Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Nebraska National Agri-Marketing Association (Nama) Is Back On Track, Ashton Humphreys, Rosalee A. Swartz

Cornhusker Economics

UNL’s National Agri-Marketing Association (NAMA) student organization is one of more than thirty student chapters across the U.S. and Canada. NAMA’s objective is to make students aware of the many career opportunities in agricultural marketing. Building strong connections between students and professionals in marketing, advertising, communications, promotion, sales, and public relations is the key to this objective. NAMA members also have opportunities to develop leadership and team-building skills through club activities and involvement. Two years of COVID created a leadership and experience gap for UNL NAMA. Officers from 2018-2019 had graduated. Monthly meetings were suspended for some time, followed by …

Depreciation Changes Ahead, Tina N. Barrett

Cornhusker Economics

When the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) was passed in 2018, a lot of time and focus was placed on all the things that were changing quickly and the things that were 5-6 years out became back burner problems. Amazingly enough, we are now at the stage of the bill where things are starting to phase out. These changes will start to impact tax returns starting in 2023 and will continue increasing taxable income through 2025. The first change is the phase out of the Bonus depreciation. This law has been on the books since 2001 (there was no …

The Unintended Consequences Of China’S One-Child Policy, Wesley Peterson

Cornhusker Economics

In 1968, Paul Ehrlich published a book entitled The Population Bomb in which he argued that rapid population growth would overwhelm the world’s capacity to feed, house, and otherwise care for the coming millions of people. At that time, the world population was about 3.5 billion growing at an average annual rate of 2.06 percent (World Bank 2023). At that rate of growth, the world’s population would have been expected to double to 7.0 billion by 2001. In fact, population growth rates fell after the 1960s and world population reached only 6.2 billion in that year. Fears of a population …

Producer Long-Term Marketing Opportunities With Ethanol Plants, Austin Harthoorn, Logan Lloyd, Cory Walters, Kate Brooks

Cornhusker Economics

Commodity marketing operates in a complex decision environment with constant information flow, which can conceal long-run financially profitable marketing opportunities for producers. In the corn marketing space, the competitive role of ethanol plants throughout the state may provide producers with long-run financial gains by strategically approaching marketing decisions. In this article, we characterize whether producers can gain financially from strategically marketing corn to ethanol plants. For example, do ethanol plants provide a better long-run return from pre-harvest hedging, spring sale, or harvest sale?

We investigate three important contracting times--forward contract for harvest delivery (called pre-harvest hereafter), harvest delivery, and spring …

Things To Consider Before Co-Signing A Loan, J. David Aiken

Cornhusker Economics

In the context of family farms, includes some general points to consider before you sign a loan guarantee for a family member who is heavily in debt.

Conclusion: Having to consider whether to co-sign a child's loan is a very difficult situation-no one wants to be part of losing part of the family farm or ranch to loan foreclosure. But if the loan guarantee isn't part of a financial turnaround plan that has at least a fighting chance of success, don't sign the guarantee unless you absolutely don't need the money for your own retirement.

Deficit Irrigation Management For Irrigated Corn In Nebraska: Economically Viable?, Lia Nogueira, Cory Walters, Emily O'Donnell, Wesley Peterson, Suat Irmak

Cornhusker Economics

In this study we determine the economic value of deficit irrigation management using both technological and methodological advancements. The use of soil moisture probes represents the technological improvement. We provide improvements in the methodology as follows. Regarding data, we employ a field-size study, instead of plots, where the irrigation decision is determined by the moisture level in the soil measured through a soil moisture probe. Regarding the understanding of the yield response to water, although we examine the commonly used quadratic function, we improve upon this specification by also examining an alternative response function, the linear response stochastic plateau. Our …

2023 Nebraska Women In Agriculture Conference, Jessica Groskopf, Katie Hothem

Cornhusker Economics

Includes a recap of the 38th Nebraska Women in Agriculture Conference held in February 2023 in Kearney, Nebraska.

