The effects of meat advertising expenditures on quarterly beef, pork, and poultry demand are estimated using a nonlinear Rotterdam model. Advertising stocks are incorporated into the model as both demand shifters and price and total expenditure scaling factors. Branded beef, pork, and poultry advertising elasticities are each significantly different from zero. Generic beef and pork advertising elasticities are not significantly different from zero. Some cross‐advertising elasticities are significantly different from zero. Branded beef and poultry advertising have increased total meat consumption.

Out-of-sample forecasting of annual U.S. per capita food consumption, applying data from 1923 to 1992, is used as a basis for model selection among the absolute price Rotterdam model, a first-differenced linear approximate almost ideal demand system (FDLA/ALIDS) model, and a first-differenced double-log demand system. Conditional-on-price consumption forecasts derived from elasticities are determined to be superior to direct statistical model forecasts. Models with consumer theory imposed through parametric restrictions provide better forecasts than models with little theory-imposition. For these data, a double-log demand system is a superior forecaster to the Rotterdam model, which is superior to the FDLA/ALIDS model. Copyright 1996, Oxford University Press.

This analysis utilizes multivariate gradual switching regression techniques and Bayesian inferential procedures to evaluate structural change in factor demand relationships in the food manufacturing industry. Food materials are included as an input into the food manufacturing industry. The results confirm a significant gradual structural change that initiated in 1980. Price elasticities indicate that the demands for raw food materials and energy have become more elastic while the demand for labor has become less elastic. Morishima elasticities of substitution indicate that nearly all factors are substitutes and that the degree of substitutability has significantly increased in recent years.

We examine the impacts of adopting animal identification and tracing systems on the U.S. meat and livestock industry. Using a multimarket equilibrium displacement model, we find that a modest increase in domestic demand for beef would offset the costs of an animal identification system. Similarly, an increase in beef export demand equivalent to Japan's beef export market share prior to the 2003 U.S. discovery of bovine spongiform encephalopathy would offset animal identification system costs.