tool that feedlots can implement in order to account for asymmetric information when purchasing feeder cattle. Feeder cattle buyers are unable to determine the quality of a lot of feeder cattle at the time of purchase and are only willing to pay a price based on "average" quality that is reflected by the market price. A contract design is introduced that allows feeder cattle buyers to differentiate producers by offering a menu of contracts. The offered contracts contain a premium is paid when the lot of cattle reach a target performance indicator, such as average daily gain. The model is solved to show that the contract successfully allows a buyer to avoid purchasing low quality cattle and guarantee the purchase of high quality cattle.

Agricultural economics

Brorsen, Wade

Maples, William E.

p

[Thesis]

276903

a

Y