We study the validity of uncovered interest-rate parity (UIP) by constructing ultra long time series that span two centuries. The forward-premium regressions yield positive slope estimates over the whole sample period and become negative only when the sample is dominated by the period of 1980s....

This is a comprehensive study of the growth and impact of agricultural futures market traders. The growth of financial investment in commodities has introduced participants and raised both new questions and warranted revisiting old questions; these include the impact on commodity prices, the...

No-till (NT) has been shown to reduce fuel, labor, and machinery costs compared to conventional-till (CT) but very few rice producers in Arkansas practice NT. The low adoption rate is most likely due to difficulties in management but also limited information on the profitability and risk of NT....

Replaced with revised version of paper 02/10/10.

In this dissertation, I investigate three related topics on asset pricing: the consumption-based asset pricing under long-run risks and fat tails, the pricing of VIX (CBOE Volatility Index) options and the market price of risk embedded in stock returns and stock options. These three topics are...

The risk premium has risen sharply in the nation's financial markets. This is the message to be drawn from the significant rise in interest rates in recent days -- notwithstanding a stagnant economy, slowing inflation, and credit demands which, overall, are only moderate. The economy is clearly...

This paper develops a reduced form three-factor model which includes a liquidity proxy of market conditions which is then used to provide implicit prices. The model prices are then compared with observed market prices of credit default swaps to determine if swap rates adequately reflect market...

In this paper we decompose nominal interest rates into real risk-free rates, inflation expectations and risk premia using an affine model that takes as factors the observed inflation rate and the parameters generated in the zero yield curve estimation. We apply this model to the Spanish economy...

En este trabajo se obtiene una estimación de las expectativas de inflación para varios países de América Latina utilizando un modelo afín, que incluye como factores la inflación observada y los parámetros generados a partir de las curvas de rendimientos cupón cero sobre bonos soberanos...

Rice is a major cash crop in eastern Arkansas, but most rice acres are intensively cultivated and grown on rented land. No-till is an effective means of sequestering soil carbon and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and economic incentives exist for no-till in the form of carbon credits....