FARM-LEVEL EVIDENCE ON THE RISK BALANCING HYPOTHESIS FROM ILLINOIS GRAIN FARMS

This study provides farm-level empirical support to the Risk-Balancing Hypothesis using Illinois grain farm data. The econometric results indicate that risk-balancing farmers comprise more than half of the sample. These farmers tend to be older, have higher leasing ratios, are less financially efficient and manage risk through crop specialization, enterprise diversification, and marketing strategies in addition to risk balancing.Risk and Uncertainty,

von Neumann-Morgenstern and Savage Theorems for Causal Decision Making

Causal thinking and decision making under uncertainty are fundamental aspects of intelligent reasoning. Decision making under uncertainty has been well studied when information is considered at the associative (probabilistic) level. The classical Theorems of von Neumann-Morgenstern and Savage provide a formal criterion for rational choice using purely associative information. Causal inference often yields uncertainty about the exact causal structure, so we consider what kinds of decisions are possible in those conditions. In this work, we consider decision problems in which available actions and consequences are causally connected. After recalling a previous causal decision making result, which relies on a known causal model, we consider the case in which the causal mechanism that controls some environment is unknown to a rational decision maker. In this setting we state and prove a causal version of Savage's Theorem, which we then use to develop a notion of causal games with its respective causal Nash equilibrium. These results highlight the importance of causal models in decision making and the variety of potential applications.Comment: Submitted to Journal of Causal Inferenc

Generation of Multi-Scroll Attractors Without Equilibria Via Piecewise Linear Systems

In this paper we present a new class of dynamical system without equilibria which possesses a multi scroll attractor. It is a piecewise-linear (PWL) system which is simple, stable, displays chaotic behavior and serves as a model for analogous non-linear systems. We test for chaos using the 0-1 Test for Chaos of Ref.12.Comment: Corresponding Author: Eric Campos-Cant\'o

The Road to Financial Sustainability. Comparative Analysis of Russia and the Caucasus Region

This paper examines delinquency, profitability, and outreach determinants of microfinance institutions’ (MFIs) performance in Russia and the Caucasus. The estimation is done using the Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) technique. The estimation results suggest that Russian and Caucasian MFIs are profit-driven but are expected to improve outreach in the long-run.Microfinance institution, SUR, Financial sustainability, Delinquency, Profitability, Social outreach, Agricultural Finance, Financial Economics, G20, G21,