THE HORSE SECTOR: DOES IT MATTER FOR AGRICULTURE?

EU policies focus ever more on rural development initiatives. The horse sector provides some opportunities. An I/O model is used to examine the aggregate effects of the horse sector on Swedish agriculture. The maximal potential of the sector accounts for around 12% of the total contribution to GDP by agriculture.Horse sector, Input-Output, Livestock Production/Industries, Q19,

Where is the Action?

Taking a set of studies about business action as the empirical starting-point, this paper looks at the various ways in which action is represented. The overall research question can be stated as follows: how is business action reconstructed in our narratives? The texts analysed are collected from research on exchange relationships in the field of marketing. To analyse how these texts depict business action, four narrative constructions are focused: space, time, actors, and plots. The categorisation and analysis are summarised and followed by a set of concluding implications and suggestions for the use of narratives aiming to reconstruct business action in the making.Marketing; narrative; plot; marketing methodology; business action; industrial marketing research

A COMPARISON OF MINNESOTA'S FARM BUSINESS MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION MEMBERS AND THE USDA'S FARM COSTS AND RETURNS SURVEY

Many states have farm record associations which collect individual farm data. This data are used for research, extension, and teaching purposes. However, since membership in the associations is voluntary, the question arises whether the members are representative of the population of all farmers in that area. This study compares farm record data collected through the Southeastern and Southwestern Minnesota Farm Business Management Associations (FBMA) and data obtained through the USDA's Farm Costs and Returns Survey (FCRS). Both data sets were for 1987. By design, the FCRS survey is not subject to the self-selection bias that may occur in the FBMA data. The objectives of this study are to: (1) determine which farm characteristics are statistically the same in the FBMA and FCRS data, and (2) determine the farm size ranges in which FBMA farms are statistically representative of FCRS farms'. FBMA farms were not representative of all farms in their area. FBMA farms do not include small operations. Major differences exist in total tillable acreage, rented land and livestock production, especially hogs. These combined differences result in a substantial difference in net farm income between the two farm categories. However, the FBMA farms reflect FCRS farms' solvency conditions relatively well. FBMA farms were more similar to farms with sales exceeding $60,000 per year but differences still existed. Total acreage, total sales (especially sales of hogs), total expenses, and net farm income were significantly (p<.01) higher for FBMA farms. Even at higher sales levels, FBMA farms were characterized by a higher level of livestock production and a slightly larger tillable acreage mainly due to renting additional land. Economic performance measured by net farm income and returns to total assets and family labor also was significantly (p<.01) better for FBMA farms. So even though differences in assets, liabilities, and thus solvency positions were insignificant (p>.10), the economic performance of the FBMA farms appears to be better than FCRS farms even in larger sizes. On the basis of these findings, the FBMA data cannot be used to represent all farms or even all commercial farms. It does appear that FBMA farms can be used to represent larger farms with livestock. Thus, the FBMA data is not well-suited for estimation of economic relationships to be used in aggregate economic analyses of the agricultural sector.Farm Management,

On the Property Rights System of the State Enterprises in China

Detailed analysis of spinal deformity is important within orthopaedic healthcare, in particular for assessment of idiopathic scoliosis. This paper addresses this challenge by proposing an image analysis method, capable of providing a full three-dimensional spine characterization. The proposed method is based on the registration of a highly detailed spine model to image data from computed tomography. The registration process provides an accurate segmentation of each individual vertebra and the ability to derive various measures describing the spinal deformity. The derived measures are estimated from landmarks attached to the spine model and transferred to the patient data according to the registration result. Evaluation of the method provides an average point-to-surface error of 0.9 mm ± 0.9 (comparing segmentations), and an average target registration error of 2.3 mm ± 1.7 (comparing landmarks). Comparing automatic and manual measurements of axial vertebral rotation provides a mean absolute difference of 2.5° ± 1.8, which is on a par with other computerized methods for assessing axial vertebral rotation. A significant advantage of our method, compared to other computerized methods for rotational measurements, is that it does not rely on vertebral symmetry for computing the rotational measures. The proposed method is fully automatic and computationally efficient, only requiring three to four minutes to process an entire image volume covering vertebrae L5 to T1. Given the use of landmarks, the method can be readily adapted to estimate other measures describing a spinal deformity by changing the set of employed landmarks. In addition, the method has the potential to be utilized for accurate segmentations of the vertebrae in routine computed tomography examinations, given the relatively low point-to-surface error

