FORECAST OF INCOME AND WEALTH FOR THE FARM SECTOR, HOUSEHOLDS, AND THE FARMS THEY OPERATE

Consumer/Household Economics,

FARM INCOME, FINANCE, AND CREDIT OUTLOOK FOR 2002

Agricultural Finance,

FARM INCOME AND THE AGRICULTURAL SECTOR'S CONTRIBUTION TO NATIONAL ECONOMIC OUTPUT

Agribusiness,

MICRO DYNAMICS OF INCOME, DEBT MANAGEMENT AND FARM FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE

Agricultural Finance,

Efficient Aggregation of Panel Qualitative Survey Data

Qualitative business survey data are used widely to provide indicators of economic activity ahead of the publication of official data. Traditional indicators exploit only aggregate survey information, namely the proportions of respondents who report “up” and “down”. This paper examines disaggregate or firm-level survey responses. It considers how the responses of the individual firms should be quantified and combined if the aim is to produce an early indication of official output data. Having linked firms’ categorical responses to official data using ordered discrete choice models, the paper proposes a statistically efficient means of combining the disparate estimates of aggregate output growth which can be constructed from the responses of individual firms. An application to firm-level survey data from the Confederation of British Industry shows that the proposed indicator can provide early estimates of output growth more accurately than traditional indicators.Survey Data; Indicators; Quantification; Forecasting; Forecast Combination

Taxing Retirement Income: Nonqualified Annuities and Distributions from Qualified Accounts

This paper explores the current tax treatment of non-qualified immediate annuities and distributions from tax-qualified retirement plans in the United States. First, we describe how immediate annuities held outside retirement accounts are taxed. We conclude that the current income tax treatment of annuities does not substantially alter the incentive to purchase an annuity rather than a taxable bond. We nevertheless find differences across different individuals in the effective tax burden on annuity contracts. Second, we examine an alternative method of taxing annuities that would avoid changing the fraction of the annuity payment that is included in taxable income as the annuitant ages, but would still raise the same expected present discounted value of revenues as the current income tax rule. We find that a shift to a constant inclusion ratio increases the utility of annuitants, and that this increase is greater for more risk averse individuals. Third, we examine how payouts from qualified accounts are taxed, focusing on both annuity payouts and minimum distribution requirements that constrain the feasible time path of nonannuitized payouts. We describe briefly the origins and workings of the minimum distribution rules and we also provide evidence on the fraction of retirement assets potentially affected by these rules.

TDRSS momentum unload planning

A knowledge-based system is described which monitors TDRSS telemetry for problems in the momentum unload procedure. The system displays TDRSS telemetry and commands in real time via X-windows. The system constructs a momentum unload plan which agrees with the preferences of the attitude control specialists and the momentum growth characteristics of the individual spacecraft. During the execution of the plan, the system monitors the progress of the procedure and watches for unexpected problems

Rotation of Coulomb crystals in a magnetized inductively coupled complex plasma

Under suitable conditions, micron-sized dust particles introduced into inductively coupled argon plasma form a stable microscopic crystal lattice, known as a Coulomb (or plasma) crystal. In the experiment described, an external axial magnetic field was applied to various configurations of Coulomb crystal, including small crystal lattices consisting of one to several particles, and large crystal lattices with many hundreds of particles. The crystals were observed to rotate collectively under the influence of the magnetic field. This paper describes the experimental procedures and the preliminary results of this investigation

Distributional Impact of U.S. Farm Commodity Programs: Accounting for Alternative Farm Household Typologies

Agricultural households adjust to policy changes through market mechanisms by altering: their production mix, labor input, and on- and off-farm investments. Because of the significant heterogeneity among farms in the US agricultural sector, various types of farm households respond to the same policy change in significantly different ways. The parameters used to classify farm households into different typologies may also play a significant role in the interpretation of observed effects of policy changes. This paper, using a highly disaggregated U.S. Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model, analyzes the distributional impacts of policy changes involving price-contingent government payments on alternative U.S. farm household typologies. We find that farm households do vary their responses to an elimination of price-contingent support based on location, production specialty, and farm categorization.Agricultural and Food Policy,