Profit Patterns Across American Agriculture

To remain viable, agriculture in each location must offer returns that are competitive with those from alternative investments and sufficient to cover producers' financial obligations. Economic theory says that rates of return converge over time as resources flow into more-profitable industries and out of less-profitable industries, causing factor price changes. Both traditional growth and trade theories say factor markets will adjust to equalize commodity returns over time. This study examines spatial relationships in agriculture's profitability over time. Results show temporal and spatial convergence of returns consistent with trade and development theories. However, there are profit patterns unique to state/regional agriculture, raising policy implications.convergence, return on assets, "risk of ruin", Agribusiness,

RATES OF RETURN IN THE FARM AND NON-FARM SECTORS: A TIME SERIES COMPARISON

Financial Economics,

NEXT YEAR ON THE U.S. FARMLAND MARKET: AN INFORMATIONAL APPROACH

This paper formulates an information measure for changes in asset values and applies the formulation to farmland values in the United States for 1960-99. The results indicate that changes in asset values contained significant information following the Russian wheat sale in the early 1970s and the financial crisis in agriculture in the mid 1980s. Further, information about preceding year's asset value largely explains the regional distribution of current year's farmland values.Land Economics/Use,

THE MEASUREMENT OF INEQUALITY IN CANADIAN AND U.S. AGRICULTURAL INCOME BY COMPONENTS OF NET VALUE ADDED

This paper examines changes in net value added generated through Canadian and U.S. farm production, 1970-2000. We consider how the structural changes in Canadian and U.S. agriculture have affected the size and distribution of net value added and its components: rent, capital, labor, and to net farm income. We use the Theil Measure of Inequality (TMI) to compare and explain changes in 1) the between and within-region distribution of net value added, and 2) changes in the distribution of factor shares of net value added in Canada and in the U.S. Results show that in Canada (1960-2000), net value added has become somewhat more equally distributed relative to the number of farms per province, but has varied widely from 1972-1988. Between-region inequality in net value added accounted for from 0.5 to 85.5 percent of this inequality from 1960-2000. In the U.S. (1949-2000), net value added has become more unequally distributed. About half of the variation in net value added in the U.S. is due to between-region variation and about half to within-region variation in net value added. We find that most of the variation in the components of net value added (returns to capital, labor, nonoperator landlords, and to farm operators) in Canada and the United States is due to variations across regions, rather than to variations in the components of net value added themselves. These variations have generally been due to macroeconomic differences in regions, such as shifts in enterprise specialization, urbanization, changes in government programs, and to other structural changes in agriculture.Agricultural Finance,

REGIONAL CHANGES IN THE DISTRIBUTION OF NET VALUE ADDED IN U.S. AGRICULTURE, 1960-2002

This paper examines the effects of structural changes on the distribution of net value added and the difference between net value added and agricultural income over time. We present and discuss the changes in the distribution of net value added (land, labor, capital, and farm operator income) over time. Net value added by U.S. agriculture grew significantly from $18 billion to 1960 to$95 billion in 1996. We examine regional differences in net value added using the Theil entropy measure. The inequality (dispersion) of net value added increased over time. The increased inequality represented both increases in regional dispersion in net value added and increases in the average inequality in net value added in each region. Thus, the net value added is becoming less alike across the U.S. We also examined the inequality in the components of net value added. The greatest dispersion occurred in returns to land followed by returns to capital. Therefore, changes in the dispersion of net value added by agriculture are explained by differences in the payments to non-operator landlords and to capital.Agricultural Finance,

A TRANSLOG COST FUNCTION ANALYSIS OF U.S. AGRICULTURE: A DYNAMIC SPECIFICATION

This study has used an empirical approach developed by Urga and Walters (2003) to examine the implications of the short-run specification of the standard translog cost specification along with the possible implications of non-stationarity. We have estimated a dynamic translog cost specification complete with dynamic share equations for U.S. agriculture and compared it to the static, long-run specification. We found that the dynamic translog specification yielded more significant parameter estimates, and yielded results that are consistent with economic theory. In particular, the coefficient m (the adjustment cost parameter) determines the overall autoregressive structure of the model. The fact that its estimated value (0.36) is statistically different from zero at any conventional level of confidence indicates that the dynamic structure of the model is important. This finding illustrates the superiority of the short-run, dynamic specification over the static, long-run model.Agribusiness,

A Translog Cost Function Analysis of U.S. Agriculture: 1948-1999

This study examines the implications of the short-run specification of the standard, static translog cost function along with the possible implications of non-stationarity by estimating a dynamic translog cost specification complete with dynamic share equations for the U.S. using an empirical approach developed by Urga and Walters (2003). We compare the results of the static, long-run model with those of a dynamic, short-run error-correction model in terms of 1) significance of the parameter estimates, and 2) consistency with economic theory.Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

