Why do the poor have so many economic activities? According to one theory the poor do not specialize because relying on one income source is risky. I test the theory by measuring the response of Thai rice farmers to conditional volatility in the international rice price. Households expecting a...

Federal renewable energy R&D spending is intended, at least in part, to achieve path-breaking commercial breakthroughs in ethanol, hydrogen, solar and wind energy. Recently, the private sector has begun to respond to market opportunities generated by the spike in oil prices and governmental...

This paper presents a mean-variance model of portfolio choice and asset pricing when the price of consumption goods as well as the return to assets is uncertain. The correlation of an assets return with purchases at expected prices is shown to reduce both the mean return and the variance of the...

Recent studies have presented different views on the relationship between interest rates and commodity prices. The theory of storage and arbitrage approaches fully incorporate nominal interest rates in commodity price spreads. Alternative frameworks admit a relationship between the interest rate...