A MODEL OF AGRICULTURAL INSURANCE IN EVALUATING ASYMMETRIC INFORMATION PROBLEMS

The main motivation for this paper is the recognition of the fact that asymmetric information is the form of moral hazard and adverse selection results in sizeable efficiency losses. These costs are passed back to producers in the form of excessively high premium rates and also passed back to the government via the crop insurance subsidy program. A secondary motivation stems from a recent debate in the literature regarding the specific effects of moral hazard on agricultural input use. Conventional wisdom suggests that moral hazard will induce producers to reduce input usage. A competing hypothesis has emerged which suggests that moral hazard may induce producers to increase their usage or risk increasing inputs. The main objective of this paper was to develop a model of agricultural insurance to understand why asymmetric information problems might exist and to compute and evaluate the relative program costs of agricultural insurance that can be attributed to moral hazard and adverse selection. These objectives are achieved by developing a theoretical model of agricultural insurance, and by conducting numerical simulations of the model. Simulation results indicated that insured farmers use less agricultural inputs than uninsured farmers in an attempt to maximize expected indemnities. Moral hazard was fould to be a significant problem only at higher coverage levels. Expected returns (in term of expected indemnities) to agricultural insurance were found to vary substantially between productivity (i.e., risk) types, and farmers were shown to recognize and respond to these differences. These results suggest that crop insurance is confronted with an adverse selection problem. Simulation results further indicated that program costs to a myopic insurer attributed to moral hazard and adverse selection could be substantial.Risk and Uncertainty,

THE ECONOMICS AND IMPLICATIONS OF EX-ANTE REGULATIONS IN ADDRESSING PROBLEMS OF MORAL HAZARD IN AGRICULTURAL INSURANCE

In this paper we develop a theoretical model of input supply by agricultural producers who purchase crop insurance and so who may engage in moral hazard. We show, through simulations, that a combination of partial insurance coverage combined with a minimum standard for input use may reduce substantially the problems associated with moral hazard. Partial insurance coverage creates an incentive for the producer to increase his use of inputs since the cost of lower output is partially borne by the producer, an outcome which would not be present under full coverage insurance. Partial monitoring of inputs, in the form of a minimum requirement for input use, has a direct effect on the reduction of moral hazard. We show that, rather than being substitute instruments, these are in fact complementary methods of encouraging a more efficient supply of inputs. Moreover, the minimum level of input use that must be required by regulation turns over to be substantially lower than the optimal or actual input level chosen by producers. Since the supply of inputs for crop production occurs in many stages over the pre-planting, planting and growing seasons, the fact that only a minimal input requirement is needed means that the cost of implementing such a regulation can be kept much lower than would be the case for a regulation of complete monitoring of input usage.Risk and Uncertainty,

Vector meson spectral function and dilepton production rate in a hot and dense medium within an effective QCD approach

The properties of the vector meson current-current correlation function and its spectral representation are investigated in details with and without isoscalar-vector interaction within the framework of effective QCD approach, namely Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model and its Polyakov Loop extended version (PNJL), at finite temperature and finite density. The influence of the isoscalarvector interaction on the vector meson correlator is obtained using the ring resummation known as the Random Phase Approximation (RPA). The spectral as well as the correlation function in PNJL model show that the vector meson retains its bound property up to a moderate value of temperature above the phase transition. Using the vector meson spectral function we, for the first time, obtained the dilepton production rate from a hot and dense medium within the framework of PNJL model that takes into account the nonperturbative effect through the Polyakov Loop fields. The dilepton production rate in PNJL model is enhanced compared to NJL and Born rate in the deconfined phase due to the suppression of color degrees of freedom at moderate temperature. The presence of isoscalar-vector interaction further enhances the dileption rate over the Born rate in the low mass region. Further, we also have computed the Euclidean correlation function in vector channel and the conserved density fluctuation associated with temporal correlation function appropriate for a hot and dense medium. The dilepton rate and the Euclidean correlator are also compared with available lattice data and those quantities in PNJL model are found to agree well in certain domain.Comment: 30 pages, 16 figures, typos corrected, references added, to appear in JHE

Skillbot: A Conversational Chatbot based Data Mining and Sentiment Analysis

With the advent of technology, Artificial Intelligence is emerging exponentially. Using this advancement, chatbots are widely used in various sectors to accommodate users with their queries without waiting. In this study, work in the development, training, improvement, and chat sentiment analysis of Skillbot Chatbot is performed. First, the data was scrapped using tools like the GPT2 model from the Gov. UK website, and that data was used to train intents for the Skillbot model. After successful training, testing, and evaluation of Skillbot for better performance, conversations of users were analyzed deeply. Sentiment analysis was also performed as it is important to train the Skillbot to efficiently respond to users. Then, this project was deployed on Streamlit named Conversation Analyzer. Analysis was performed using different technologies like Natural Languages processing, Vader model for sentiment analysis, TextBlob for topic modeling of conversations, Streamlit for visualization, Rasa, Artificial Intelligence, and machine learning. Chatbot training with cleaned data and conversation analysis would be very beneficial for Skillbot to give users better services. The findings with massive data wrangling, model training for Skillbot, and chat analysis would provide results’ evaluations with successful and unsuccessful dialogues with insights to help warrant future research and Skillbot improvemen

Festival and Organization Studies

The present essay examines the festival as a form of organizing and as a metaphor for contemporary organizations. Drawing upon classical and contemporary perspectives on festival, we focus on social ambivalences and how these are enacted and mediated through festivals. Specifically, we argue that festivals mark a tension between linear and cyclical dimensions of social time. Next, we argue that formal institutional and communitarian principles are mediated through festival. Finally, we argue that festivals mark a tension between reflexivity and social critique on the one hand and mass spectacle on the other, and problematize the notion of bodily enjoyment as a form of social consciousness. We discuss the implications of these three ambivalences \u2013 in the notion of time, the notion of community and the notion of reflexivity \u2013 for contributing to contemporary organizational discussions