An Analysis of Producers' Year-to-Year Changes in Slaughter Hog Marketings

Abstract

Much effort is devoted to explaining and forecasting changes in marketings of agricultural commodities. The usual procedure involves formulating hypotheses about behavior of individual producers, then testing them and quantifying relationships by using aggregate data. The purpose of this paper is to suggest and illustrate a procedure that may provide a foundation for improved explanation and prediction of period-to-period changes in marketings.The procedure uses data obtained from individual producers to test hypotheses about period-to-period changes. Results obtained from an application of this procedure (to analysis of year-to-year changes in hog marketings) suggest that expected profitability alone is unlikely to provide either a very complete explanation or accurate predictions of year-to-year changes.