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Precision agricultural (PA) technologies can decrease input costs by providing farmers with more detailed information and application control, but adoption has been sluggish, especially for variable-rate technologies (VRT). Is it possible that farmers have difficulty realizing these cost savings? Combinations of PA technologies are considered as complements, testing several patterns of PA technology adoption that may show different levels of costs. The USDA’s Agricultural Resource Management Survey of corn producers is used to estimate a treatment-effects model that allows for selection bias. VRT contributes additional production cost savings when added to soil mapping, but not when done with yield mapping alone.

Researchers typically invoke theoretical assumptions to estimate mark-ups. Instead, we directly obtain mark-ups by surveying Pakistani soccer-ball producers. We document six facts: (i) Mark-ups are more dispersed than costs; (ii) Mark-ups and costs increase with firm size; (iii) The mark-up elasticity with respect to size exceeds the cost elasticity; (iv) Costs increase with size because larger firms use higher-quality inputs; (v) Larger firms charge higher mark-ups because they have higher production shares of high-quality balls that carry higher mark-ups, and because they charge higher mark-ups conditional on ball type; (vi) Correlations suggest marketing efforts are important for generating higher mark-ups.

Background Foraging efficiency determines whether animals will be able to raise healthy broods, maintain their own condition, avoid predators and ultimately increase their fitness. Using accelerometers and GPS loggers, features of the habitat and the way animals deal with variable conditions can be translated into energetic costs of movement, which, in turn, can be translated to energy landscapes.We investigated energy landscapes in Gentoo Penguins Pygoscelis papua from two colonies at New Island, Falkland/Malvinas Islands. Results In our study, the marine areas used by the penguins, parameters of dive depth and the proportion of pelagic and benthic dives varied both between years and colonies. As a consequence, the energy landscapes also varied between the years, and we discuss how this was related to differences in food availability, which were also reflected in differences in carbon and nitrogen stable isotope values and isotopic niche metrics. In the second year, the energy landscape was characterized by lower foraging costs per energy gain, and breeding success was also higher in this year. Additionally, an area around three South American Fur Seal Arctocephalus australis colonies was never used. Conclusions These results confirm that energy landscapes vary in time and that the seabirds forage in areas of the energy landscapes that result in minimized energetic costs. Thus, our results support the view of energy landscapes and fear of predation as mechanisms underlying animal foraging behaviour. Furthermore, we show that energy landscapes are useful in linking energy gain and variable energy costs of foraging to breeding success.

Welfare measures from travel cost models net out variable costs such as travel expenses specific to each trip. Costs that are fixed in the short run, such as expenses for equipment that is used over multiple trips, are typically ignored and implicitly netted out. The resulting net value of recreation trips, or consumer surplus, is appropriate for long-run analysis when consumers can fully adjust their expenditures. However, in cases where some costs are difficult to adjust in the short run, such as when boat owners do not sell their boats in response to the transient effects of an oil spill, traditional consumer surplus measures underestimate the total welfare change. We explain this underestimation and show how to correct for it by adjusting traditional consumer surplus estimates upward. We illustrate our procedure using a model of recreational boating developed to assess damages from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. In that case, accounting for boating fixed costs resulted in a 50% increase in estimated value relative to estimates of consumer surplus alone.

Do firms become more efficient after becoming exporters? Do exporters generate positive externalities for domestically oriented producers? In this paper we tackle these questions by analyzing the causal links between exporting and productivity using plant-level data. We look for evidence that firms' cost processes change after they break into foreign markets. We find that relatively efficient firms become exporters; however, in most industries, firms' costs are not affected by previous exporting activities. So the well-documented positive association between exporting and efficiency is explained by the self-selection of the more efficient firms into the export market. We also find some evidence of positive regional externalities.

The voluntary task-switching paradigm requires subjects to select randomly between tasks and promises to provide a window into executive task selection independent of exogenous influences present in standard task-switching situations. We show here that the degree to which subjects perseverate on tasks across trials captures unique individual differences variance, but also that the switch rate is under strong stimulus-driven control: \"Voluntary\" switches are much more frequent when the stimulus changes than when it repeats. Most important, we show that individuals whose no-switch trials are selectively slowed exhibit less perseveration and stimulus-driven effects (and thus more voluntary selection) than individuals whose no-switch trials do not show this slowing. We suggest that selective slowing indicates a strategy of treating trials as discrete events--possibly through inhibition of the preceding task set. These results not only demonstrate massive nonvoluntary influences on voluntary selection that are largely untapped by standard task-switching measures, but also show how such influences can be counter-acted through strategic adaptations.

Large exporters are simultaneously large importers. We show that this pattern is key to understanding low aggregate exchange rate pass-through as well as the variation in pass-through across exporters. We develop a theoretical framework with variable markups and imported inputs, which predicts that firms with high import shares and high market shares have low exchange rate pass-through. We test and quantify the theoretical mechanism using Belgian firm-product-level data on imports and exports. Small nonimporting firms have nearly complete pass-through, while large import-intensive exporters have pass-through around 50 percent, with the marginal cost and markup channels contributing roughly equally.

