The present report gathers 21 contributions received from national Economic and Social Councils (ESCs) and similar institutions, civil society organisations and members of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) in relation to their implications and activities regarding the 2012...

This paper identifies major future trends and driving factors and perspectives and challenges resultingfrom them for European agriculture and food sectors until the year 2020. The focus of the paper is ananalysis of key driving forces and the provision of a well developed reference scenario...

This paper discusses the volatility spillover effects in agricultural commodity markets, via studying implied volatilities derived from nearby options contracts. Using weekly averaged data from corn and soybean markets after 2003, a vector autoregressive (VAR) model is estimated, and impulse...

Price volatility in the corn market has changed considerably globalization and stronger linkages to the energy complex. Using data from January 1989 through December 2009, we estimate and forecast the volatility in the corn market using futures daily prices. Estimates in a Fractional Integrated...

In this paper we inquire why after more than 25 years of domestic agricultural reforms in Mexico and 15 years of trade liberalization of maize under NAFTA –a non-competitive crop and the major staple in Mexico–domestic production of this field crop has increased. We present new empirical...

The influence of climate variability on agricultural production and financial risks faced by an individual or an institution has been the center of the public discussion in the recent years. The changing weather patterns and environmental conditions could cause substantial unpredicted economic...

Futures prices when combined with a basis forecast provide a reliable way to forecast cashprices. The most popular method of forecasting basis is historical moving averages. Given therecent failure of longer moving averages proposed by previous studies, this research reassessespast...

The literature on economics of transition has suggested a number of scenarios to explain unemployment and labour reallocation in Eastern Europe. However, it has recently been argued that these so-called Optimal Speed of Transition (OST) studies do not account for many stylized facts concerning...

This paper examines the emergence of firm-celebrity, both an intangible-asset, and a facilitator of competitive advantage. Institutional approaches have asserted that organizations from the same organizational field and characterized by comparable structural positions face similar structural...