Estimating the Costs of MPCI Under the 1994 Crop Insurance Reform Act

The 1994 Crop Insurance Reform Act addressed two major problems of MPCI (multiple peril crop insurance): low participation and additional disaster assistance. In this study, total government costs for the FCIC (Federal Crop Insurance Corporation) and MPCI are estimated to be more than $2 billion, on average, from 1996 to 2003, with half of this amount being in the form of premium subsidies paid by the government

Time Series Evidence of Relationships Between U.S. and Canadian Wheat Prices

U.S. wheat producers contend that Canadian production subsidies and implicit export subsidies have undermined the U.S. price support program. The authors examine this contention and assess the relationships between U.S. and Canadian wheat prices using a cointegration and error approach. The results suggest that both U.S. durum and hard spring wheat prices respond to restore the equilibrium relationship with the corresponding Canadian price while the Canadian price does not respond to restore equilibria

Estimation of Demand for Wheat by Classes for the United States and the European Union

In North America and Europe, wheat is a very important commodity that has been at the heart of trade disputes and policy conflicts. This study uses a dynamic Almost Ideal Demand System (AIDS) to estimate demand elasticities for wheat differentiated by classes, for the United States and the European Union (EU). The results suggest that in the U.S. market imported wheat is more price responsive than domestic wheat. In the EU, however, price responsiveness varies according to the quality of wheat rather than its national origin

Law of One Price in International Commodity Markets: A Fractional Cointegration Analysis

The Law of One Price (LOP) is an important component of most, if not all, international trade models because this assumption allows researchers to use a single representative price for all regions. This paper examines the long-run LOP for international commodity prices using a generalized notion of cointegration called fractional cointegration. This analysis is applied to nine pairs of price series, supporting the existence of LOP in eight cases