A large body of research has evaluated price linkages in spatially separate markets. Much recent research has applied models appropriate for nonstationary data. Such analyses have been criticized for their ignorance of transactions costs, which may inhibit price adjustments and thus affect tests of integration. This analysis utilizes threshold autoregression and cointegration models to account for a neutral band representing transactions costs. We evaluate daily price linkages among four corn and four soybean markets in North Carolina. Nonlinear impulse response functions are used to investigate dynamic patterns of adjustments to shocks. Our results confirm the presence of thresholds and indicate strong support for market integration, though adjustments following shocks may take many days to be complete. In every case, the threshold models suggest much faster adjustments in response to deviations from equilibrium than is the case when threshold behavior is ignored. Copyright 2001, Oxford University Press.

A theoretical model of consumer response to publicized food safety information on meat demand is developed with an empirical application to U.S. meat consumption. Evidence is found for the existence of pre-committed levels of consumption, seasonal factors, time trends, and contemporaneous own- and cross-commodity food safety concerns. The average demand response to food safety concerns is small, especially in comparison to price effects, and to previous estimates of health related issues. This small average effect masks periods of significantly larger responses corresponding with prominent food safety events, but these larger impacts are short-lived with no apparent food safety lagged effects on demand. Copyright 2004, Oxford University Press.

The implications of model specification choices for the measurement of demand response to advertising are examined using Australian data. Single-equation models versus complete systems and alternative corrections for autocorrelation are evaluated. Competing advertising efforts by two producer bodies are included. Across all specifications, the evidence on advertising effects is fairly consistent. In the preferred model, the only statistically significant effects of advertising are for Australian Meat and Livestock Corporation advertising (of beef and lamb) on the demand for beef (positive) and on the demand for chicken (negative). Australian Pork Corporation advertising does not have any statistically significant effects. Copyright 1996, Oxford University Press.

Equilibrium displacement modeling is used to analyze the effects of incremental advertising expenditure by the Australian beef, lamb, and pork industries in domestic and export markets. The effects on prices, quantities traded, revenues, producer surpluses, and profits net of advertising expenditure are reported. Cross-commodity impacts of advertising are highlighted, including how one industry has to adjust its advertising expenditure to preserve profit levels in the face of increased advertising by another industry. The procedures used are useful when decisions about advertising expenditure need to be made quickly.