An examination of alternative beef handling systems for retail firms
The current trend to boxed beef is supported by this study of 10 different retail beef handling systems when both costs and returns are considered. However, on a purely cost basis the least costly system was for the retailer to centrally cut beef at his|her warehouse. The highest ranking system on a total returns basis was a special type of boxed beef called tray-ready beef. In this new system the packer trims and retail cuts the beef, but reassembles it and ships it as boxed beef. The retailer has only to package it for retail sale.
Measurement of the Economic Efficiency of Central-Fabrication-versus Carcass-Meat-Handling Systems
Relative economic efficiency is measured for a selected sample of retail meat departments using the UOP (unit output price) profit model developed by Lau and Yotopoulos. The analysis suggests that central fabrication is currently more efficient for some, but not all, independent retail meat departments. The analysis also suggests that the relatively new UOP profit model is superior to the more traditional Farrell linear programming technique for evaluating relative efficiency.
Profit, Supply, and Factor Demand Functions
The concept of the profit function provides an alternative approach to the analysis of production. First, a brief exposition of the theory of profit function is presented. Then the profit function and the factor demand functions are formulated within the Cobb-Douglas framework. A statiscal test is devised for testing the hypothesis of constant returns to scale in all factors on the profit function. As an application, both the profit and the factor demand function are estimated jointly, using data from Indian agriculture.