REFLECTIONS ON RELEVANCE OF PROFESSIONAL JOURNALS

It appears the major private benefit from peer reviewed journals such as the Review of Agricultural Economics (RAE) is certification. To maintain public support for our journals, increased efforts are needed to demonstrate the social benefits from peer reviewed publications. Research cost considerations have led agricultural economists to emphasize applied disciplinary work using secondary data and to ignore the important work of careful data collection and reporting. Moreover, pressures to publish have led to more isolated research efforts ignoring other disciplines. Recommendations to improve the relevance of journal publications include more active efforts by journal editors to make applied journals such as RAE more accessible to the public.Certification, Confirmation studies, Private goods, Public goods, Relevance, Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

SOCIAL CAPITAL AND ORGANIZATIONS

An organization is a group of persons who satisfy an established membership requirement. Membership requirements may be based on inherited or earned traits. Organizations provide a place for social capital to reside. Organizations exist because they provide the setting in which members can meet their economic, social, validation, and information needs. As the needs of members change, membership requirements and organizational emphasis may also change. Relationships among an organization's members range from antipathetic to sympathetic. Depending on the quality of relationships or social capital within an organization, power will be exercised using a stick, carrot, and hug. Organizations may experience conflict if members perceive they must compete with each other to satisfy their needs. Finally, in a two-person relationship, social capital is likely to be symmetric or exploitation may exist. In more complicated relationships, social capital is likely to satisfy adding up constraints.Institutional and Behavioral Economics,

APPLICATIONS OF SOCIAL CAPITAL THEORY

Experiments and studies were conducted to investigate the role of social capital. Social capital (relationship to others) is a productive asset which is a substitute for and complement to other productive assets. The productivity of social capital leads to the expectation that firms and individuals invest in relationships. Data were collected to answer the following questions: Does the identity (relationship) of trading partners affect selling and buying prices; the acceptance of catastrophic risk; the choice of share or cash leases in agriculture; loan approval; and the banks investment to retain customers? The evidence is in the affirmative.Behavioral economics, Institutional economics, Social capital, Institutional and Behavioral Economics,

IMPACTS OF SOCIAL CAPITAL ON INVESTMENT BEHAVIOR UNDER RISK

Implicit in most applications of the expected utility (EU) model is the assumption that only the decision maker's own income matters. Moreover, studies that estimate risk preferences typically measure how individuals respond to changes in the level and likelihood of having their own income altered (Young). The focus on own income in the EU model is consistent with the assumption most often applied in the neoclassical economic paradigm; namely, that the identity of participants in an economic exchange does not affect the outcome (Telser and Higinbotham).Institutional and Behavioral Economics, Risk and Uncertainty,

SOCIAL CAPITAL AND RISK RESPONSES

The economic well-being of economic agents is assumed to be interpersonally dependent. The extent of this interpersonal dependency varies according to the strength of relationships, values, and social bonds and is measured using social capital coefficients in a neoclassical model in which agents with stable preferences maximize utility. The model's predictions are tested empirically by asking agents how their willingness to bear a risk is altered when their refusal to accept the risk increases the risk faced by others.Institutional and Behavioral Economics, Risk and Uncertainty,

INFLATION, CASH FLOWS, AND GROWTH: SOME IMPLICATIONS FOR THE FARM FIRM

Agribusiness,