The Economics of Cattle Supply

This paper builds a dynamic rational expectations model describing the supply of cattle. The theoretical model inlproves on existing models by allowing cow-calf operators to make period-by-period investment decisions on both the cow and calf margins, separates the markets for fed and unfed beef, and considers a rich set of exogenous shocks. The model is calibrated and used to simulate artificial data that replicates several empirical regularities associated with the cattle cycle