Marketing equilibriums for the United States egg industry under alternative levels of production

Published in 1970

During 1966 high egg prices were accompanied by production increases. By the end of 1967, egg prices were low and unprofitable. The United States egg industry viewed the problem as overproduction. Low prices and overproduction were especially prominent in southern California. The intent of this thesis is to utilize a reactive programming model for examining prices and trade flows under alternate levels of egg production. Reactive programming is an algorithm which determines spatial equilibriums by combining linear programming and equations which describe functional relationships of the markets. Price and trade flows are investigated for production alternatives for the US as a whole. Southern surplus regions, southern California, and Southwestern and Western deficit regions. Optimum solutions indicated that the large egg deficits in the Northeastern regions were more efficiently filled by the South and Midwest, Markets offering highest net returns for southern California- were the egg deficits in the Western regions, Texas, and Oklahoma, Results under production alternatives showed that if the entire US, increased production, prices would have decreased proportionally more and total revenue would have declined. When production was increased for one region or a segment of the US, producers added to total revenue by increasing production® This occurred in both deficit regions and surplus regions

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