Intercropping cantaloupe and cotton can improve grower profits over traditional monoculture practices because crops share resources and production costs. However, developing effective programs to control weeds with herbicides that are safe to both crops can be challenging. Research was conducted to (1) identify herbicide systems to manage Palmer amaranth in cantaloupe–cotton intercropping production while minimizing crop injury, and (2) determine the profitability of cantaloupe–cotton intercropping. Ethalfluralin applied preplant did not injure cantaloupe or cotton, but Palmer amaranth was not controlled. The addition of fomesafen preplant improved Palmer amaranth control to at least 92% without injuring cotton, but cantaloupe necrosis and chlorosis of up to 20% was recorded. Halosulfuron-methyl was safely applied over cantaloupe, but its residual activity reduced cotton growth by 12% at 4 wk after planting; halosulfuron-methyl did not improve Palmer amaranth control beyond that noted with ethalfluralin plus fomesafen preplant. Intercropping systems that controlled Palmer amaranth at least 92% produced cantaloupe yields (25,760 to 25,890 fruit ha−1) similar to the weed-free monoculture system (24,120 fruit ha−1) but produced lint cotton yields that were 170 to 275 kg ha−1 less than the weed-free monoculture cotton system. Although cotton production was less in the intercropping system, the returns over variable costs with intercropping systems ($21,670 to 21,920 ha−1) exceeded those of cantaloupe monoculture ($18,070 ha−1) or cotton monoculture ($1,890 to $1,955 ha−1), as long as Palmer amaranth was controlled. Intercropping cantaloupe and cotton is an effective approach to share land resources and production inputs as well as to improve grower profitability and is being rapidly adopted by Georgia growers. Nomenclature: Ethalfluralin; fomesafen; halosulfuron-methyl; Palmer amaranth, Amaranthus palmeri S. Wats.; cantaloupe, Cucumis melo L.; cotton, Gossypium hirsutum L. El sembrar melón cantaloupe y algodón en forma intercalada puede mejorar las ganancias de los productores, en comparación con las prácticas tradicionales de monocultivo, porque los cultivos comparten recursos y los costos de producción. Sin embargo, el desarrollo de programas efectivos de control de malezas con herbicidas que son seguros para ambos cultivos puede ser un reto difícil. Se realizó una investigación para (1) identificar sistemas de herbicidas para el manejo de Amaranthus palmeri en producción intercalada de cantaloupe-algodón minimizando el daño al cultivo, y (2) determinar la rentabilidad del cultivo intercalado de cantaloupe-algodón. Ethalfluralin aplicado en pre-siembra no dañó al cantaloupe o al algodón, pero A. palmeri no fue controlado. El agregar fomesafen en pre-siembra aumentó el control de A. palmeri a al menos 92% sin dañar el algodón, pero en cantaloupe se registró necrosis y clorosis hasta 20%. Halosulfuron-methyl fue seguro aplicado sobre cantaloupe, pero su actividad residual redujo el crecimiento del algodón en 12% a 4 semanas después de la siembra. Halosulfuron-methyl no mejoró el control de A. palmeri más allá del control notado con ethalfluralin más fomesafen en pre-siembra. Los sistemas intercalados que controlaron A. palmeri en al menos 92% produjeron rendimientos de cantaloupe (25,760 a 25,890 frutos ha−1) similares al sistema de monocultivo libre de malezas (24,120 frutos ha−1), pero produjeron rendimientos de fibra de algodón que fueron 170 a 275 kg ha−1 menores que el sistema de monocultivo libre de malezas. Aunque la producción fue menos que el sistema de cultivos intercalados, los ingresos sobre costos variables con los sistemas de cultivos intercalados ($21,670 a 21,920 ha−1) excedieron los del monocultivo de cantaloupe ($18,070 ha−1) o del monocultivo de algodón ($1,890 a $1,955 ha−1), siempre y cuando A. palmeri fuera controlado. Sembrar en forma intercalada cantaloupe y algodón es una forma efectiva de distribuir los recursos del terreno y los insumos de producción, a la vez que se mejora la rentabilidad del productor, y que está siendo rápidamente adoptada por los productores de Georgia.

Micro-level data have had a profound influence on research in international trade over the last ten years. In many regards, this research agenda has been very successful New stylized facts have been uncovered and new trade models have been developed to explain these facts. In this paper we investigate to what extent answers to new micro-level questions have affected answers to an old and central question in the field: how large are the welfare gains from trade? A crude summary of our results is: \"So far, not much.\"

Statisticians generally consider statistical modeling superior (or at least a useful supplement) to experience-based intuition for estimating the outputs of a complex system. But recent psychological research has led to an enhancement of experience-based intuition known as reference class forecasting. The reference class forecasting approach has been championed as a superior alternative to statistical modeling and is already well-regarded in the planning community. This presents a challenge to statistical modeling. To address this challenge, this article uses a Bayesian approach for combining the reference class forecast and the model-based forecast. The Bayesian prior is informed by the reference class information. A likelihood function was constructed to reflect the model's information. This approach was used to estimate healthcare costs under a voluntary employee benefit association (VEBA). The resulting Bayesian posterior forecast had lower variance (and lower forecast error) than either the model-based forecast or the reference-class forecast.