APPLICATIONS OF SOCIAL CAPITAL THEORY

Experiments and studies were conducted to investigate the role of social capital. Social capital (relationship to others) is a productive asset which is a substitute for and complement to other productive assets. The productivity of social capital leads to the expectation that firms and individuals invest in relationships. Data were collected to answer the following questions: Does the identity (relationship) of trading partners affect selling and buying prices; the acceptance of catastrophic risk; the choice of share or cash leases in agriculture; loan approval; and the banks investment to retain customers? The evidence is in the affirmative.Behavioral economics, Institutional economics, Social capital, Institutional and Behavioral Economics,

Production Costs in Atlantic Fresh Fish Processing

Production costs for fresh Atlantic groundfish and scallop processing are examined using direct observation, linear regression analysis, and cost accounting. Assuming that management chooses a production technique where marginal costs are constant over a wide range of production due to management's expectation of predictable and unpredictable variation in product demand and exvessel supply, estimates of marginal cost for nonfish inputs from linear regression results and from cost accounting are compared. Also, regression results for physical yield from fish inputs are compared to estimates from the U.S. Department of Commerce. The similarity in results between these independent forms of estimation supports the maintained hypothesis of constant marginal cost over a wide range of production.Demand and Price Analysis, Environmental Economics and Policy, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Production Economics, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, Risk and Uncertainty,

Indexed bonds as an aid to monetary policy

A measure of the public’s expectation of inflation would assist the Fed in formulating monetary policy. In order to create such a measure, the U.S. Treasury could issue its debt in two forms: standard debt and debt indexed for inflation. The difference in yield on these two forms of debt would measure the public’s expectation of inflation.Monetary policy ; Treasury bonds ; Indexation (Economics)

Efficient Breach

The theory of efficient breach is the best known, and the most controversial, product of nearly half a century of economic analysis of contract law. In its simplest form, which is the one that dominates the legal imagination, the theory argues that expectation damages are good because they allow, even encourage, a party to breach when performance becomes inefficient, thereby increasing social welfare. Many noneconomists assume the theory is well supported by principles of neoclassical economics. Thus critics commonly focus on the theory’s moral failings, or on problems with the neoclassical approach more generally. But today no economic thinker defends the simple theory of efficient breach. Forty years of scholarship has established that even from the streamlined perspective of neoclassical economics, the simple theory simplifies too much. Expectation damages do not sufficiently deter some types of opportunistic breach. When a contract does become inefficient, other remedies can do as good or better a job of allowing parties to avoid performance. If expectation damages do provide efficient performance incentives, they might create inefficient incentives elsewhere in the transaction. And an exclusive focus on incentives ignores other welfare-enhancing functions remedies can serve, such as risk allocation and signaling. Many noneconomic critics of efficient breach criticize a theory that no economist would defend. All this notwithstanding, contract theorists should pay attention to efficient breach. Most importantly, a revised theory of efficient breach demonstrates how remedies that apply at the end of a transaction can affect the terms chosen at its birth. In many transactions the remedy is likely to affect the price, complicating arguments about its fairness. Many parties are likely to prefer efficient remedies, posing a challenge to remedial theories that ignore efficiency altogether. And economic analysis suggest mechanisms lawmakers can use to delegate remedial choice to the parties while still giving weight to socially preferred remedies. Theorists who make principled arguments for one or another remedy should attend to economic analyses of remedial design, including the idea of efficient breach, which cast new light on these distinctive features of contract law

Consumer attitudes towards sustainability attributes on food labels

With current concerns about climate change and the general status of the environment, there is an increasing expectation that products have sustainability credentials, and that these can be verified. Labelling is a common method of communicating certain product attributes to consumers that may influence their choices. There are different types of labels with several functions. The aim of this study is to investigate consumers‟ purchase decisions towards certain sustainability claims on food products, particularly by displaying the reduction of carbon emissions. Choice outcomes will be evaluated using Discrete Choice Modelling (DCM). Data for the study is obtained by a web-based consumer survey undertaken in the United Kingdom (UK). Results provide information on different attributes effects on consumers‟ purchase decisions, particularly their willingness to pay. This study provides information on consumers‟ attitudes that will assist industries and firms to benefit from market opportunities, in particular assessing the methods by which carbon footprinting measures can be incorporated alongside information on other sustainability criteria in product marketing.food labeling, carbon footprint, discrete choice modeling, Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Consumer/Household Economics, Environmental Economics and Policy, Food Security and Poverty, Health Economics and Policy,

DETERMINANTS OF FARMER-TO-CONSUMER DIRECT MARKET VISITS BY TYPE OF FACILITY: A LOGIT ANALYSIS

This study identifies several socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of individuals who visited farmer-to-consumer direct markets in New Jersey. The analysis was performed for each type of direct marketing facility: pick-your-own farms, roadside stands, farmers' markets, and direct farm markets. Logit analysis results indicate that various factors affect visitation to each type of facility. Factors examined include consumers' consumption and variety of fruits and vegetables, price expectation, purpose of buying, age, sex, education, race, income, urbanization, and presence of home garden.Consumer/Household Economics,

Farm Size and the Share of Irrigated Land in total Landholding: the case of Water-Harvesting Irrigation in Ethiopia

Rain-fall shortage constrains production in small-holder agriculture in developing countries and with ongoing climate change these shortages may increase. Rain-water harvesting are interesting technologies that decrease this risk. Therefore, one would expect an increasing use of these technologies in drought-prone areas. However, data collected in Ethiopia shows that the share of irrigated land in total landholding declines with farm size. This study investigates why the share declines with farm size using panel data collected in 2005 and in 2010. A random-effect tobit model is estimated for the share of irrigated land as a function of variables affecting returns, market prices, source of finance and expectation formation. The findings show farm-specific factors such as credit per hectare, distance to market, ease of selling output, landholding, regional differences, aridity and distance of plots from natural water sources significantly affect the share. Thus, encouraging investment has to consider farm-size, and also geographical, environmental and regional diversity.Land Economics/Use, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

The Relationship between Oil, Exchange Rates, and Commodity Prices

Exchange rates have long been thought to have an important impact on the export and import of goods and services, and, thus, exchange rates are expected to influence the price of those products that are traded. At the same time, energy impacts commodity production in some very important ways. The use of chemical and petroleum derived inputs has increased in agriculture over time; the prices of these critical inputs, then, would be expected to alter supply, and, therefore, the prices of commodities using these inputs. Also, agricultural commodities have been increasingly used to produce energy, thereby leading to an expectation of a linkage between energy and commodity markets. In this paper, we examine the price relationship through time of the primary agricultural commodities, exchange rates, and oil prices. Using overlapping time periods, we examine the cointegration relationship between prices to determine changes in the strength of the linkage between markets through time. In general, we find that commodity prices are linked to oil for corn, cotton, and soybeans, but not for wheat, and that exchange rates do play a role in the linkage of prices over time.cointegration, commodity prices, crude oil, exchange rates, Agribusiness, Consumer/Household Economics, International Relations/Trade, Marketing, Production Economics, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, C32, L71, Q11, Q40,