The elasticity of excess demand for United States crop exports

Graduation date: 2010The elasticity of excess demand held by foreign buyers of United States\ud agricultural products is critical for understanding the impacts of changes in farm policy\ud and is a parameter that is much debated. The objective of my study is to estimate this\ud parameter for major U.S. export crops, including wheat, corn, and soybeans. I first\ud formulate an economic model of U.S. exports including country-specific, crop-specific\ud price transmission elasticities, supply elasticities, and demand elasticities for each of the\ud major importers of U.S. crops. I then regress each model with updated time-series data\ud sources, carry out extensive diagnostic tests, and incorporate these estimates into an\ud economic model of U.S. export markets to calculate the excess demand elasticities. I\ud provide a systematic comparison to previous estimates in the literature and find that the\ud foreign demand for corn and soybeans tends to be fairly elastic, while the demand for\ud wheat is relatively inelastic