Anti-Corporate Farming Laws and Industry Structure: The Case of Cattle Feeding

Nine midwestern states have laws that restrict the involvement of publicly held corporations in agriculture. Opponents argue that the laws' direct efforts to regulate ownership structure may have an adverse indirect impact on size structure. Restricting corporate involvement might stifle the emergence and growth of efficient, large-scale establishments if corporations have advantages over other organizational forms in meeting capital requirements. Since 1982, Nebraska has had an anti-corporate farming law that prohibits corporate ownership of feedlots. We test whether the implementation of the Nebraska law had an impact on the stochastic process governing the evolution of the state's feedlot size distribution.