Abstract:
Marketing cooperatives that operate on a pool basis allocate net returns on the basis of the "economic value" of the raw products each member has delivered. Economic values ideally reflect the raw products' expected contributions to pool net return. In a competitive market, raw product prices would reflect these expected returns quite well. In the absence of such a competitive market, one must formulate expectations models of returns to each product, which requires identifying the separate returns. The purpose of this thesis is to describe and employ a method of distinguishing expected return to each raw product when raw products are commingled on the assembly line. The approach taken is to conduct a hedonic analysis of processed product net returns as a function of raw product ingredients.
