FORWARD CONTRACTING SPECIFICATION THROUGH COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

Game-based bargaining theory is presented to evaluate the potential of and stability of cooperative coalition among producers for enhancing producer returns and managing market price and income risk. Results clarify that collective bargaining can increase and stabilize producer profits when they face a single processor.Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

Post-restoration evaluation of urban streams in central Texas

This Working paper includes an image of Waller Creek at Shipe Park post-restoration. More relevant data/information will likely surface in the completed report.Waller Creek Working Grou

DOES GENERIC ADVERTISING WRAP DEMAND CURVATURE?

This paper reconsiders the impacts of generic advertising on commodity prices that may be induced through demand effects. Rather than considering a simple demand shift, we consider the possibility that advertising leads to a change in the curvature of the demand curve. In this case, generic advertising is shown to affect both the level of market prices as well as their volatility. Based on parametric tests, we find that the demand elasticity appears to be affected by the intensity of generic advertising. In addition, we find evidence that generic advertising affects the curvature of the demand curve. We examine the implications of these findings for the price of beef. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that generic advertising enhances price level, while reducing price volatility. The latter result follows from evidence generic advertising increases the convexity of the demand curve with respect to price. The result suggests that generic advertising may provide a mechanism for stabilizing prices. The results also suggest that at any point in time, the effects of generic advertising can be decomposed into a shift and "twist" or curvature change. We present this decomposition and note that it implies the existence of a threshold price. At prices above this threshold, generic advertising will decrease the price elasticity of demand, while below this threshold, generic advertising will increase the price elasticity. This result suggests clearly that the demand effects of generic advertising are price dependent. The extent of this effect deserves further examination though findings in this paper strongly motivate further study.Marketing,

Bulk and integrated acousto-optic spectrometers for radio astronomy

The development of sensitive heterodyne receivers (front end) in the centimeter and millimeter range, and the construction of sensitive RF spectrometers (back end) enable the spectral lines of interstellar molecules to be detected and identified. A technique was developed which combines acoustic bending of a collimated coherent light beam by a Bragg cell followed by detection by a sensitive array of photodetectors (thus forming an RF acousto-optic spectrometer (AOS). An AOS has wide bandwidth, large number of channels, and high resolution, and is compact, lightweight, and energy efficient. The thrust of receiver development is towards high frequency heterodyne systems, particularly in the millimeter, submillimeter, far infrared, and 10 micron spectral ranges

Efficient fault diagnosis of helicopter gearboxes

Application of a diagnostic system to a helicopter gearbox is presented. The diagnostic system is a nonparametric pattern classifier that uses a multi-valued influence matrix (MVIM) as its diagnostic model and benefits from a fast learning algorithm that enables it to estimate its diagnostic model from a small number of measurement-fault data. To test this diagnostic system, vibration measurements were collected from a helicopter gearbox test stand during accelerated fatigue tests and at various fault instances. The diagnostic results indicate that the MVIM system can accurately detect and diagnose various gearbox faults so long as they are included in training

Beveridge-Nelson Decomposition with Markov Switching

This paper considers Beveridge-Nelson decomposition in a context where the permanent and transitory components both follow a Markov switching process. Our approach incorporates Markov switching into a single source of error state-space framework, allowing business cycle asymmetries and regime switches in the long run multiplier.Beveridge-Nelson decomposition, Markov switching, Single source of error state space models