AN EVALUATION OF PRICING PERFORMANCE AND HEDGING EFFECTIVENESS OF THE BARLEY FUTURES MARKET

This paper investigates the pricing efficiency and hedging effectiveness of the Winnipeg barley futures market, using the Chicago corn futures market as a norm. Several tests of pricing efficiency were conducted and the stability of the basis was studied. The barley futures market operates in a heavily regulated economic environment and this is shown to impact on both price behavior and hedging opportunities.Crop Production/Industries, Marketing,

UNDERSTANDING THE CANADA/UNITED STATES GRAINS DISPUTE: FACTORS AND IMPACTS

Agricultural and Food Policy, International Relations/Trade,

Business begins at home

One of the most significant trends in the post-industrial era has been for the home to become an important focus for work. The boundaries between work and home are now increasingly blurred, reversing the forces of the industrial era in which places deemed suitable for each were clearly demarcated and physically separate. The most recent published figures available from the Labour Force Survey (2005)1 indicate that 3.1m people now work mainly from home, 11% of the workforce. This represents a rise from 2.3m in 1997 (9% of the workforce), a 35% increase. The majority of homeworkers (2.4m or 77% of the total) are 'teleworkers' – people who use computers and telecommunications to work at home. The number of teleworkers has increased by 1.5m between 1997 and 2005, a 166% increase. Clearly, it is the growth in the number of teleworkers which is driving the increase in homeworking

Agricultural Tariff Rate Quotas: Impacts on Market Access

We study the impacts of the implementation of agricultural tariff rate quotas on market access. A doble-censored Tobit model is specified to examine factors that affect the performance of tariff rate quotas. The results show that both in-quota tariff rates and administrative methods restrict market access and lower quota fill rate. The effect of over-quota tariff, however, is insignificant during the study period.International Relations/Trade,

AN ANALYSIS OF POLICY CHANGES IN THE CANADIAN FEED GRAIN MARKET

This paper examines changes in the welfare of Canadian barley and livestock producers attributable to a substantial alteration of Canadian domestic feed grain policy in 1974. Three welfare effects are determined – institutional, destabilization, and risk response. Generally, the analytical results confirmed initial hypotheses, with the exclusion of a positive relationship between price risk and barley production on the Prairies. This positive relationship, theorized to result from the risk reduction effect of yearly stabilized Canadian Wheat Board initial prices, enhanced the welfare benefits of the policy change.Agricultural and Food Policy,

WILL MARKET PRICES ENHANCE CHINESE AGRICULTURE?: A TEST OF REGIONAL COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGE

China is the world's largest producer and consumer of food. In the past, China's governmental policy advocated regional self-sufficiency in agricultural production, and it is generally believed that regional self-sufficiency was enforced at high economic cost. However, this changed with the 1979 economic reforms which encouraged some regional specialization. It is expected that there may be further shifts in regional production patterns and interregional trade flows. This article uses data on land productivity to test for regional comparative advantage, and it provides some empirical evidence on provincial comparative advantage in cotton versus grain production in China.Agricultural and Food Policy, International Relations/Trade,

The Interaction of Working and Speculative Commodity Stocks

This paper models the interaction of working (also called pipeline) and speculative commodity stocks. We model working inventories (i.e., raw material inventories carried by processors) based on Rameys (1989) model of inventories as factors of production, which allows us to represent storage under inter-temporal price backwardation, observed in commodity markets. We incorporate both speculative and working stocks in a simple model to analyze the interaction and to simulate the relationship between inter-temporal commodity price spreads and stocks. Our model replicates common price patters found in commodity markets.Marketing,

Lessons in Failure: The Rice Growers Association Cooperative

This empirical study investigates a large California cooperative's closure and identifies lessons learned that might be useful to other cooperatives. It was found that the cooperative's directors failed to effectively supervise management. In turn, management fell short of expectations to fully evaluate complex business decisions.Agribusiness,

TRADE REMEDY LAWS AND NAFTA AGRICULTURAL TRADE

Agricultural and Food Policy, International Relations/Trade,

MARKET REFORMS VERSUS STRUCTURAL REFORMS IN RURAL CHINA

This paper adds to the debate on the impact of market reforms versus structural reforms in explaining agricultural output growth in China. A multiple-output stochastic frontier and a technical inefficiency equation are estimated using provincial data on the rural economy from 1986 to 1995. Grain self-sufficiency policies and incomplete market reforms in the 1980s and 1990s led to allocative inefficiency. Agricultural disinvestment shrunk the production frontier and the fragmentation of land holdings reduced technical efficiency. China's rural economic reform is far from being complete.Agricultural and Food Policy, O47, Q12, Q15,