Feasibility of Broccoli as a New Enterprise—A Systems Approach

The federal crop insurance program has been a major fixture of U.S. agricultural policy since the 1930s, and continues to grow in size and importance. Indeed, it now represents the most prominent farm policy instrument, accounting for more government spending than any other farm commodity program. The 2014 Farm Bill further expanded the crop insurance program and introduced a number of new county‐level revenue insurance plans. In 2013, over $123 billion in crop value was insured under the program. Crop revenue insurance, first introduced in the 1990s, now accounts for nearly 70% of the total liability in the program. The available plans cover losses that result from a revenue shortfall that can be triggered by multiple, dependent sources of risk—either low prices, low yields, or a combination of both. The actuarial practices currently applied when rating these plans essentially involve the application of a Gaussian copula model to the pricing of dependent risks. We evaluate the suitability of this assumption by considering a number of alternative copula models. In particular, we use combinations of pair‐wise copulas of conditional distributions to model multiple sources of risk. We find that this approach is generally preferred by model‐fitting criteria in the applications considered here. We demonstrate that alternative approaches to modeling dependencies in a portfolio of risks may have significant implications for premium rates in crop insurance.

Drawing on the long-term studies of the relationships between the natural, social and technical sciences, on my participation in the three international projects and the own empirical investigations of natural and technological disasters, I came to the following conclusions. First, a mono-disciplinary approach to modern multisided transformations has become outdated. Second, all modern events including critical situations have systemic character. Third, any systemic events or processes should be studied by the interdisciplinary approach. Four, the modern world has nonlinear, uncertain and unpredictable character. Five, any environment has double i.e. passive-active nature, therefore when its carrying capacity is overcoming it usually transforming into a multisided actor. Six, recently the situation has aggravated by the still ill-studied process of transformation of the Biosphere into the sociobiotechnosphere (hereafter the SBT-system). Seven, its feedback in relation of humanity is ill-studied as well. Eight, this SBT-system may have various degrees of integrity, from the chaotic, over complex and hybrid till a full systemic character. Nine, various metabolic processes are the main “integrator” of natural and social sciences. Ten, any environment has its own carrying capacity. In sum, if one takes into account the above considerations, the systemic and interdisciplinary approaches are the best way to making the models of future SBT-systems. But at the same time, in our tightly integrated world, the systemic and interdisciplinary approaches have their limits because these approaches are only the scientific but not the political instruments.

Alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) is the most valuable forage crop grown on approximately 30 m ha (74 million acres) worldwide. It is the third most valuable crop harvested in the U.S. behind only corn and soybeans. Alfalfa is widely recognized as a significant component of most dairy and other animal rations because of the multiple benefits it provides: Alfalfa adds valuable fiber, has a faster rate of fiber digestion than grasses, is very palatable, is high in protein, provides needed vitamins, is a good buffer in the rumen, and promotes animal health. In addition, it provides legume nitrogen credits and has rotational yield boost to following crops. It provides environmental benefits in soil remediation, reduced erosion (compared to row crops), and supports varied wildlife by being a source of cover and food from insects, spiders, mites, and earthworms. A major issue is low yield, where the record alfalfa yield in the U.S. is 26 t/a DM with irrigation in Arizona while the average alfalfa yield on a farm in the U.S. is about 4.5 tons/acre DM. The yield problem is a combination of environmental and management issues. Breeding objectives should continue to be resistance to diseases and insects. However, a major long-term direction should be to increase alfalfa yield. Possibly each of the following breeding objectives could contribute: raise limits to natural photosynthesis, reduce dark respiration, develop cultivars that have less leaf loss during harvest, and minimizing the impact of wheel traffic on stands. An additional breeding objective should be to increase the bypass protein of alfalfa. While this will not affect yield, it will increase alfalfa value to users.KeywordsYieldFiber digestionBypass proteinTanninsEnvironment