Carbon Farming: A Preliminary Economic Analysis Of Carbon Credits For No-Till And Cover Crops, Drew Havens, Richard K. Perrin, Lilyan E. Fulginiti

Cornhusker Economics

Summary Based on experimental data about the amount of carbon sequestered and estimated implementation costs, our preliminary results show that the average cost of sequestering carbon via no-till (about $22 per ton of CO₂e) appears to be much lower than the $51 per ton social value of sequestering that ton. In contrast, our preliminary results show that the average costs of sequestration via adoption of cover crops is much higher, about $60 per ton. Depending on how accurate soil carbon models are in predicting sequestration on individual fields to qualify them for enrollment, reimbursement costs for planting cover …

Nebraska Farmland Values And Cash Rental Rates In 2023, Jim Jansen, Jeffrey Stokes

Cornhusker Economics

The market value of agricultural land in Nebraska increased by 14% over the prior year to an average of US $3,835 per acre, according to the 2023 Nebraska Farm Real Estate Market Survey. This marks the second-largest increase in the market value of agricultural land in Nebraska since 2014 and the highest non-inflation-adjusted state-wide land value in the 45-year history of the survey.

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Department of Agricultural Economics annually surveys land industry professionals across Nebraska, including appraisers, farm and ranch managers, agricultural bankers, and related industry professionals. Results from the survey are divided by land class and …

The Trade Impact Of Economic Integration Agreements, Byungyul Park, John C. Beghin

Cornhusker Economics

A year ago, Cornhusker Economics reported on the substantial trade integration that has been taking place globally in recent decades (see Beghin, 2022). With this proliferation of Economic Integration Agreements (EIAs) through regional and bilateral trade agreements and customs unions since the 1990s, many economists have investigated the effect of these agreements on merchandise trade. Early investigations struggled to find robust findings. They reached two opposite conclusions, with an eventual rejoinder on their limitations. Some investigations found statistically insignificant or negligible effects of EIAs on trade flows. Other investigations found significant effects, sometimes negative, of EIAs on trade. See Park …

Workforce Trends To Watch In 2023, Cheryl A. Burkhart-Kriesel

Cornhusker Economics

The rise of quiet quitters, digital nomads, and shaky employee trust are some of the major workforce trends that need watching in 2023, according to a recent article published by the Harvard Business School. Coupled with an uncertain economy and a tight labor market, business owners can view these potential trends as either challenges that pull their business down or opportunities that offer a competitive advantage. To leverage these toward business growth and increased productivity, it takes an understanding of how these trends emerged and how they could be an asset in an ever-changing business environment.

Covers: quiet quitters, digital …

Rising Interest Rates: What They Mean For You And The Economy, Timothy L. Meyer

Cornhusker Economics

Discusses rising interest rates what they mean for agricultural workers and the economy.

The Impact Of Organized Activism On Technology Sharing, Ahmed Chennak, Amalia Yiannaka

Cornhusker Economics

What factors influence a firm's decision to share its technology with competitors? While patent licensing has received considerable attention in the literature, studies have typically focused on the optimal licensing contract for product and process innovations in various market settings. A key finding of this literature is that the optimal licensing strategy depends on the type of the patentee; that is, whether the patentee is a producer in the market (insider patentee) or not (outsider patentee). Little attention has been given, however, to the role the general public can play on firms' incentives to share their innovations through licensing contracts …

Home Tap Water In Nonmetropolitan Nebraska, Rebecca J. Vogt

Cornhusker Economics

Water is an important resource in Nebraska. Most of the drinking water in the state (85%) comes from groundwater sources. Public water sources are required to test their water to ensure it is safe. However, private wells are not subject to any safety or quality standards. Given that, what are the main sources of home tap water for rural Nebraskans? Do they test or treat their water? The 2022 Nebraska Rural Poll examined these questions.

