Long-only commodity index funds have been blamed by other futures market participants for inflating commodity prices, increasing market volatility, and distorting historical price relationships. Much of this criticism is leveled without any formal empirical support or even cursory data analyses....

This study investigates the predictability of outlook hog price forecasts released by Iowa State University relative to alternative market and time-series forecasts. The findings suggest that predictive performance of the outlook hog price forecasts can be improved substantially. Under RMSE,...

The study uses the 2005 Nielsen Homescan panel data to estimate price premiums and discounts associated with product attributes, market factors, and consumer characteristics, focusing on the organic attribute for 5 major fresh fruits and 5 major fresh vegetables in the United States. The results...

At present there are 1425 tariff rate quotas (TRQs) notified by member countries to the World Trade Organization. TRQs were provided for in the Uruguay Round as a trade policy instrument to guarantee minimum market access for politically sensitive agricultural imports, and in some cases to...

This paper measures profit efficiency and examines the effect of access to microfinance on theperformance of rice firms in Bangladesh. An extended Cobb-Douglas stochastic frontier profit function wasused to assess profit efficiency and profit loss of rice farmers in Bangladesh in a survey data...

In February 1962 the Council of the Australian Agricultural Economics Society appointed a sub-committee to report on the present state of farm financial statistics in Australia and to recommend desirable improvements. The aims in calling for this report were twofold: (a) Members of the Society...

The optimal crop revenue insurance contract is designed from recent developments in the theory of insurance economics under incomplete markets. The message is two-fold. Firstly, when the indemnity schedule is contingent onindividual price and individual yield, the optimal contract depends only...

Pro forma financial performance evaluation of agricultural producers is an important issue for lenders, internal management and policy makers. Lenders strive to improve their credit risk management. Internal management is interested in understanding the financial impacts of alternative strategic...

This research focuses on developing a biannual net revenue forecasting model for hog producers based on Monte Carlo simulation of the joint distribution of hog, corn and soybean meal price series. The relative forecasting power of historical volatility, implied volatility and GARCH-based...

The understanding of how allocation decisions can maximise the economic returns to the community from water for irrigation has received little attention, but is a significant issue for regional councils, those interested in water allocation policy development, and for irrigated farmers. There is...