Recent international conflicts have resurrected concerns about how to manage supply disruptions or sudden escalation of need for energy, and other critical imports such as vaccines or military components. Prominent proactive measures include support of domestic production and accumulation of...

We analyse how money as a store of value affects the decisions of a representative household under diversifiable and non-diversifiable risks. given that the central bank successfully stabilizes the rate of inflation at a low level. Assuming exponential utility allows us to derive an explicit...

The first step in planning and delivering a successful program is to identify the needs and interests of the target audience. The North Central Risk Management Education Center, which provides grants for educational programs for producers in the 12 north central states in the US, conducted a...

The Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 (2002 Farm Act), which governs agricultural programs through 2007, was signed into law in May 2002. This report presents an initial evaluation of the new legislation's effects on agricultural commodity markets, based on sectorwide model...

Although small firms are most sensitive to interest rate and other shocks, empirical work on corporate risk management has focused instead on large public companies. This paper studies fixed-rate and adjustable-rate loans to see how small firms manage their exposure to interest rate risk. The...

The Federal Reserve System's Private Equity Merchant Banking Knowledge Center, formed at the Chicago Fed in 2000 after the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act was passed, sponsors an annual conference on new industry developments. This article summarizes the 2007 conference, Private Equity Has Gone Big......

The paper provides an overview of the hedge fund industry, mainly from a financial stability and European angle. It is primarily based on an extensive analysis of information from the TASS database. On the positive side of the financial stability assessment, hedge funds have a role as providers...

Accounting standard setters are considering the wider use of fair value accounting. This paper focuses on the financial stability implications of a move in the banking sector from the current accounting framework to full fair value accounting. A simulation exercise is performed on how various...

This essay reflects upon the relationship between the current theory of financial intermediation and real-world practice. Our critical analysis of this theory leads to several building blocks of a new theory of financial intermediation. Current financial intermediation theory builds on the...