The effect of animal gender on producer marketing behaviour

Abstract

Weekly grid market share by volume for slaughter steers is compared with slaughter heifers. Summary statistics indicate average grid market share for steers (42%) is higher relative to heifers (33%). The literature indicates that pregnancy and increased dark cutter incidence associated with heifers relative to steers create additional financial risk when heifers are sold on a grid. Empirical evidence suggests that carcass quality risk is a plausible contributing factor to gender disparity with respect to grid market share.

Keywords:

• slaughter cattle
• gender
• marketing risk
• seemingly unrelated regression
• grid marketing

JEL Classification:

• Q13
• C30
• D80

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge partial funding by USDA-NIFA and the South Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station through USDA-NIFA Regional Project: W-2177, which supported this research. The authors appreciate the referee's suggested revisions and the comments by the AE and AEL editors. The authors are responsible for any remaining errors.