The Role of International Trade in Extension Education

Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

Forces Shaping Trade: The WTO, Trade Agreements, and Market Integration

International Relations/Trade,

C. Parr Rosson, III: Lifetime Achievement Award

Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

Discussion: Exchange Rates, Energy Policy and Outcomes in Agricultural Markets

These three invited papers examine the role that exchange rates may have in influencing commodity prices, input prices and farm income. The papers arguably represent one of the most important recent attempts to quantify and explain these new linkages. As U.S. and world agriculture moves from a period of high output prices to a period of lower prices, understanding the impact of macroeconomic variables on farm input costs and farm income will become more important. Further, it will be equally important for policy makers to undertake appropriate market interventions in order to have maximum effectiveness should this period of cost-price-squeeze continue to intensify. Each of the papers has something significant to contribute to the understanding and debate of these new linkages between agriculture, the macroeconomic environment, and the energy sector.energy, exchange rates, macropolicy, markets, trade, Agribusiness, Farm Management, Financial Economics, Marketing, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, F42,

THE U.S.-MEXICO FREE TRADE AGREEMENT: THE MEXICAN PERSPECTIVE: DISCUSSION

International Relations/Trade,

Cultural Barriers and Agricultural Trade in the Western Hemisphere

This study analyzes the impacts of cultural distance on bilateral trade flows in the Western Hemisphere using a Fixed Effects Vector Decomposition (FEVD). Four cultural dimensions of Hofstede are used to capture cultural distance. The results found that the effects of each dimension vary considerably with three of four dimensions (UAI, PDI, and MFI) have a negative impact and one dimension (ICI) has a positive effect. The magnitude of ICI is large enough to offset the negative effects of the other three dimensions resulting in a net positive effect of cultural distance, suggesting that culturally-dissimilar countries trade more than less.agricultural trade, cultural distance, gravity model, International Relations/Trade,

Financial Development and International Agricultural Trade: Is There A Connection?

This study empirically investigates the possible link between financial development and international agricultural trade using binomial models of the gravity equations. Financial development is measured by a constructed financial reforms index. The results provide some evidence on the positive impacts of financial reform on agricultural exports. The results further indicate that countries with a greater degree of financial development as exhibited by advanced countries tend to have larger impacts on agricultural exports. Bilateral trade involving advanced countries has a larger magnitude of impacts of financial reforms on agricultural trade than those involving developing countriesagricultural trade, binomial model, financial reform, gravity model, International Development, International Relations/Trade,

Treatments of the exchange energy in density-functional theory

Following a recent work [Gal, Phys. Rev. A 64, 062503 (2001)], a simple derivation of the density-functional correction of the Hartree-Fock equations, the Hartree-Fock-Kohn-Sham equations, is presented, completing an integrated view of quantum mechanical theories, in which the Kohn-Sham equations, the Hartree-Fock-Kohn-Sham equations and the ground-state Schrodinger equation formally stem from a common ground: density-functional theory, through its Euler equation for the ground-state density. Along similar lines, the Kohn-Sham formulation of the Hartree-Fock approach is also considered. Further, it is pointed out that the exchange energy of density-functional theory built from the Kohn-Sham orbitals can be given by degree-two homogeneous N-particle density functionals (N=1,2,...), forming a sequence of degree-two homogeneous exchange-energy density functionals, the first element of which is minus the classical Coulomb-repulsion energy functional.Comment: 19 pages; original manuscript from 2001 (v1) revised for publication, with presentation substantially improved, some errors corrected, plus an additional summarizing figure (Appendix B) include

Work functions of self-assembled monolayers on metal surfaces

Using first-principles calculations we show that the work function of noble metals can be decreased or increased by up to 2 eV upon the adsorption of self-assembled monolayers of organic molecules. We identify the contributions to these changes for several (fluorinated) thiolate molecules adsorbed on Ag(111), Au(111) and Pt(111) surfaces. The work function of the clean metal surfaces increases in this order, but adsorption of the monolayers reverses the order completely. Bonds between the thiolate molecules and the metal surfaces generate an interface dipole, whose size is a function of the metal, but it is relatively independent of the molecules. The molecular and bond dipoles can then be added to determine the overall work function.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure

Food Chain Disruptions and Trade: The Importance of North American Market Integration

Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, International Relations/Trade,