Between Meltdown and Moral Hazard: The International Monetary and Financial Policies of the Clinton Administration

We review and analyze the monetary and financial policies of the Clinton administration with a focus on the strong dollar policy, the Mexican rescue, the response to the Asian crisis, and the debate over reform of the international financial architecture. While we consider the role of ideas, interests and institutions in the formulation of policy, our emphasis here is on institutions, and specifically on how personnel and administrative arrangements allowed the Treasury department to exercise an unusually important influence in the development of these policies. This allowed a set of ideas imported by Treasury from academia and the markets to strongly influence the formulation of the international monetary and financial policies during the Clinton years.

The Marshall Plan: History's Most Successful Structural Adjustment Program

The post-World War II reconstruction of Western Europe was one of the greatest economic policy and foreign policy successes of this century. "Folk wisdom" assigns a major role in successful reconstruction to the Marshall Plan: the program that transferred some $13 billion to Europe in the years 1948-51. We examine the economic effects of the Marshall Plan, and find that it was not large enough to have significantly accelerated recovery by financing investment, aiding the reconstruction of damaged infrastructure, or easing commodity bottlenecks. We argue, however, that the Marshall Plan did play a major role in setting the stage for post-World War II Western Europe's rapid growth. The conditions attached to Marshall Plan aid pushed European political economy in a direction that left its post World War II "mixed economies" with more "market" and less "controls" in the mix.

Dietary molasses enhances ruminal biohydrogenation and partially alleviates diet- induced milk fat depression

Dairy Research, 2008 is known as Dairy Day, 2008Milk fat depression remains a problem on dairy farms, and in recent years, incorporation of distillers grains (typically with solubles added and often dried) has contributed to this problem on some farms. In this study, we evaluated whether molasses could prevent milk fat depression in cows fed a high-risk diet. Replacing up to 5% of dietary corn with cane molasses linearly increased the yield of short- and medium-chain fatty acids in milk, indicating a positive effect on de novo fatty acid synthesis in a milk fat depression environment. Molasses, however, tended to linearly decrease milk yield and linearly decreased milk protein yield, resulting in no net effect on energy- or solids-corrected milk yield. These results indicate that the potential exists for sources of dietary sugar to prevent milk fat depression, but further research is needed to determine when sugar sources might be most effective

Impact of evaporative pads and cross ventilation on core body temperature and resting time of lactating cows

A trial was conducted to determine the impact of evaporative cooling pads on core body temperature (CBT), time spent lying, and number of lying bouts of Holstein cows housed in cross-ventilated freestall facilities. Despite cool ambient conditions during the trial, cows without evaporative pads tended to have elevated CBT above 102°F for 2.3 more hours per day and elevated CBT above 102.5°F for 0.95 more hours per day than cows with evaporative pads. These trends were evident even though the stocking density of the freestalls was greater in the facility with evaporative pads than in the facility without pads (123 vs. 113%). Lying times and lying bouts did not differ between treatments. Results of this study indicate that CBT tended to be reduced when evaporative pads were used, even under relatively mild ambient conditions.; Dairy Day, 2009, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, 2009; Dairy Research, 2009 is known as Dairy Day, 200

Spinning straw into milk: Can a 95% byproduct diet support milk production?

