Concerns over the total costs assessed to the beef industry from the implementation of mandatory country-of-origin labeling (COOL) regulations warranted an investigation into the estimation and distribution of marketing and marginal costs of production for retail chain stores and distributors, meat packers and processors, cattle feedlots, cattle stockers and cow-calf producers. It was hypothesized the implementation of COOL would impose non-trivial market and social welfare effects on the participants of the beef industry.This investigation focused on two objectives. The first objective was to provide a full beef industry cost assessment for implementing COOL regulations based on the preliminary guidelines for COOL as published by the United States Department of Agriculture in the proposed rule in October 2003. Financial and production data was collected and used from U.S. retail chain stores and distributors, meat packers and processors, cattle feedlots, and cattle stockers. The second objective was to use the weighted average cost estimates calculated from the data to determine the magnitude of increases in demand for retail beef, wholesale beef, fed cattle, and feeder cattle needed to negate the increase in costs of implementing mandatory COOL regulations.The book is addressed to professionals, researchers, and industry personnel involved in policy, livestock, and economics.