Estimation of Export Demand for U.S Meat Products

With the productivity of US agriculture growing faster than domestic food and fiber demand, U.S farmers and agricultural firms rely heavily on export markets, to sustain price revenues. U.S agricultural exports have been larger than imports since 1960, generating a surplus in agricultural trade. The surplus helps counter the persistent deficit in non-agricultural merchandise trade, ERS - USDA (2013). From its modest beginning during the nineteenth century as a niche market, Asia has grown enormously in importance as a trading partner for the United States, (Foreign Trade Statistics, U.S Census Bureau). For example, by mid-2008, China accounted for 11.2% of all U.S trade behind Canada’s 17.9% share but ahead of Mexico’s 10.7%. This paper econometrically analyzes the export demand of U.S. meat products into these countries using the Export demand model. The model is applied to yearly aggregated data of U.S. meat product exports to some Asian countries from1980 to 2013. Export values were regressed on the per capita GDP of the countries in question, Exchange rates of the currencies of these countries to the U.S. dollar and WTO Membership. Results indicated that, per capita GDP and exchange rates positively affect the quantity of export