A STRATEGIC RATIONALE FOR CAPTIVE SUPPLIES

Partial backward integration is prevalent in many agricultural and natural resource processing industries. A strategic rationale for partial backward integration is developed for a dominant firm with a competitive fringe purchasing from competitive input suppliers. A partially backward integrated dominant firm potentially can increase profit through production efficiency gains and through a lower price for externally purchasing input. The optimal degree of backward integration results when the dominant firm's profit from exerting monopsony market power in the external spot market equals its profit from producing raw input internally, less the incremental cost of acquiring internal raw input production capacity. Comparative statics results are consistent with recent empirical studies of the beef packing industry.Agribusiness,

A REVIEW OF ALTERNATIVE EXPECTATIONS REGIMES IN COMMODITY MARKETS: SPECIFICATION, ESTIMATION, AND HYPOTHESIS TESTING USING STRUCTURAL MODELS

Price expectations play a critical role in commodity markets where producers must make input decisions well before output is realized. This paper brings together alternative expectations regimes, their estimation, and hypothesis tests for use in structural commodity models to determine their use by commodity producers. Extrapolative mechanisms and rational expectations are considered under risk neutrality and risk aversion. The assumptions implicit in the use of aggregate data in these models are made explicit. Structural models using individual survey data are discussed. While Muth's rational expectations hypothesis has found widespread acceptance in the macroeconomic literature, empirical results from industry studies indicate that commodity producers may have heterogeneous price expectations, with no single expectations hypothesis dominating. This is not surprising given that different producers possess different information and have different costs associated with information collection and processing.Demand and Price Analysis,

A RATIONALE FOR CAPTIVE SUPPLIES

Captive supplies, concentration, meat industry, poultry industry, Agribusiness,

ANALYSIS OF THE EFFECTS OF ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATION ON PULP AND PAPER INDUSTRY STRUCTURE

Environmental regulations are hypothesized to have an impact on industry structure in manufacturing industries. A nonstationary Markov chain analysis shows that the capital expenditures required to meet environmental regulations is a statistically significant variable explaining increasing concentration of production capacity in the pulp and paper industry.Environmental Economics and Policy, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

Palatini Variational Principle for NN-Dimensional Dilaton Gravity

We consider a Palatini variation on a general $N$-Dimensional second order, torsion-free dilaton gravity action and determine the resulting equations of motion. Consistency is checked by considering the restraint imposed due to invariance of the matter action under simple coordinate transformations, and the special case of N=2 is examined. We also examine a sub-class of theories whereby a Palatini variation dynamically coincides with that of the "ordinary" Hilbert variational principle; in particular we examine a generalized Brans-Dicke theory and the associated role of conformal transformations.Comment: 16 pages, LaTe

Culture, identity and alternatives to the consumer culture

This article explores questions of identity and culture in relation to the present systemic crises that confront human life on the planet, problematising the pursuit of economic growth and consumerist culture. It uses the concept of Ideology-Action-Structure complexes to understand the saturating nature of social, political and economic domination, and then explores interventions in these complexes, which all have characteristics of informal education, to promote cultural growth, create new settings and establish a counter-hegemonic ideology and alliance. It is suggested that by joining up fragmented local interventions and movements, there is hope that society's way of life can be shifted to one where cultural enrichment supports a less resource-exploitative economic and cultural model

HST Paschen alpha and 1.9 micron imaging of Sgr A West

We present HST/NICMOS images at 0.2" resolution of the HI Paschen Alpha (PaA) emission line in a 70" x 90" region of the Galactic center centered on the non-thermal radio source Sgr A*. The majority of the emission arises from ionized gas in the mini-spiral in the central parsec. PaA emission is also seen from 26 stellar sources, presumably early-type stars with mass-loss winds. The new data reveal significant small-scale structure (<1"~0.04pc) in the ionized gas of the mini-spiral; low surface brightness emission features are also seen for the first time. Extinction, estimated from the ratio of observed PaA emission to 6-cm continuum emission, varies from 20 to 50 mag with a median Av=31.1 mag, in excellent agreement with earlier estimates for the stellar sources and indepedent measurements derived using H92alpha recombination line data. Large increases in extinction are seen along the periphery of the ionized gas, suggesting that the ionized gas is partially extincted by dust in the molecular clouds at the outside of the ionized regions. The small-scale, filamentary structures in the ionized gas have a free thermal expansion time of only ~ 3000 yrs; either magnetic fields or mass-loss winds from the hot emission line stars may contain the ionized filaments. For both the ionized gas and the stellar continuum, the centroids of the emission remain within ~+/- 1" from a radius of 2" out to 40", providing further evidence that Sgr A* is indeed at or extremely close to the dynamical center of the Galactic nucleus stellar distribution. The 1.9 micron surface brightness increases inwards to 0.9" and then decreases or levels off closer to Sgr A*, possibly indicating the core radius of the central stellar distribution or depletion of the late-type stars by stellar collisions near the central black hole.Comment: 43 pages, 15 figures, 2 tables; Accepted to ApJ (9/1/03 issue