Can the Federal Reserve Bank’s Survey of Agricultural Credit Conditions Forecast Land Values?

The value of land dominates the financial structure of most American agricultural production firms, and land values are an important factor in long-term agricultural planning and risk management. As the primary source of collateral for farm loans, farmland values have significant implications for both producers as well as bankers financing agricultural loans. The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s Survey of Agricultural Credit Conditions is an expert opinion survey in which agricultural bankers provide land value forecasts. As the survey has drawn increased attention, the survey has drawn criticism regarding its use qualitative data to forecast land values. Our research examines the value of the survey data with respect to its ability to forecast movement in land values. Three techniques are used in the analysis. Interpreting the aggregate forecasts as probability estimates, Brier’s probability scores are used to evaluate aggregate bankers’ predictions. Next, turning points are evaluated using contingency tables. Finally, Granger causality tests are used to determine the dynamic relationship between land value predictions and actual land value changes reported by bankers. Bankers’ forecasts predict land values for irrigated and ranchland well, but non-irrigated forecasts were only marginally helpful in prediction non-irrigated farmland values. Forecasts provided in the survey may be beneficial, especially considering the scarcity of other publicly available data.farmland, forecasting, land values, Federal Reserve Bank, Agribusiness, Financial Economics,

Regularity estimates up to the boundary for elliptic systems of difference equations

Regularity estimates up to the boundary for solutions of elliptic systems of finite difference equations were proved. The regularity estimates, obtained for boundary fitted coordinate systems on domains with smooth boundary, involve discrete Sobolev norms and are proved using pseudo-difference operators to treat systems with variable coefficients. The elliptic systems of difference equations and the boundary conditions which are considered are very general in form. The regularity of a regular elliptic system of difference equations was proved equivalent to the nonexistence of eigensolutions. The regularity estimates obtained are analogous to those in the theory of elliptic systems of partial differential equations, and to the results of Gustafsson, Kreiss, and Sundstrom (1972) and others for hyperbolic difference equations

Biases in Expansion Distances of Novae Arising from the Prolate Geometry of Nova Shells

(abridged) Expansion distances (or expansion parallaxes) for classical novae are based on comparing a measurement of the shell expansion velocity, multiplied by the time since outburst, with some measure of the angular size of the shell. We review and formalize this method in the case of prolate spheroidal shells. We present expressions for the maximum line-of-sight velocity from a complete, expanding shell and for its projected major and minor axes, in terms of the intrinsic axis ratio and the inclination of the polar axis to the line of sight. For six distinct definitions of ``angular size'', we tabulate the error in distance that is introduced under the assumption of spherical symmetry (i.e., without correcting for inclination and axis ratio). The errors can be significant and systematic, affecting studies of novae whether considered individually or statistically. Each of the six estimators overpredicts the distance when the polar axis is close to the line of sight, and most underpredict the distance when the polar axis is close to the plane of the sky. The straight mean of the projected semimajor and semiminor axes gives the least distance bias for an ensemble of randomly oriented prolate shells. The best individual expansion distances, however, result from a full spatio-kinematic modeling of the nova shell. We discuss several practical complications that affect expansion distance measurements of real nova shells. Nova shell expansion distances be based on velocity and angular size measurements made contemporaneously if possible, and the same ions and transitions should be used for the imaging and velocity measurements. We emphasize the need for complete and explicit reporting of measurement procedures and results, regardless of the specific method used.Comment: 21 pages, LaTeX, uses aasms4.sty, to be published in Publ. Astron. Soc. of the Pacific, May 200

Constructing deal networks : brokers as network 'architects' in the U.S. IPO market and other examples.

We introduce the concept of the network architect to extend theory explaining how brokers create and manage structural holes in mediated markets. We argue that a broker's social resources and dependence on the market, along with exogenous deal conditions, influence the broker's motivations and willingness to make tradeoffs between long-term and short-term considerations when constructing deal networks. We develop our model and propositions in the context of the U.S. initial public offerings market and then generalize these arguments to other market contexts

Experimental Study of Cavitating Hydrofoils in Cascade

Liquid filled hydraulic systems often operate in such a way that cavitation may take place in one or more of the components of the system. Most often the cavitation will take place in a pump or a turbine as the liquid velocity there is usually greatest in these devices. However, cavitation can also occur in bends or elbows or constrictions in the system, such as a venturi tube. When cavitation does take place, the region occupied by the cavitation process displaces liquid that was formerly there, creating in a sense a "reservoir", the volume of which depends upon the extent of the cavitation. In every case the amount of cavitation in any type of hydraulic device will increase as the system pressure is lowered. The liquid that has been displaced causes changes in the motion of the fluid throughout the system causing or requiring time-varying pressure gradients to occur. In most practical hydraulic systems in which cavitation can occur, these transient pressure changes die away and the liquid flow system operates about some steady mean value. Indeed, for some applications cavitation is deliberately introduced into the system in such a way as to cause the flowing system to operate at a steady, stable condition

Experimental Observations on the Flow Past a Plano-Convex Hydrofoil

Some new measurements and observations on the noncavitating and cavitating flow past a plano-convex hydrofoil are presented. Under some conditions of partial cavitation, strong, periodic oscillations both in the cavity length and forces exerted on the hydrofoil are observed. The reduced frequency of oscillation depends upon the cavitation number and angle of attack; it also depends somewhat on tunnel speed for the lower angles of attack but becomes substantially independent of speed for the highest angle. The peak-to-peak magnitude of the force oscillation can amount to about 20 percent of the average force

Investigation of Cavitating Cascades

Experiments on cavitating and noncavitating cascades were carried out in a conventional water tunnel modified for this purpose. The comparison of the experimental results with theory, in both the fully wetted and fully cavitating conditions, was found to be satisfactory

Selectively Ventilated Ring Wing Hydrofoils

Experiments were made on a ring wing having a chord-diameter ratio of one-half with a profile section consisting of a 10 percent Clark Y airfoil. Measurements were made of the force characteristics of this ring wing in fully wetted flow for several Reynolds numbers and angles of attack; in fully wetted flow these observations agreed with similar previous results on fully wetted ring wings. A portion of the circumference of the ring was also ventilated by the controlled injection of air to provide a cross-force. The magnitude of this cross-force varies with extent of ventilation and with the rate of injection of air. With less than approximately 11 percent of the trailing edge of the wing so ventilated, the cross-force corresponds to the wing in fully wetted flow having an angle of attack of nearly three degrees. Experiments were also made on the rapidity with which this cross-force could be built up at the start of injection or terminated after the ventilation had been established. The termination of the cross-force is very quick and amounts to a time approximately required for the flow to travel a distance of a few wing chords. The build-up process on the other hand is considerably slower, and it appears to be a dynamic one but the scaling laws for this phenomenon are not yet established

Pituophis ruthveni

Number of Pages: 16Geological SciencesIntegrative Biolog