Economic substitution for US wheat food use by class*

Abstract

Wheat for food use is conceptualised as an input into flour production and demand is derived from an industry profit function to quantify price responsiveness and economic substitutability across wheat classes. Price and substitution elasticities are estimated for hard red winter, hard red spring, soft red wheat, soft white winter and durum wheat. In general, hard red winter and spring wheat varieties are much more responsive to their own price than are soft wheat varieties and durum wheat. Substitution elasticities indicate that hard red winter and hard red spring wheat are economic substitutes for milling purposes.