Role Of Social Network On Technology Adoption: Application To Nebraska Producers In The Face Of Undesirable Vegetation Transitions, Sabrina Gulab, Holly K. Nesbitt, Simanti Banerjee, Theresa Floyd

Cornhusker Economics

Conclusion

Producers need to have access to information regarding new conservation practices and technologies to ensure land management in the face of ecological threats in general and vegetation transitions (VTs) in the context of our study. This study investigates the role of an individual producer's social network on the willingness to seek information about technologies and management practices and the likelihood of new technology adoption with special attention to risk attitudes and producer spillover effects. Our results provide evidence that network composition and information obtained through a producer's social network don't influence an individual's willingness to seek information about new …

Rural Movers Studies ... People Are Moving For Community Attributes And Jobs, Marilyn R. Schlake

Cornhusker Economics

University of Minnesota researchers conducted a Rural Movers Study to determine the motivations of people who moved within one to five years to rural Minnesota communities. Their findings are not unlike earlier research conducted at the University of Nebraska in 2008. The Rural Movers Study showed that 31 % of respondents moved due to a job or job offer. However, this was not one of the primary reasons individuals moved. For those individuals who did not move for employment, 76% wanted to find a good environment for raising their children, 67% moved to be closer to relatives, 64% looked for …

Importance Of Good Communications For Generational Ag Business Transfers, Allan Vyhnalek

Cornhusker Economics

Adapted from Right Risk, volume 10, Issue 10, October 2022.

Effective communication within a farm or ranch family, especially when multiple generations are operating and managing the business, is the underpinning of all other decisions made in a family business. It is critical that farm and ranch families identify areas of contention and develop communication skills that will allow them to negotiate satisfying outcomes. This may involve basic skills training, including communication, problem solving, and decision making.

The Impact Of Policy Design On Willingness To Pay For Ecosystem Services From Prairie Strips, Karina Schoengold, Badri Khanal, Taro Mieno, Lisa Schulte Moore

Cornhusker Economics

Ecosystem services from farmland conservation are public good benefits. The value of these benefits is primarily measured using methods that determine the willingness to pay (WTP) for those benefits. Prairie strips, a farmland conservation practice, provide ecosystem services such as improved water quality, soil health, and biodiversity (Schulte et al., 2017). The state of Iowa is a major corn producer and contributes significant amounts of nitrogen and phosphorous to the Gulf of Mexico (Alexander et al., 2008). The development of conventional agricultural systems has also resulted in a significant loss of biodiversity, including a dominant land cover of tallgrass prairie. …

How Effective Are The Russian Sanctions?, Wesley Peterson

Cornhusker Economics

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has led to extensive economic, financial, trade, and other types of sanctions directed at individual Russians and the Russian economy. The long-term negative effects of the war on the Russian economy may be even more severe and the broader impacts of the conflict mean that it will have serious repercussions for future global economic, political, and diplomatic relations.

Innovation In Futures Markets: Event Contracts, Speculation, And Hedging, Fabio Mattos

Cornhusker Economics

The CME Group has recently launched a new type of contract whose payoffs are based on specific events. These contracts are called event contracts but are also known as prediction contracts or information contracts. They are short-term contracts that expire at the end of each trading day. Traders can take positions in these contracts as they predict whether the price of a given asset will finish the trading day above or below a set value.

Discusses: How are they traded? Main characteristics of event contracts. Event contracts offered by CME group and event examples on October 21, 2022. Why were …

On The Market For "Lemons": When Low Quality Does Not Drive High Quality Out Of The Market, Konstantinos Giannakas, Murray E. Fulton

Cornhusker Economics

In a research article published in Nature's Humanities and Social Sciences Communications (available at https://www.nature.com/articles/s4l 599-020-00658-w) we identify the conditions under which the introduction of a low -quality product does not drive its high-quality counterpart out of the market but, instead, ends-up coexisting with it. Using a theoretical framework of heterogeneous consumers and producers in the context of a market for quality- ( or vertically-) differentiated products supplied by producers differing in their production efficiency, we show that the equilibrium quality configuration in a market depends on both the unobservability of product quality by consumers and the relative costs …

The Storm In World Fertilizer Markets Continues, John C. Beghin

Cornhusker Economics

This article updates the recent article on world fertilizer markets by Beghin and Nogueira (2021), which noted the perfect storm affecting global fertilizer markets through high demand, droughts affecting fertilizer supply, high fossil energy prices, COVID 19-related supply-chain disruptions, and trade policies, all conspiring to elevate fertilizer nominal prices to levels not seen since 2008. In the last 10 months, the Ukraine-Russia war and associated trade sanctions have exacerbated the disruptions in fossil energy, grain, vegetable oil, and fertilizer markets already present in 2021. On the more hopeful side, some United States trade policy developments will help reduce US fertilizer …

Setting The Stage For The Next Farm Bill Debate, Bradley D. Lubben

Cornhusker Economics

The 2018 Farm Bill is set to expire in September 2023. New farm bill legislation will be needed by then if authority is to be extended for a wide range of programs from farm support to conservation, nutrition assistance, credit, trade promotion, rural development, research and education, and more.

