Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Regulation Of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations: An Application Of Economic Theory To Firm Decision Making And Applications For Public Policy, Benjamin Gramig

University of Kentucky Master's Theses

The livestock industry in the United States has experienced significant concentration and vertical integration in recent years. This change has resulted in greater observed levels of pollution attributed to concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO) and society has attempted to use regulation to remedy these problems. Despite regulation at the federal and local level no documented improvement in water quality has been observed to date. This thesis is concerned with the response of profit-maximizing economic agents to the form of environmental regulation adopted at the federal level. A theoretical model of firm profit is proposed and analyzed using comparative statics to …