Empirical evidence on the risk-return trade-off in stocks has been conflicting. Several studies estimate a positive risk-return trade-off (see French <italic>et al</italic>., 1987; Campbell and Hentschel, 1992) but other researchers find the opposite (see Nelson, 1991; Glosten <italic>et al</italic>., 1993) and most of the results have...

We estimate a distance function of grains production using generalized method of moments that enables us to accommodate multiple outputs of farmers as well as address the endogeneity issues that are related with the use of distance functions for multi-output production. Using a panel data set of...

We analyze the link between large and destructive floods and armed conflict in 117 countries between 1985 and 2009 employing flood-induced migration as a potential transmission channel. We use rainfall as an instrument for flood-induced migration and employ a two step procedure (Rivers and Vuong...

Global warming has been a heated topic in recent decades and it is shown that the average temperature of U.S. has been increasing since 1901 and more quickly from 1970s. However the data reveals that on state level a different temperature changing pattern exist and some area might experience...

After a lifetime of working and saving, retirement is a time that an individual can participate in aspirations and activities that were difficult to explore under the constraints of family rearing and full time employment. This newfound freedom allows one to act on her true preferences and alter...

Futures markets have two main goals: price discovery and risk management. Because management decisions often have to be made on a time horizon longer than the time until expiration of the nearby futures contract, it is important to determine how well distant-delivery futures contracts are able...

A large literature exists on measuring the allocative and technical efficiency of a set of firms. A segment of this literature uses data envelopment analysis (DEA), creating relative efficiency rankings that are nonstochastic and thus cannot be evaluated according to the precision of the...

Cottonseed crushers face substantial risk in terms of input and output price variability and they are limited in their planning by the lack of viable futures markets for cottonseed or cottonseed products. This study examines the feasibility of cross-hedging cottonseed products using soybean...

Forecasts of economic time series are often evaluated according to their accuracy as measured by either quantitative precision or qualitative reliability. We argue that consumers purchase forecasts for the potential utility gains from utilizing them, not for their accuracy. Using Monte Carlo...