Bulletin No.

549

Document Type

Bulletin

Department

Department of Economics

Description

This study is concerned with determining the costs of operating various size commission firms at the Sioux City Terminal Stockyards.
The Sioux City Terminal Stockyards is located in Sioux City, Iowa, at the confluence of the Missouri and Floyd Rivers. It was established in 1893 when the Union Stockyards Company of Sioux City purchased the Central Stock Yard Company of Sioux City. The Sioux City Terminal Stockyards, like most terminal markets, has been experiencing a declining volume of business. Most of this decline can be attributed to technological ·improvements in transportation, refrigeration, and communications. These improvements enabled packing plants to decentralize; to locate nearer areas of concentrated livestock supply where land, building, and labor costs were lower.
The nature of the long run cost function facing an industry is a major factor governing the size of firms within an industry. If there are important economies of size, i.e., average cost of operation decreases as the size of the firm increases, then one may expect a tendency within that industry toward larger operations as the smaller, high-cost firms leave the industry. If, on the other hand, economies of size are not of major importance, a wide dispersion in the size of plants may well result.
This analysis is directed toward determining the relationships between costs, volume and income for various sized commission firms operating at the Sioux City Terminal Stockyards.

Keywords

Sioux City terminal stockyards, Upper Missouri River livestock marketing

Pages

11

Publication Date

12-1968

Type

text

Format

application/pdf

Language

en

Publisher

South Dakota Experiment Station, South Dakota State University

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