The agricultural committees in Congress have already held initial hearings and many agricultural and other interest groups have noted their policy priorities. However, formal debate on a new farm bill is not expected to begin in earnest until early 2023 when a new session of Congress convenes.

While the formal debate …

Nebraska’S Rural Population: Historical Facts And Future Projections, Cheryl A. Burkhart-Kriesel

Cornhusker Economics

Drive down any rural highway in our state and you will quickly conclude that we are a collection of small towns and villages, with a few larger cities thrown in. Some of them are thriving while others are not. You might ask yourself, why the difference? To fully appreciate this current situation, you need to think back to how our state developed.

Our state has 530 incorporated places with 89% of these communities having fewer than 3,000 people. Nebraska is not alone in this fact, with our neighboring states of Kansas, Oklahoma, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Iowa in the …

Disagreements And Proper Respect In Farm/Ranch Succession, Allan Vyhnalek

Cornhusker Economics

Adapted from "Does Disrespect Have a Place in Your Ag Legacy?" Volume 6, Issue 1, February 2021, Ag Legacy, by Caleb Carter, consultant to the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics in the University of Wyoming College of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

Briefly covers disagreements and proper respect in farm/ranch succession.

Flint Michigan Drinking Water Crisis, J. David Aiken

Cornhusker Economics

Briefly covers the Flint, Michigan drinking water crisis including providing some background, a timeline of events, and key takeaways from the perspective of public policy.

This article was originally prepared for distribution to students in Aiken's AECN 357 environmental and natural resources law course.

Scotus Invalidates Obama Clean Power Plan, J. David Aiken

Cornhusker Economics

On June 30, 2022, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) ruled in the case of West Virginia v. EPA that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could not implement the 2016 Obama administration Clean Power Plan (CPP). This article briefly discusses the CPP, the CPP litigation, the Court's opinion in West Virginia v. EPA, and what the decision means for Biden administration climate policy.

Active Consideration Of Health And Nutritional Quality Of Food Choices, Christopher R. Gustafson

Cornhusker Economics

Everyone can be positively influenced by effective interventions promoting healthier food choices. A handful of recent papers have documented positive impacts on dietary quality resulting from interventions that remind people to consider health through prompt messages or subtle priming in supermarkets and in controlled, online experiments. These studies have focused on the impact of reminders on nutritional quality rather than explaining how reminders work. An exception, Arslain, Gustafson, and Rose (2021), collected data on multiple elements of individuals' choice processes to trace the impact of reminders on decisions, showing that reminder messages led people to consider a healthier set of …

Comparing The Performance Of Cooperative Plans For Equity Accumulation And Retirement, Jeffrey S. Royer

Cornhusker Economics

Equity allocated to members plays a crucial role in financing agricultural cooperatives. Although retained earnings not allocated to members have become an increasingly importantsource of equity in recent years, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) data show thatallocated equity still accounted for 55.5 percent of the $47.5 billion in total equity held in U.S.cooperatives in 2020. [1] Allocated member equity differs from unallocated equity fromretained earnings in that it is owned by individual members and there is an expectation thatit will be redeemed in cash when it is eventually replaced by newer allocations. A recent study has examined the comparative performance …

The Farm And Ranch Hired Labor Market, Larry Van Tassell

Cornhusker Economics

The historical causality between increased agricultural mechanization and reduction in farmlabor is a well-known relationship. The reduction in both family and hired farmworkers onU.S. f arms from 1950 to 2000 is presented in Figure 1. In 1950, the nearly 10 million farmlabor force was composed of 23.5% hired farm workers. In 2000, the last year this data wasavailable, farm labor had reduced to 3.19 million workers and was comprised of 35.4% ofthose workers being hired. The reduction in total farm workers and the trend of reduced farmlabor and a relative increase in hired farm labor appears to have stabilized during …