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Beef and Pork Packing Costs and Input Demands: Effects of Unionization and Technology
Author(s) -
Melton Bryan E.,
Huffman Wallace E.
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
american journal of agricultural economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.949
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1467-8276
pISSN - 0002-9092
DOI - 10.2307/1243217
Subject(s) - capital (architecture) , economics , wage , value (mathematics) , labour economics , demographic economics , mathematics , statistics , archaeology , history
The effects of unionization, technology, and structural considerations on value‐added beef and pork packing costs and the demand for labor, capital, packaging, and other inputs are analyzed by econometric methods for the period 1963–88. Although unions do not appear to have had significant wage effects over this period (relative to broader U.S. wage rates), significant nonwage cost effects are observed. These nonwage effects help explain the technological, structural, and geographic changes that have occurred in meat packing in recent years which, in turn, help explain the erosion of union strength in meat packing observed over the study period.