Other Economics Commons^™

Feeder Cattle Future Price Spreads: Opportunities To Hedge?, Elliott James Dennis

Extension Farm and Ranch Management News

First paragraph:

Feeder cattle future price spreads across all months have recovered to near pre-COVID-19 levels as quarantine restrictions and packing plant capacity issues have been mostly sorted out. For example, for the week of July 17, 2010 [sic], prices reached levels not seen since the beginning of March 2020. Pasture and corn progress are two factors that have the potential to push prices lower in the next coming months. Given current market conditions, producers have some options to lock in a margin.

The Impact Of Taxes And Wasteful Government Spending On Giving, Roman Sheremeta, Neslihan Uler

ESI Working Papers

We examine how taxes impact charitable giving and how this relationship is affected by the degree of wasteful government spending. In our model, individuals make donations to charities knowing that the government collects a flat-rate tax on income (net of charitable donations) and redistributes part of the tax revenue. The rest of the tax revenue is wasted. The model predicts that a higher tax rate increases charitable donations. Surprisingly, the model shows that a higher degree of waste decreases donations (when the elasticity of marginal utility with respect to consumption is high enough). We test the model’s predictions using a …

The Economics Of Babysitting A Robot, Aleksandr Alekseev

ESI Working Papers

I study the welfare effect of automation on workers in a setting where technology is complementary but imperfect. Using a modified task-based framework, I argue that imperfect complementary automation can impose non-pecuniary costs on workers via a behavioral channel. The theoretical model suggests that a critical factor determining the welfare effect of imperfect complementary automation is the automatability of the production process. I confirm the model's predictions in an experiment that elicits subjects' revealed preference for automation. Increasing automatability leads to a significant increase in the demand for automation. I explore additional drivers of the demand for automation using machine …

Immune Function During Pregnancy Varies Between Ecologically Distinct Populations, Carmen Hové, Benjamin C. Trumble, Amy S. Anderson, Jonathan Stieglitz, Hillard Kaplan, Michael Gurven, Aaron Blackwell

ESI Publications

Background and objectives

Among placental mammals, females undergo immunological shifts during pregnancy to accommodate the fetus (i.e. fetal tolerance). Fetal tolerance has primarily been characterized within post-industrial populations experiencing evolutionarily novel conditions (e.g. reduced pathogen exposure), which may shape maternal response to fetal antigens. This study investigates how ecological conditions affect maternal immune status during pregnancy by comparing the direction and magnitude of immunological changes associated with each trimester among the Tsimane (a subsistence population subjected to high pathogen load) and women in the USA.

Methodology

Data from the Tsimane Health and Life History Project (N = 935) and …

Perkembangan Tingkat Pengembalian Investasi Pendidikan Menengah Di Indonesia Tahun 2015 Dan 2018, Nuelda Amalia, Lilik Sugiharti

Jurnal Ekonomi dan Pembangunan Indonesia

This research aims to estimate returns to secondary education in Indonesia, especially senior and vocational high school, and its development in 2015 and 2018. Data from Indonesia National Labor Force Survey (NFLS) 2015 and 2018 are used here. Returns are estimated using Two-Step Heckman Method. The results are, in 2015, returns to senior high school (9,32%) are higher than vocational high school (8,89%). However, in 2018, returns to vocational high school (9,53%) are higher than senior high school (9,41%). This shift is caused by the increasing number of vocational school graduates absorbed in workforce and increasing income of vocational school …

Public Leaderboard Feedback In Sampling Competition: An Experimental Investigation, Stanton Hudja, Brian Roberson, Yaroslav Rosokha

ESI Working Papers

We investigate the role of performance feedback, in the form of a public leaderboard, in a sequential-sampling contest with costly observations. The player whose sequential random sample contains the observation with the highest value wins the contest and obtains a prize with a fixed value. We find that there exist parameter configurations such that in the subgame perfect equilibrium of contests with a fixed ending date (i.e., finite horizon), providing public performance feedback results in fewer expected observations and a lower expected value of the winning observation. We conduct a controlled laboratory experiment to test the theoretical predictions, and find …

Forecasting Skills In Experimental Markets: Illusion Or Reality?, Brice Corgnet, Cary Deck, Mark Desantis, David Porter

ESI Working Papers

Using experimental asset markets, we study the situation of a financial analyst who is trying to infer the fundamental value of an asset by observing the market’s history. We find that such capacity requires both standard cognitive skills (IQ) as well as social and emotional skills. However, forecasters with high emotional skills tend to perform worse when market mispricing is high as they tend to give too much emphasis to the noisy signals from market data. By contrast, forecasters with high social skills perform especially well in markets with high levels of mispricing in which their skills could help them …

Trust, Reciprocity, And Social History: New Pathways Of Learning When Max U (Own Reward) Fails Decisively, Vernon L. Smith

