Exploring the use of Controlled English for communication with ACT-R agents

Research is being undertaken into sense-making by collaborative agents, based upon a cognitive framework of human behaviour, ACT-R, together with communication between the agents. We explore the use of Controlled English for this purpos

Status of Health and Pension Benefits for Employees of the State of Georgia in 2004

This report analyzes the Health and Retirement Package offer to employees of the State of Georgia. FRC Report 10

The Impact of the National Counter-Cyclical Income Support Program for Dairy Producers on Representative Dairy Farms

This report contains the results of an analysis of the National Counter-Cyclical Income Support Program for Dairy Producers on the Agricultural and Food Policy Center’s (AFPC) representative dairy farms. The impact of the proposal on the representative farms is evaluated in terms of the change in average annual cash receipts and the change in the average annual net cash farm income. The role and potential importance of payment limits on these farms are discussed. All milk prices by state and program benefits under the payment limit binding and nonbinding scenarios were developed by FAPRI and were applied to the representative dairies. For more information on those results see the FAPRI analysis of this program.Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Livestock Production/Industries,

Can We Save the Traditional Family Farm?

What is a traditional family farm? Is it a family of four living on a farm and supplying all of the labor, capital and management or is it a family corporation with four families supplying all of the capital and management? These types of questions continue to arise in policy debates, as they have for many years. While subject to heated debate and the core of many people’s positions on farm programs the answer is more sociological as it is becoming less and less economically relevant. Whether these types of farms or any other farm sizes should survive is not a question that can be answered by a policy analyst. The job of an analyst is to determine if and under what conditions family farms can survive. To this end, this paper reviews the various definitions of family farms and draws inferences as to the economic and financial survival of these different size farms using the results generated from simulating representative farms.Agricultural and Food Policy,

Post-Freedom to Farm Shifts in Regional Production Patterns

The FAIR Act of 1996, also known as the Freedom to Farm Act (ACT) dismantled many of the agriculture policy tools in use for the last 25 years. Gone were target prices, deficiency payments, and set asides. In their place were expanded marketing loan programs to effectively include wheat and feed grains and oilseeds in addition to cotton and rice. Full planting flexibility has been popular with farmers who are no longer constrained by base acres. Grain merchants and other volume oriented agribusinesses praise the elimination of set asides. The sharp decline in farm prices for all major program commodities since 1996 has left most farmers questioning the income safety net provisions of the FAIR Act. The flexibility and marketing loan provisions continue to be praised. Farm program changes in the 1996 farm bill rendered methods of crop supply response estimation based on econometric models, using historic data, difficult at best. Yet it can, and has been, hypothesized that the Act resulted in major shifts in regional crop production patterns. This paper draws inferences from changes in acres planted among crops for representative farms in the Texas A&M Agricultural and Food Policy Center’s (AFPC) farm data base. AFPC has maintained longitudinal data for more than three dozen representative crop farms across states, regions, farm size, and type of farm since 1990. The farms were updated in 1999 as to their crop mix changes following the ACT and the crop mix changes observed in the updates are summarized here. United States aggregate production shifts are identified from NASS data. Implications for future potential acreage changes are identified. The commodity focus includes feedgrains, soybeans, wheat, cotton, and rice.Agricultural and Food Policy,

ECONOMETRIC MODEL OF THE U.S. SHEEP INDUSTRY FOR POLICY ANALYSIS

The U.S. sheep inventory has been declining for many years. To further investigate this trend, an econometric sector model using single demand equations was developed to analyze the impacts of two alternative levels of wool marketing loan rates.Marketing,

A Brief Summary of U.S. Farm Program Provisions

This brief publication began as a need for a short summary of farm programs and farm bills for two agricultural economics courses focusing on agricultural policy -- ag. economics 429, and ag. economics 614. It became clear that many students taking these courses had less and less background in agriculture and less (even cursory) knowledge of policies than those of the recent past. After this list was developed a number of other professional agricultural economists found copies and began to use it, hence its publication in a more structured form. The list of Farm Program Provisions is not all-inclusive. It certainly does not contain all the laws and provisions that have affected agriculture over the years. However, it is an easy reference to farm bills and provisions since 1933. We intend to update this list as time goes on to continue its usefulness to professionals and students alike.Agricultural and Food Policy,

Retirement Saving Adequacy and Individual Investment Risk Management Using the Asset/Salary Ratio

This chapter uses the Asset-Salary Ratio (ASR) to examine the factors that increase the likelihood that defined contribution plan participants will have sufficient assets to generate adequate retirement income, similar to the defined benefit plan full-funding ratio. We apply this measure to a sample of TIAA-CREF participants, and we show that participant assets are on average consistent with at least a 70 percent income replacement ratio. Key factors explaining success are an adequate contribution rate and long tenure in the system; having a portfolio weighted to equities is beneficial but to a lesser extent. Thus good funding and early participation is more important than ‘chasing returns.’ Measures such as the ASR can help participants make more informed choices

Back to the Future: Hybrid Co-operative Pensions and the TIAA-CREF System

Hybrid retirement plans that combine the best features of defined benefit and defined contribution plans can provide an efficient and equitable method of ensuring retirement security for workers. Co-operative pension structures also enhance retirement security through risk pooling and leveraging economies of scale. Yet most U.S. private sector workers are not covered by these types of plan design. The TIAA-CREF system, which began in 1918 and covers millions of workers in the non-profit sector, provides an example of a plan design with features of a hybrid co-operative pension. We examine the historical performance of the core components, TIAA (a guaranteed fixed annuity) and CREF (a variable annuity), discuss key design features, and analyze data on contributions, investment returns, risk pooling, and retirement distribution characteristics

The Impact of Land Fragmentation on Beef Cattle Inventory

Many groups have discussed with alarm the impact of agricultural land conversion to non-agricultural uses. This research indicates little evidence that beef cow inventory has been negatively affected by land fragmentation. Average acres per transaction, total transactions, or a fragmentation index did not have an important effect on cattle inventory.Land Economics/Use, Livestock Production/Industries,