On Nov 10 I posted a chart showing the decline in beef, hog, and egg prices from 1920 till today. A reader pondered why beef prices stayed so steady for most of the period then declined during the 80's forward. I'll give some thought to this later, but the question immediately made me remember a graph I placed in my textbook showing that the demand for beef definitely declined during the 80's, perhaps due to health reports about red meat. So part of the reason may be demand related. The graphs showing this are below. The index was calculated by a friend of mine who is an agricultural economist.