Double-Layer Silicon PIN Photodiode X-Ray Detector for a Future X-ray Timing Mission

A double-layer silicon detector consisting of two 500micron-thick silicon PIN photodiodes with independent readouts was mounted in a vacuum chamber and tested with X-ray sources. The detector is sensitive from 1-30 keV with an effective area of 6 mm^2. The detector performs best at -35 C with an energy resolution of 220 eV (FWHM, full width at half maximum) at 5.9 keV, and is able to operate at room temperature, +25 C, with moderate resolution around 760 eV (FWHM). The response of the top layer sensor is highly uniform across the sensitive area. This large-format silicon detector is appropriate for future X-ray timing missions.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, NIM A to appea

VALUE OF NEW TECHNOLOGIES IN DAIRY FARMING: THE CASE OF ROBOTIC MILKING

The economic value of the innovation robotic milking systems (AMS) is examined for Swedish dairy operations. A mixed integer mathematical programming model, considering crops, calving distribution, seasonality and capacity constraints of the AMS system, is developed. The marginal value of increasing the capacity of the AMS unit is found to amount to 40-60% of the milk revenues per cow.Technology innovations, Dairy systems, Livestock Production/Industries, Q12,

Revisiting the Role of Common Labeling in a Context of Asymmetric Information: Critique and Extensions

Households in the Western Hemisphere are no longer self sufficient in food production. Viewing the product from the shelves in the grocery store makes it difficult for the consumer to gain insight in the production practices and the quality attributes to the product. Formally, we can describe this as the food products purchased from a grocery store contain less search characteristic. Thus, the consumer cannot determine the quality of the product before the purchase. Instead the food products are characterized to be more of experience (quality is revealed after purchase) or credence characteristic (quality is not revealed even after purchase). Although it is not possible to determine the quality of the packaged food product on the shelves, the issues concerning food product quality are not trivial issues in society. The consumers may boycott not only food that can contain food-borne diseases, but also products that may be considered processed or produced in an unethical or hazardous method for the environment. For example, the linkage between the BSE (Bovin Spongiform Encephalopati) in beef and CJD (Creutzfeld-Jakobs Disease) in humans changed the consumption pattern rapidly in Europe, although not all countries reported occurrence of BSE. Consequently, these issues create incentives for the agribusiness firm to design programs for differentiating food products on basis of the perceived quality aspects. Producers supplying products that appeal to consumers? tastes have incitement to differentiate their products by other means than the pricing mechanism. The differentiation process is carried out through implementation of quality-, or certification programs. Certification programs and organizations like ISO, USDA, FAIRTRADE, CROP-WATCH, PDO, PGI, and Organic Europe, distinguish the product quality in terms of in production process, origin, and other tangible or intangible characteristics. When one or several stages in the food chain join to establish specific quality standards, both producers and consumers might reap economic gains through lowered uncertainty and increased efficiency. On the contrary, there is also a probability that the development of quality programs may further enhance market power, thus offset the potential social gains of the program. In essence, a certification program used by individual stages in the agribusiness chain may lead to vertical or horizontal cooperation (collusion), thus potentially moving away from perfect competition. Marette, Crespi, and Schiavina (1999) observe that agricultural markets are working imperfectly due to asymmetric information, where the consumers lack perfect information about the product quality. The suppliers, on the other hand, have incentives to produce both high and low quality products, although the consumers always prefer the higher quality products. The authors hypothesize that the societal welfare increases if consumers can distinguish between high quality and low quality products. Marette et al test this hypothesis by developing a partial equilibrium model under imperfect information in two elaborate scenarios. The model derived by Marette et al treats labeling in agricultural markets in a delicate way. With the certification scheme in place the consumer are able to distinguish between high and low quality products. However, the certification implies that the high quality producers gain market power. The low quality producers are no longer producing, and the high quality producers can exercise market power by either colluding on quantities, e.g. act as a joint monopolist, or play a quantity setting Nash-Cournot game. Essentially, they show that the societal welfare increases when high quality producers come together in a certification scheme and eliminate asymmetric information. Nevertheless, it is crucial to note that the assumptions build in the partial equilibrium framework drives the results. First, the authors choose to use a demand function, which strictly discriminates high quality from low quality products. Second, the authors? assumes that all firms have access to the same technology and have identical marginal cost of production. Third, the certification scheme does not alter the high quality firms? marginal cost. The objective of this study is to analyze certification programs and its impact on the market structure using a programmable mixed complementarity model. This study continues developing the model from Marette et al. Specifically, this study attempts to relief some of the rather restrictive assumptions on consumer and producer behavior that Marette et al have in their paper. First, the results are not stable for perturbations of the quality parameters, and the cost of certification. The results are not invariant to the cost of certification, and for high cost of certification, both producers and consumers are worse off. Second, constructing a utility function that permits demand for low quality products yield rather interesting results as both low quality and high quality producers can coexist under certification. The (aggregate) output level increases with certification. Nevertheless, the prices charged are vastly different between the certified and non-certified product: the high quality products are seven times expensive than the low quality (uncertified) product. Essentially, with certification the consumers? surplus and low quality producers profit decreases, whereas the high quality producers profit increases. The producer profit for high quality producers increases from .02 to .145 units since they produce more units of output to higher price. The low quality producers on the other hand serve the fringe market with relatively small prices, and their profit decreases to .006 units. When there are no high quality producers on the market, the low quality producers supply the whole market. As the high quality producers increase in number, the Nash-Cournot equilibrium approaches the competitive market outcome, i.e. the market price approaches the firm?s marginal cost. Hence, as the market price approaches zero, each producer supplies an infinite small unit of output, and the total welfare approaches unity. Nevertheless, with certification, there is a clear trend towards the low quality producers becoming fringe suppliers. The qualitative difference between varying the number of high and low quality firms is that the welfare is increasing in the number of high quality producer, whereas the total welfare impact is ambiguous when varying the number of low quality producer. Hence, there are two aggregate types of consumers: one inelastic and another elastic segment of consumers. The inelastic high quality type has a strictly higher willingness to pay for high quality products. The second type, on the other hand, also likes high quality, but is more sensitive to price changes than the high quality type. The study proposes by in large three major revisions to the model developed by Marette et al. First, instead of using a linear utility function that serves as a linear approximation to any utility function it is deemed appropriate to first a concrete representation of consumer behavior using a second order Taylor-series approximation to consumer demand where consumers? decision parameters include prices for both certified and uncertified products. Second, rather than assuming a zero unit of production, it is deemed appropriate to extend the framework by developing an underlying production technology with associate marginal cost. Third and lastly, the current model setup does not allow low quality producers to supply high quality goods. This is a rather abstract assumption, however, and should be extended to allow producers to interchangeably supply both high and low quality products, based on profit maximizing principles rather than subjectively chosen rules.