The greatest barrier to the use of oat as an animal feed is its high hull content. In spite of its excellent fat and amino acid composition in animal feed use, as far as nutritional value is concerned, the total energy yield of oat is weaker than that of other cereals because of the hulls which have an energy yield like that of straw, so the use and cultivation of oat has remained behind that of plants richer in energy. There are two ways to improve the low energy yield from the cultivation of oat: one is to cultivate naked oat (naked oat, also referred to as hulless oat, describes a variety of oat that with a caryopsis threshes free from maternal lemma and palea under normal mechanical harvest) and the other way is to cultivate high-yielding conventional oat and dehull it mechanically after threshing.The analysis in this paper is based on economic comparisons related to cultivation, dehulling, and crop value. The results show that the main differences in cultivation costs between naked and conventional oat lie in the amount of seeds required and the drying costs. The main differences affecting the economic result lie in market prices, yield level, and feed value. The results indicate that naked oat is financially more profitable than conventional oat, when the crop is sold at a specific price at all yield levels, when the crop is used as feed at the highest yield level. At lower yield levels, conventional oat is, in spite of its lower feed value, the more profitable option for feed use. Dehulled oat, however, did not achieve the same economic result as naked oat at any yield level, as the cost of dehulling, including disposing of the hull waste, was considerable.

International carbon markets are an appealing and increasingly popular tool to regulate carbon emissions. By putting a price on carbon, carbon markets reshape incentives faced by firms and reduce the value of emissions. How effective are carbon markets? Observers have tended to infer their effectiveness from market prices. The general belief is that a carbon market needs a high price in order to reduce emissions. As a result, many observers remain skeptical of initiatives such as the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS), whose price remained low (compared to the social cost of carbon). In this paper, we assess whether the EU ETS reduced [Formula: see text] emissions despite low prices. We motivate our study by documenting that a carbon market can be effective if it is a credible institution that can plausibly become more stringent in the future. In such a case, firms might cut emissions even though market prices are low. In fact, low prices can be a signal that the demand for carbon permits weakens. Thus, low prices are compatible with successful carbon markets. To assess whether the EU ETS reduced carbon emissions even as permits were cheap, we estimate counterfactual carbon emissions using an original sectoral emissions dataset. We find that the EU ETS saved about 1.2 billion tons of [Formula: see text] between 2008 and 2016 (3.8%) relative to a world without carbon markets, or almost half of what EU governments promised to reduce under their Kyoto Protocol commitments. Emission reductions in sectors covered under the EU ETS were higher.

Sellers are typically better informed about product quality than their customers. Because sellers have an incentive to misrepresent quality, it may not be possible for market prices to effectively convey this information to rational consumers, as was first argued by Akerloff (1970). The purpose of this paper is to argue that even if sellers are initially better informed than buyers, prices may yet be informative if buyers can purchase additional information about quality from an external, reliable source. In this setting, the informative role of prices is shown to depend crucially on the cost of external information to consumers. In particular, there exists a critical value such that when the cost of information is below this value, the market equilibrium is characterized by two distinct prices and a different pricing strategy for each type of seller. High quality sellers deterministically charge the high price while low quality sellers randomize between the low price, which corresponds to the low quality price that obtains under conditions of complete information, and the high price. The equilibrium frequency with which the high price is mimiced by low quality sellers decreases as the cost of information grows smaller and goes to zero in the limit. Correspondingly, the level of the high price increases as the cost of information decreases and approaches the complete information high quality price in the limit. Thus the less costly it is for buyers to become independently informed, the less noise the low quality seller generates and the more informative about quality the high price is.

This paper addresses the modeling and forecasting of daily high and low asset prices in the Brazilian stock market using a fractionally cointegrated vector autoregressive model (FCVAR). Forecasts are then used in a simple trading strategy to evaluate the application of technical analysis (TA) for equity shares traded at the B3. As a flexible framework, FCVAR is able to account for two fundamental patterns of high and low asset prices: their cointegrating relationship and the long-memory of their difference (i.e., the range), a measure of realized volatility. The analysis comprises the twenty most traded stocks at the B3 during the period from January 2010 to May 2017. Empirical findings indicate a significant cointegration relationship between daily high and low prices, which are integrated of an order close to the unity, as well as the range displays long memory and is in the stationary region in most of the cases. Based on historical data, results support that the high and low prices of equity shares are largely predictable and their forecasts can improve TA trading strategies applied on Brazilian equity shares. Further, the fractionally cointegrated approach appears as a potential forecasting tool for market practitioners on their investment strategies.