ESI Working Papers

"This evaluation begins with the BDM protocol—itself a methodological contribution—and the experimental findings. The question of the replicability and robustness of these unexpected results is addressed next in a summary of two subsequent experimental papers. We follow with a discussion of two attempts to explain qua understand the BDM findings; both, however, have methological deficiencies—Reciprocity and Social Preference explanations. Finally, we offer a brief on Adam Smith’s (1759; 1853; hereafter in the text, Sentiments) model of human sociability, based on strictly self-interested actors, that culminates in propositions that (1) account for trust game choices, and (2) predict action in new …

Introduction To The R-Package: Usdampr, Elliott James Dennis, Bowen Chen

Extension Farm and Ranch Management News

Why the Need for the Package? In the 1990’s, concern over growing packer concentration and a hog industry market shock resulted in discontent among producers and packers. As a result, the United States Congress passed the Livestock Mandatory Reporting Act of 1999 (1999 Act) [Pub. L. 106-78, Title IX] which is required to be reauthorized every five years. See here for a full history of the Livestock Mandatory Reporting Background.

Market reports were publicly issued in the form of .txt files with varying frequency from April 2000 to April 2020. Current and historical data were also housed in a USDA-AMS …

Strategic Problems With Risky Prospects, Alessandro Sontuoso, Cristina Bicchieri, Alexander Funcke, Einav Hart

ESI Working Papers

We study “hypothetical reasoning” in games where the impact of risky prospects (chance moves with commonly-known conditional probabilities) is compounded by strategic uncertainty. We embed such games in an environment that permits us to verify if risk-taking behavior is affected by information that reduces the extent of strategic uncertainty. We then test some implications of expected utility theory, while making minimal assumptions about individuals’ (risk or ambiguity) attitudes. Results indicate an effect of the information on behavior: this effect is triggered in some cases by a belief-revision about others’ actions, and in other cases by a reversal in risk …

Business Powers Of Attorney For Nebraska Farm And Ranch Business Owners, J. David Aiken

Extension Farm and Ranch Management News

This publication introduces the POA concept and discusses the Nebraska statutory form POA and its limitations. The purpose is to familiarize the reader with POAs, including their use and misuse, so that they can interact more effectively with their attorney in developing a POA, should they need one.

Disclaimer

This information is intended for educational purposes only; it must not be taken as legal advice or as a substitute for legal advice. If you have legal questions about developing and implementing a power of attorney for operating your business should you be unable to do so yourself, contact an …

Utilizing Annual Forage Crops In Rotations, John Hewlett, Jay Parsons, Jeff Tranel

Extension Farm and Ranch Management News

First paragraph

Approximately 60 million acres of forage are harvested annually in the United States, according to the National Agricultural Statistical Service (NASS). With lower commodity grain and oilseed prices along with high pasture rental rates and/or difficulty finding range and pasture to rent, some producers are considering ways to incorporate more forages into their crop rotations.

Changing Grid Premiums And Discounts Due To Underlying Changes In The Fed Cattle Industry, Elliott James Dennis

Extension Farm and Ranch Management News

First paragraph:

In recent weeks there has been increased attention given to the role of Alternative Marketing Arrangements, commonly referred to as AMA's, in the fed cattle market. The use of these AMA’s varies greatly by region and some of the more common AMA’s used include grid and formula pricing. AMA’s pay producers premiums and discounts from a ‘base price’ based on a combination of the yield grade, quality grade, and weight of dressed cattle. It is common for the negotiated cash price to serve as the ‘base price’ for AMA’s using the either the geographical region or the 5-market …

Rationing Social Contact During The Covid-19 Pandemic: Transmission Risk And Social Benefits Of Us Locations, Seth G. Benzell, Avinash Collis, Christos Nicolaides

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

To prevent the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), some types of public spaces have been shut down while others remain open. These decisions constitute a judgment about the relative danger and benefits of those locations. Using mobility data from a large sample of smartphones, nationally representative consumer preference surveys, and economic statistics, we measure the relative transmission reduction benefit and social cost of closing 26 categories of US locations. Our categories include types of shops, entertainments, and service providers. We rank categories by their trade-off of social benefits and transmission risk via dominance across 13 dimensions of risk and …

Employment Income Drops In More Low-Income Than High-Income Households In All States, Michael P. Ettlinger, Jordan Hensley

Carsey Publications

Low-wage workers are being hit much harder in the COVID-19 economic crisis than higher wage workers. This is evident in the much greater job loss in lower wage industries than higher wage industries.

The Ethics Of Capitalism: An Introduction, Daniel Halliday, John Thrasher

Philosophy Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"The textbook covers longstanding problems that are as old as the discussion of capitalism itself, such as wage inequality, global trade, and the connection between paid labor and human flourishing. It also addresses new challenges, such as climate change, the welfare state, and competitive consumption, and provides topical global case studies. Additionally, it includes study questions at the end of each chapter and an author-created companion website to help guide classroom discussion."

Analysis Of The Causal Link Between Economic Growth And Development In Nigeria (1960-2019), Muhammad Umar

Bullion

Taking cognizant of Nigeria's recent policies toward translating growth to meaningful development, this study aimed at analysing causality amid economic growth and development using annual series from 1960-2019.The study engaged vector autoregressive method by embracing Toda and Yamamoto 1995 model. The results reveals a bidirectional causality between economic growth and dependency ratio; population growth rate and economic growth and also it reveals the evidence of uni-directional causality from dependency ratio to life expectancy and from population growth to life expectancy. But economic growth and life expectancy as well as dependency ratio and life expectancy does not present evidence of causality.