Spatial Competition and Farm Tourism - A Hedonic Pricing Model

Changes in EU agricultural policies towards additional focus on rural development issues raise questions regarding the economic impact of local/spatial competition. Traditionally, farmers have typically been price takers in markets for major agricultural products. This is, however, not necessarily true in the case of local markets for “new enterprises”. This article examines local/and spatial competition for farm tourism services, specifically “Self catering” in Sweden. The results show that spatial dependences exist and have to be considered in the econometric estimation of the hedonic pricing model. Using spatial econometrics it is shown that the price is affected by the average price, the demand for and supply of lodging in the regional market. Notable is that the results indicate that local competition has a positive effect on the price while regional competition has a negative effect. Marketing channels used as well as size and ranking of the service were found to affect the price of lodging. Diversification does not seem to positively affect prices. The findings illustrate the potential importance of local competition for rural developments studies. It also raises questions concerning policies promoting diversification and multifunctionality as a way of revitalizing urban areas.Community/Rural/Urban Development,

Higher Twist Effects in Deep Inelastic Scattering on Nuclei

Particle production in deep inelastic scattering on nuclei is reduced due to absorption of the produced particles in the nucleus. The photon ejects a quark from a bound nucleon which propagates through the nucleus forming a prehadron before turning into a hadron. We calculate the higher twist effect in hadronization which dominates the $z \to 1$ region of fragmentation.Comment: Based on a talk given by H.J. Pirner at the Fifth International Conference on Perspectives in Hadronic Physics, Trieste, May 200

Monetary Policy Signaling and Movements in the Swedish Term Structure of Interest Rates

This paper examines how various monetary policy signals such as repo rate changes, inflation reports, speeches, and minutes from monetary policy meetings affect the term structure of interest rates. We find that unexpected movements in the short end of the yield curve are mainly driven by unexpected changes in the repo rate, while speeches is a more important determinant for the longer interest rates. Hence, we conclude that central bank communication is an essential part of the conduct of monetary policy