Citation: Hulett, M., Ylioja, C. M., Wickersham, T. A., & Bradford, B. J. (2016). Spinning straw into milk: Can a 95% byproduct diet support milk production? Journal of Animal Science, 94, 187-187. doi:10.2527/msasas2016-400Agriculture is challenged with the need to support increasing human populations without additional land. One way the livestock industry has addressed this is by using human inedible feedstuffs, including industrial byproducts. Many dairy and feedlot diets incorporate 20–40% byproduct feeds, but few studies have evaluated responses of lactating dairy cattle to diets composed almost entirely of byproducts. Our objective was to evaluate such a diet in comparison to a more traditional lactation diet. The control diet was primarily composed of alfalfa hay, corn silage, corn gluten feed, and corn grain. The by-product diet included wheat straw, corn hominy, post-extraction algae residue, and corn gluten feed; in addition, 4% molasses was included to improve palatability. The control and by-product diets had similar concentrations of DM (50.6%) and CP (17.2%), whereas the byproduct diet included slightly more NDF (32.9 vs. 30.5%) and less fat (4.7 vs. 5.2%). Twelve Holstein cows (154 ± 20 DIM) were blocked by parity (primiparous vs. multiparous) and randomly assigned to treatment sequence in a crossover design. Diets were fed for 20 d, with data and sample collections over the final 3 d of each period. One cow was removed from byproduct diet after refusing to consume it, and data from this period were not included in the analysis. Data were analyzed with mixed models to assess fixed effects of diet, parity, and their interaction as well as the random effects of cow and period, and significance was declared at P < 0.05. The one selective cow notwithstanding, DMI was not affected by treatment. Milk yield of multiparous cows was decreased by the byproduct diet (38.7 vs. 42.3 ± 2.2 kg/d) but there was no treatment effect in primiparous cows (39.3 vs. 39.4 ± 2.2 kg/d). The byproduct diet decreased milk fat content (3.3 vs. 3.6 ± 0.12%) and tended to decrease protein content (2.94 vs. 2.99 ± 0.05%), and energy-corrected milk yield was decreased by 5.4 kg/d in multiparous cows and 1.5 kg/d in primiparous cows. No effects on BW or BCS were detected. Despite negative productivity responses, calculated recoveries of human-edible protein and energy in the diet were increased by approximately 50% with the byproduct diet, changing from a net loss to a net gain in human-edible energy and protein. A diet composed of 95% byproduct feeds supported milk yield of 39 kg/d and increased the efficiency of production from a human-edible input perspective

Opportunities with low profile cross ventilated freestall facilities

Low profile cross ventilated freestall buildings are one option for dairy cattle housing. These facilities allow producers to control the cows\u27 environment during all seasons of the year. As a result, an environment similar to the thermoneutral zone of a dairy cow is maintained during both summer and winter, resulting in more stable core body temperatures. Low profile cross ventilated facilities allow buildings to be placed closer to the parlor, thus reducing the time cows are away from feed and water. Other advantages include a smaller overall site footprint than naturally ventilated facilities and less critical orientation because naturally ventilated facilities should be orientated east to west to keep cows in the shade. Other benefits of controlling the cows\u27 environment include increased milk production and income over feed cost, improved feed efficiency and reproductive performance, reduced lameness and fly control costs, and the ability to control lighting.; Dairy Day, 2008, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, 2008; Dairy Research, 2008 is known as Dairy Day, 200

Estimating optimal operation time of korral kools on dairy cows in a desert environment

Developing management strategies for Korral Kools will help producers provide cooling in the housing area while minimizing the operational cost of the Korral Kools system. Two experiments were conducted at a dairy in Saudi Arabia to evaluate operational time of Korral Kools for multiparous and primiparous dairy cows. For multiparous cows, running time per day of Korral Kools should be continuous, but for primiparous cows, no difference in performance was detected between 21 and 24 hours. However, producers need to be careful when reducing daily operation time of Korral Kools for primiparous cows because elevated core body temperatures were observed in both treatments.; Dairy Day, 2008, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, 2008; Dairy Research, 2008 is known as Dairy Day, 200

Yeast product supplementation influences feeding behavior and measures of immune function in transition dairy cows

Dairy Research, 2014 is known as Dairy Day, 2014Yeast supplementation has been shown to increase feed intake and production in some studies with early lactation dairy cows, but the mechanisms underlying this effect remain unknown. The objective of this study was to assess the effects of supplementing a yeast product derived from Saccharomyces cerevisiae on production, feeding behavior, and immune function in cows during the transition to lactation. When fed for 3 weeks before calving through 6 weeks after calving, supplementation altered feeding behavior as well as responsiveness to vaccination and gut immunoglobulin secretion. Results suggest that yeast products can modulate several aspects of immune function and promote the consumption of smaller, more frequent meals

Estimating optimal operation time of korral kools on dairy cows in a desert environment

Dairy Research, 2008 is known as Dairy Day, 2008Developing management strategies for Korral Kools will help producers provide cooling in the housing area while minimizing the operational cost of the Korral Kools system. Two experiments were conducted at a dairy in Saudi Arabia to evaluate operational time of Korral Kools for multiparous and primiparous dairy cows. For multiparous cows, running time per day of Korral Kools should be continuous, but for primiparous cows, no difference in performance was detected between 21 and 24 hours. However, producers need to be careful when reducing daily operation time of Korral Kools for primiparous cows because elevated core body temperatures were observed in both treatments