This study analyzes the problem of multi‐commodity hedging from the downside risk perspective. The lower partial moments (LPM₂)‐minimizing hedge ratios for the stylized hedging problem of a typical Texas panhandle feedlot operator are calculated and compared with hedge ratios implied by the...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate changes proposed in 2012 to commodity programs for the new Farm Bill. Both the Senate and House Agriculture Committee versions of the new Farm Bill eliminate current commodity programs including direct payments, create new revenue-based...

Generated crop insurance rates depend critically on the distributional assumptions of the underlying crop yield loss model. Using farm level corn yield data from 1972-2008, we revisit the problem of examining in-sample goodness-of-fit measures across a set of flexible parametric,...

Stochastic Weather Generators (SWGs) try to replicate the stochastic patterns of climatological variables characterized by high dimensionality, non-normal probability density functions and non-linear dependence relationships. However, conventional SWGs usually typify weather variables with not...

Enhanced environmental quality, fuel security, and economic development along with reduced prices of ethanol-gasoline blends are often used as justifications for the U.S. federal excise tax exemption on ethanol fuels. However, the possible effect of increased overall consumption of fuel in...