Arnold em Aysheshok, Schiller em Shnipishok: imperativos da “cultura” no nacionalismo e socialismo judaicos da Europa Oriental

Neste artigo pesquisa-se o esforço feito por nacionalistas culturais judeus na Rússia e na Ucrânia revolucionárias para definir, criar, disseminar e institucionalizar a assim chamada “nova cultura judaica”, durante os primeiros anos da Revolução Russa. Embora se priorizem, no artigo, dois campos opostos de intelectuais e ativistas nacionalistas judeus (um voltado à preponderância da língua hebraica e o outro ao predomínio da língua iídiche nessa nova cultura), revelam-se as concepções de cultura partilhadas que formataram tanto os esforços hebraístas como os iidichistas e que cruzaram o paralelo político divisor entre os nacionalismos sionista e da diáspora judaica. Particularmente, demonstram-se as maneiras como nacionalistas judeus assumidos sentiram-se compelidos a subordinar usos da cultura tipicamente nacionalistas para regulamentar ideais de autonomia estética, cultura como um ambiente para o cultivo de individualidade moderna e cultura como um fim antes de um meio de mobilização. Pela mesma razão, embora se focalize o período revolucionário, argumenta-se que os esforços culturais do período 1917-1919 marcam o ápice dos desenvolvimentos ideológicos que vinham tomando forma na vida judaica da Europa Oriental desde os anos 1890. Assim, embora numa seção final examinem-se as maneiras pelas quais a consolidação do poder bolchevique subordinou esse projeto cultural judaico às demandas da revolução após 1919, na maior parte do artigo considera-se o período 1917-1919 para sugerir como o nacionalismo cultural judaico europeu oriental foi substancialmente reformado por um conceito de cultura sobre arte e individualidade geralmente associado às ideias europeias ocidentais do século XIX. Arnold in Aysheshok, Schiller in Shnipishok: “cultural” imperatives in Jewish nationalism and socialism in Eastern Europe - Abstract: This article investigates the efforts of Jewish cultural nationalists in revolutionary Russia and Ukraine to define, create, disseminate, and institutionalize a so-called “new Jewish culture” during the first years of the Russian Revolution. Although the article focuses on two opposing camps of Jewish nationalist intellectuals and activists (one committed to the primacy of the Hebrew language in this new culture and the other to the primacy of the Yiddish language), it reveals the shared conceptions of culture that shaped both Hebraist and Yiddishist efforts and traversed the parallel political divide between Zionism and Jewish diaspora nationalisms. In particular, it demonstrates the ways in which declared Jewish nationalists felt compelled to subordinate typical nationalist uses of culture to regulative ideals of aesthetic autonomy, culture as a site for the cultivation of modern individuality, and culture as a national end rather than as a means of mobilization. By the same token, although the article focuses on the revolutionary period, it argues that the cultural efforts of the 1917-1919period marked the culmination of ideological developments that had been taking shape in East European Jewish life since the 1890s. Thus, although a final section examines the ways in which the consolidation of Bolshevik power subordinated this Jewish cultural project to the demands of the Revolution after 1919, the bulk of the article uses the 1917-1919 moment to suggest how East European Jewish cultural nationalism was substantially reshaped by a concept of culture we tend to associate with 19th century Western European ideas of art and individuality

Off-farm Income and Risky Investments: What Happens to Farm and Nonfarm Assets?

Off-farm work improves and reduces the riskiness of household income. Theoretical analyses reveal that the level and riskiness of off-farm income affect demand for farm/nonfarm investments. A two-limit Tobit model is estimated using ARMS data for 1996-2003. The impact on investment behaviour is evaluated.Farm Management,

Genes in the postgenomic era

We outline three very different concepts of the gene - 'instrumental', 'nominal', and 'postgenomic'. The instrumental gene has a critical role in the construction and interpretation of experiments in which the relationship between genotype and phenotype is explored via hybridization between organisms or directly between nucleic acid molecules. It also plays an important theoretical role in the foundations of disciplines such as quantitative genetics and population genetics. The nominal gene is a critical practical tool, allowing stable communication between bioscientists in a wide range of fields grounded in well-defined sequences of nucleotides, but this concept does not embody major theoretical insights into genome structure or function. The post-genomic gene embodies the continuing project of understanding how genome structure supports genome function, but with a deflationary picture of the gene as a structural unit. This final concept of the gene poses a significant challenge to conventional assumptions about the relationship between genome structure and function, and between genotype and phenotype