Welfare gains from Foreign Direct Investment through technology transfer to local suppliers

This research explores the influencing factors of market share price behavior in the Nepalese insurance business. The study focuses on four insurance firms and utilizes a purposive sample approach, yielding a dataset of 40 observations. The research investigates the correlations between significant factors such as dividend payout ratio (DPR), Earnings per share (EPS), price–earnings ratio (PER), dividend per share (DPS), and market price per share (MPS). The data show strong relationships between these characteristics and the MPS. The DPR and MPS have a negative connection, indicating that increased dividend distributions may lead to lower market prices. Positive correlations, on the other hand, are discovered among EPS, PER, DPR, and MPS, indicating that investors appreciate firms with greater profitability, growth prospects, and dividend payments. The research adds to the knowledge of share price behavior in Nepalese insurance firms. However, it is crucial to note that the findings are based on small sample size and may not apply to other sectors or countries. To fully understand the factors determining market pricing, future research should investigate increasing the sample size and including longitudinal approaches. These results have practical ramifications for investors, insurers, and politicians. Understanding share price behavior allows stakeholders to make educated choices about investment strategies, financial performance assessment, and policy creation to improve economic performance and shareholder value in Nepal's insurance business.

This research determines the profitability for farmers of marketing film-wrapped Crown-Cut broccoli in Southwest Virginia. Historical price data was collected in three eastern terminal markets (Atlanta, Baltimore, and Philadelphia) for Crown-Cut and bunched broccoli from October 1998 to January 2005. Cost-of-production budgets were estimated for Crown-Cut broccoli. The economic data was entered into a market window analysis and the profitability of each market was evaluated. The profitability of Crown-Cut broccoli was illustrated by market-window graphics. Market windows were generated using an analysis platform developed by Kalo (1998). The profitability estimates were calculated by posting historical market prices by week in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet and subtracting corresponding unit costs for transportation and production. Study results show that there is potential profit for producing Crown-Cut broccoli during the first weeks of October. Atlanta proved to have the most profit potential of the three markets studied. Given the frost dates in the area, these production windows favor broccoli production without weather risk. Southwestern Virginia should consider developing Crown-Cut production options: the early open market windows combined with the potential for reducing production costs by double-cropping means that a potential profit opportunity exists.

`Sweet Sue' peach (Prunus persica L. Batsch) trees were subjected to a factorial arrangement of treatments. At planting, trees were headed at 10 or 70 cm above the bud union and trees were trained to an open-vase or central-leader form. For the first 4 years, high-headed trees were larger than low-headed trees. After 7 years, open-vase trees had larger trunk cross-sectional area, tree spread, and canopy volume than central-leader trees. Open-vase trees had higher yield and crop value per tree, but lower yield and crop value per unit of land area or unit of canopy volume than central-leader trees. Crop density and yield efficiency were similar for all treatments.

Feeling lucky: How framing the target product as a free gift enhances purchase intention

Price-Matching Guarantees with Endogenous Search: A Market Experiment Approach

This study evaluates the interdependence between pricing and expectations. We investigated not only the ways in which traders’ thoughts determined asset prices, but also the feedback process from prices to expectations. In our laboratory market, subjects were asked to estimate the number of balls in a jar and trade an asset whose value was equal to that number. Our asset market, where transactions were eventually settled at the asset value, was like futures markets. The subjects alternately repeated the process of guessing and transaction. A double-auction was used to design our market. Our findings indicated a downward bias in the subjects’ estimates, which led to lower transaction prices, since the price converged to the equilibrium price that was determined by the median of estimates. The subjects’ experience in our laboratory markets had no systematic effect on the accuracy of estimates, but made them less heterogenous. Our subjects were apt to revise their estimates with reference to prices in a market. We examined the estimation revision process of the subjects using the partial adjustment model.

Assessment of algal biofuel resource potential in the United States with consideration of regional water stress