The development impact of genetic use restriction technologies: a forecast based on the hybrid crop experience

Advances in biotechnology have made available gene-manipulation techniques that enable the protection of genetic material from unauthorized use and the prevention of self-supply of commercial seeds by farmers—in order to allow enhanced appropriation of the values of innovation in agricultural R&D. These techniques have become known as Genetic Use Restriction Technologies (GURTs). This paper forecasts the potential impact of wide-spread adoption of GURTs by the providers of HYV seeds on the yield development in developing countries. To do so, it assesses (1) the effects of enhanced appropriation through GURTs on the technological expansion at the yield frontier and (2) the effects of technological protection of value-adding traits through GURTS on the diffusion of yield gains from the frontier to developing countries. These assessments are based on a particular hypothesis, which is that GURTs will replicate across most staple crops the experiences that were made with a previous use restriction technology (hybridization) in only a few crops. The estimation of impacts is carried out as a simulation and is based on expansion and diffusion parameters estimated for hybrid seeds over a 38-year period. It shows that the impact of GURTs on developing countries' yields will vary considerably. Specifically, those countries that currently have the lowest yields would be most adversely affected in their future yield development by the wide-spread use of GURTs

Pests, plagues, and patents

The paper investigates the interaction between dynamic forms of incentive mechanisms (patent systems) and dynamic forms of problems (adaptations of pests and pathogens). Since biological problems recur, the design of the incentive mechanism must take into consideration: a) the need for investments into R&D that take into account the impermanence of the solution concepts; and b) the impact of this impermanence on the anticipated lifespan of any patent awarded for an innovation. The results indicate that patent systems must be carefully tailored to the nature of the problem under consideration

The WTP for property rights for the Giant Panda: can a charismatic species be an instrument for conservation of natural habitat?

The paper presents the results from a stated preference study to address issues concerning the potential for using flag-ship species, such as the Giant Panda, to purchase the property rights for the conservation of natural habitat. The study finds, first, that there is clear WTP for acquiring the property rights for panda habitat. The nature of this demand is found both convincing and logically coherent in that it is an increasing function of land (at a diminishing rate). Secondly, the study decomposed the elicited values into genetic stock, animal welfare and implicit biodiversity values. The results show that the latter type of value consist of almost half of total value implying that the Panda is in fact a potential instrument for greater biodiversity conservation. Thirdly, the study shows that these implicit biodiversity values are dependent on the preservation of the flagship species itself, implying that the panda is not only a potential instrument for habitat conservation, but a necessary one. Finally, the extent to which the flagship approach can be capable of contributing to wider biodiversity conservation is discussed

Let’s twist again: a high-frequency event-study analysis of operation twist and its implications for QE2

This paper undertakes a modern event-study analysis of Operation Twist and compares its effects to those that should be expected for the recent quantitative policy announced by the Federal Reserve, dubbed "QE2". We first show that Operation Twist and QE2 are similar in magnitude. We identify six significant, discrete announcements in the course of Operation Twist that potentially could have had a major effect on financial markets, and show that four did have statistically significant effects. The cumulative effect of these six announcements on longer-term Treasury yields is highly statistically significant but moderate, amounting to about 15 basis points. This estimate is consistent both with Modigliani and Sutch’s (1966) time series analysis and with the lower end of empirical estimates of Treasury supply effects in the literature.Monetary policy

Real wage cyclicality in the PSID

Previous studies of real wage cyclicality have made only sparing use of the microdata detail that is available in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). The present paper brings to bear this additional detail to investigate the robustness of previous results and to examine whether there are important cross-sectional and demographic differences in wage cyclicality. Although real wages were procyclical across the entire distribution of workers from 1967 to 1991, the wages of lower-income, younger, and less-educated workers exhibited greater procyclicality. However, workers' straight-time hourly pay rates have been acyclical, suggesting that more variable pay margins such as bonuses, overtime, late shift premia, and commissions have played a substantial if not primary role in generating procyclicality.Wages ; Labor market

Associated Charmonium Production in p-pbar Annihilation

In this paper we summarize our recent results for low energy associated charmonium production cross sections, using 1) crossing symmetry, and 2) an explicit hadronic model. These predictions are of relevance to the planned charmonium and charmonium hybrid production experiment PANDA at GSI.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures. Contribution to the Second Meeting of the APS Topical Group on Hadron Physics GHP2006. (Nashville, TN, 22-24 Oct. 2006

Futures prices as risk-adjusted forecasts of monetary policy

Many researchers have used federal funds futures rates as measures of financial markets' expectations of future monetary policy. However, to the extent that federal funds futures reflect risk premia, these measures require some adjustment. In this paper, we document that excess returns on federal funds futures have been positive on average and strongly countercyclical. In particular, excess returns are surprisingly well predicted by macroeconomic indicators such as employment growth and financial business-cycle indicators such as Treasury yield spreads and corporate bond spreads. Excess returns on eurodollar futures display similar patterns. We document that simply ignoring these risk premia significantly biases forecasts of the future path of monetary policy. We also show that risk premia matter for some futures-based measures of monetary policy shocks used in the literature.Federal funds rate ; Federal funds market (United States) ; Monetary policy

Does inflation targeting anchor long-run inflation expectations? evidence from long-term bond yields in the U.S., U.K., and Sweden

We investigate the extent to which inflation targeting helps anchor long-run inflation expectations by comparing the behavior of daily bond yield data in the United Kingdom and Sweden--both inflation targeters--to that in the United States, a non-inflation-targeter. Using the difference between far-ahead forward rates on nominal and inflation-indexed bonds as a measure of compensation for expected inflation and inflation risk at long horizons, we examine how much, if at all, far-ahead forward inflation compensation moves in response to macroeconomic data releases and monetary policy announcements. In the U.S., we find that forward inflation compensation exhibits highly significant responses to economic news. In the U.K., we find a level of sensitivity similar to that in the U.S. prior to the Bank of England gaining independence in 1997, but a striking absence of such sensitivity since the central bank became independent. In Sweden, we find that forward inflation compensation has been insensitive to economic news over the whole period for which we have data. Our findings support the view that a well-known and credible inflation target helps to anchor the private sector's perceptions of the distribution of long-run inflation outcomes.Inflation (Finance) ; Prices ; Monetary policy

Examining the bond premium puzzle with a DSGE model

The basic inability of standard theoretical models to generate a sufficiently large and variable nominal bond risk premium has been termed the "bond premium puzzle." We show that the term premium on long-term bonds in the canonical dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model used in macroeconomics is far too small and stable relative to the data. We find that introducing long-memory habits in consumption as well as labor market frictions can help fit the term premium, but only by seriously distorting the DSGE model's ability to fit other macroeconomic variables, such as the real wage; therefore, the bond premium puzzle remains.Interest rates ; Econometric models