Agricultural Arbitrage, Adjustment Costs, and the Intensive Margin

Farmland and capital are an important and rapidly expanding component of the agricultural economy, and empirical evidence suggests that these assets are quasi-fixed in that adjustment costs are incurred when holdings are altered. Increased interest in the rate of return for investing in farmland suggests that an important consideration is the effect of adjustment costs on this return. A novel theoretical model is developed that ties together contributions from the farmland pricing and adjustment cost literatures, and the first order conditions for a utility maximizing decision maker are rearranged into intertemporal arbitrage equations that are similar in spirit to traditional finance models. The common assumptions that land and capital are quasi-fixed assets, and that production is characterized by constant returns to scale are tested and the evidence supports these assumptions. An empirical application of the arbitrage equations provides evidence that risk aversion and adjustment costs are jointly significant components of agricultural production, and that adjustment costs generate significant changes in the rate of return to farmland. The results have important policy implications as sluggish supply response due to quasi-fixity can lead to dramatically inflated commodity prices, and an accurate measure of the farmland return can help determine how far the extensive margin will expand or contract in response to a variety of policy scenarios, such as the subsidization of corn for ethanol, an increase in the variety of subsidized crop insurance products, or the introduction of new revenue support programs such as ACRE.Arbitrage, Adjustment Costs, Farmland, Asset Pricing, Capital, Cost Function, Risk, Production, Agricultural Finance, Consumer/Household Economics, Crop Production/Industries, Farm Management, Financial Economics, Land Economics/Use, Production Economics, Risk and Uncertainty,

Macroeconometric equivalence, microeconomic dissonance, and the design of monetary policy

Many recent studies in macroeconomics have focused on the estimation of DSGE models using a system of loglinear approximations to the models' nonlinear equilibrium conditions. The term macroeconometric equivalence encapsulates the idea that estimates using aggregate data based on first-order approximations to the equilibrium conditions of a DSGE model will not be able to distinguish between alternative underlying preferences and technologies. The concept of microeconomic dissonance refers to the fact that the underlying microeconomic differences become important when optimal monetary policy is analyzed in a nonlinear setting. The relevance of these concepts is established by analysis of optimal steady-state inflation and optimal policy in the stochastic economy using a small-scale New Keynesian model. Microeconomic and financial datasets are promising tools with which to overcome the equivalence problem.Monetary policy ; Macroeconomics ; Microeconomics

Factors affecting metal mobilisation during oxidation of sulphidic, sandy wetland substrates

Most metals accumulate as sulphides under anoxic conditions in wetland substrates, reducing their bioavailability due to the solubility of metal sulphides. However, upon oxidation of these sulphides when the substrate is occasionally oxidised, metals can be released from the solid phase to the pore water or overlaying surface water. This release can be affected by the presence of carbonates, organic matter and clay. We compared changes of Cd, Cu and Zn mobility (CaCl2 extraction) during oxidation of a carbonate-rich and a carbonate-poor sulphidic, sandy wetland substrate. In addition, we studied how clay with low and high cation sorption capacity (bentonite and kaolinite, respectively) and organic matter (peat) can counteract Cd, Cu and Zn release during oxidation of both carbonate-rich and carbonate-poor sulphidic sediments. CaCl2-extractability of Cu, a measure for its availability, is low in both carbonate-poor and carbonate-rich substrates, whereas its variability is high. The availability of Cd and Zn is much higher and increases when peat is supplied to carbonate-poor substrates. A strong reduction of Cd and Zn extractability is observed when clay is added to carbonate-poor substrates. This reduction depends on the clay type. Most observations could be explained taking into account pH differences between treatments, with kaolinite resulting in a lower pH in comparison to bentonite. These pH differences affect the presence and characteristics of dissolved organic carbon and the metal speciation, which in turns affects the interaction of metals with the solid soil phase. In carbonate-rich substrates, Cd and Zn availability is lower and the effects of peat and clay amendment are less clear. The latter can also be attributed to the high pH and lack of pH differences between treatments

Continental drift: connecting Great Britain and Scandinavia

Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies. Faculty of Economics and Business. The University of Sydne

Psychosocial Care after Cancer Diagnosis: Recent Advances and Challenges

Psychosocial oncology is coming of age [...]</jats:p

Phenology largely explains taller grass at successful nests in greater sage-grouse

Much interest lies in the identification of manageable habitat variables that affect key vital rates for species of concern. For ground-nesting birds, vegetation surrounding the nest may play an important role in mediating nest success by providing concealment from predators. Height of grasses surrounding the nest is thought to be a driver of nest survival in greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus; sage-grouse), a species that has experienced widespread population declines throughout their range. However, a growing body of the literature has found that widely used field methods can produce misleading inference on the relationship between grass height and nest success. Specifically, it has been demonstrated that measuring concealment following nest fate (failure or hatch) introduces a temporal bias whereby successful nests are measured later in the season, on average, than failed nests. This sampling bias can produce inference suggesting a positive effect of grass height on nest survival, though the relationship arises due to the confounding effect of plant phenology, not an effect on predation risk. To test the generality of this finding for sage-grouse, we reanalyzed existing datasets comprising \u3e800 sage-grouse nests from three independent studies across the range where there was a positive relationship found between grass height and nest survival, including two using methods now known to be biased. Correcting for phenology produced equivocal relationships between grass height and sage-grouse nest survival. Viewed in total, evidence for a ubiquitous biological effect of grass height on sage-grouse nest success across time and space is lacking. In light of these findings, a reevaluation of land management guidelines emphasizing specific grass height targets to promote nest success may be merited