THE ROLE OF ORGANIZED EXCHANGES AND STANDARDIZED CONTRACTS IN MARKETING NEW COMMODITIES

Agribusiness,

An Empirical Analysis of the Determinants of Success of Food and Agribusiness E-Commerce Firms

E-commerce's value creation in agricultural and food markets will only occur to the extent that e-commerce firms exist throughout the supply chain. The problem is that e-commerce firms throughout the agricultural and food supply chain have faced a serious challenge in staying in business. Many have been forced to exit the market, and only a few have survived to develop into functional web-based businesses. The objective of this research study is to identify characteristics that are associated with successful e-commerce firms throughout the agricultural and food supply chain. Relevant e-commerce and agricultural e-commerce literature suggests several characteristics that influence the success for agricultural and food e-commerce firms. A limited-dependent variable technique, logistic regression, is used to relate websites' characteristics to their probability of survival.e-commerce, food chains, survival probability, logistical regression, Agribusiness,

AN ANALYSIS OF THE PROFILES AND MOTIVATIONS OF HABITUAL COMMODITY SPECULATORS

The focus of this study is the habitual speculator in commodity futures markets. The speculator's activity broadens a market, creates essential liquidity, and performs an irreplaceable pricing function. Working knowledge of the profiles and motivations of habitual speculators is essential to both market theorist and policy makers. Responses to a 73 question survey were collected directly from retail commodity brokers with offices in Alabama. Each questionnaire recorded information on an individual commodity client who had traded for an extended period of time. The typical trader studied is a married, white male, age 52. He is affluent and well educated. He is a self-employed business owner who can recover from financial setbacks. He is a politically right wing conservative involved in the political process. He assumes a good deal of risk in most phases of his life. He is both an aggressive investor and an active gambler. This trader does not consider preservation of his commodity capital to be a very high trading priority. As a result, he rarely uses stop loss orders. He wins more frequently than he loses (over 51% of the time) but is an overall net loser in dollar terms. In spite of recurring trading losses, he has never made any substantial change in his basic trading style. To this trader, whether he won or lost on a particular trade is more important than the size of the win or loss. Thus he consistently cuts his profits short while letting his losses run. He also worries more about missing a move in the market by being on the sidelines than about losing by being on the wrong side of a market move; i.e., being in the action is more important than the financial consequences. Participating brokers confirmed that for the majority of the speculators studied, the primary motivation for continuous trading is the recreational utility derived largely from having a market position.Marketing,

COMMUNITY SUPPORTED AGRICULTURE: FILLING A NICHE MARKET

In less than a decade, the number of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) projects has grown to more than 400. Our research suggests that CSA shareholders' social objectives dominate their decision to join. Standard economic objectives and "club-related" objectives contribute to the decision, but are clearly secondary. Our research also suggests the CSA movement will continue to grow. Its emphasis on social objectives, its inability to supply food year around, and the ongoing development of size-neutral organic technologies, however, will probably keep it from becoming a major market channel in the next century.Agribusiness,

E-Commerce and Agricultural Markets

E-commerce will have a profound effect on agricultural markets. Due to lower transactions costs, more firms throughout the agricultural value chain will be able to engage in business-to-business e-commerce. Products and services will be increasingly unbundled throughout the marketing channel. Firms will be able to specialize in narrow niches and will face competition from other similarly specialized firms. Many more products and services will be traded as "commodities," and price discovery throughout the value chain will become more transparent and observable. Differentiated or value-added agricultural products, such as high oil corn, or "Roundup Ready" soybeans could be traded on organized, perhaps virtual, exchanges. To increase the probability of success of new contracts, exchanges should use information technologies, demutualize, design contracts to meet industry needs, encourage inter- and intra-market spreading, and develop new means to certify product quality. Producers will benefit from e-commerce if they can gain competitive access to the virtual value chain.published or submitted for publicationnot peer reviewe

A grower's guide to marketing fruits, vegetables, and herbs in Illinois / 1300

" ... conducted with funds provided under the Technology Commercialization Grant Program by the Illinois Department of Commerce and Community Affairs ..."--Cover, p. 2.Includes bibliographical references (p. 77-78).Cover title

Determinants of liquidity costs in commodity futures markets / 1474

Includes bibliographical references (p. 26-28)

Markets, Prices, and Interregional Trade by Raymond G. Bressler, Jr. and Richard A. King (Review)

Organized Symposium: Market Structure, Organization, and Performance of the Food System: Greatest Contributions by Agricultural and Applied EconomistsIndustrial Organization, Marketing,