Essays In Retirement Economics, Gunnar Poppe Yanez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation consists of three chapters.

Chapter 1

The discrepancy between the high demand for annuities predicted by economic theory and the empirical low holdings of these assets, known as the annuity puzzle, is still not completely understood in economic studies of retirement finance. This paper assesses the effect of individuals' mortality risk learning process on annuitization. I isolate this effect by building a life-cycle model in which individuals have imperfect information of their true survival probability distribution, and therefore have to update their beliefs about it in a Bayesian manner. Using data on subjective mortality by the Health and …

Inequality In Foraging And Farming Societies: An Experimental Approach, Antonio J. Morales, Ismael Rodriguez-Lara

ESI Working Papers

We propose two games that resemble the conditions of human societies before and after the Neolithic agricultural revolution to test the hypothesis that the modes of production affected the level of inequality. We replicate the findings that foraging societies organized themselves around social division of labour and were more egalitarian than farming societies. We also find evidence that i) the transition from foraging to farming societies was heterogeneous, with groups that quickly adopted the agricultural practice and others that never experienced it, and ii) inequality in farming societies increases as agriculture settles. Our experimental data further suggest that the transition …

Religion In Economic History: A Survey, Sascha O. Becker, Jared Rubin, Ludger Woessmann

ESI Working Papers

This chapter surveys the recent social science literature on religion in economic history, covering both socioeconomic causes and consequences of religion. Following the rapidly growing literature, it focuses on the three main monotheisms—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—and on the period up to WWII. Works on Judaism address Jewish occupational specialization, human capital, emancipation, and the causes and consequences of Jewish persecution. One set of papers on Christianity studies the role of the Catholic Church in European economic history since the medieval period. Taking advantage of newly digitized data and advanced econometric techniques, the voluminous literature on the Protestant Reformation studies its …

Trade Facilitation And Tariff Evasion, Cosimo Beverelli, Rohit Ticku

ESI Working Papers

This paper investigates the extent to which trade facilitation measures included in the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement affect tariff evasion. In a dataset covering 121 countries and the whole set of HS6 product categories in 2012, 2015, and 2017, the paper shows that trade facilitation measures that improve legal certainty for traders moderate tariff evasion. Holding tariff rate constant at its mean, one standard deviation improvement in trade facilitation measures related to legal certainty reduces tariff evasion, as measured by missing imports in trade statistics, by almost 12%. In a counterfactual with full trade liberalization, countries with higher scores on …

Trust And Trustworthiness After Negative Random Shocks, Hernán Bejarano, Joris Gillet, Ismael Rodriguez-Lara

ESI Working Papers

We investigate experimentally the effect of a negative endowment shock in a trust game to assess whether different causes of inequality have different effects on trust and trustworthiness. In our trust game there may be inequality in favor of the second mover and this may (or may not) be the result of a negative random shock (i.e., the outcome of a die roll) that decreases the endowment of the first-mover. Our findings suggest that inequality leads to differences in behavior. First-movers send more of their endowment and second-movers return more when there is inequality. However, we do not find support …

The Effect Of Piracy Website Blocking On Consumer Behavior, Brett Danaher, Jonathan Hersh, Michael D. Smith, Rahul Telang

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

In this study, we ask what drives the success or failure of various supply-side anti-piracy enforcement actions such as piracy website blocking. We do this in the context of three court-ordered events affecting consumers in the United Kingdom: We first study Internet Service Providers’ blocking of 53 video piracy sites in 2014 and of 19 piracy sites in 2013, and we then study the blocking of a single dominant site, “The Pirate Bay,” in 2012.

We show that blocking 53 sites in 2014 caused treated users to decrease piracy and to increase their usage of legal subscription sites between 7% …

Coronavirus Food Assistance Program For Livestock Producers, Bradley Lubben

Extension Farm and Ranch Management News

United States Congress and the President have approved multiple phases of COVID-19 assistance to date including the $2.3 trillion CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security) Act passed in March that provides financial support for agricultural producers as a small part of the overall relief.

While agricultural producers and agribusinesses are eligible for two programs administered through the Small Business Administration, including the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDLs), the primary support for agriculture is coming from USDA through the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP). The CARES Act provided $9.5 billion directly to the Secretary of …

Coronavirus Food Assistance Program For Crops Producers, Bradley Lubben

Extension Farm and Ranch Management News

The United States Congress and the President have approved multiple phases of COVID-19 assistance to date including the $2.3 trillion CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security) Act passed in March that provides financial support for agricultural producers as a small part of the overall relief.

While agricultural producers and agribusinesses are eligible for two programs administered through the Small Business Administration, including the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDLs), the primary support for agriculture is coming from USDA through the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP). The CARES Act provided $9.5 billion directly to the Secretary …

Determinants Of County-Level Poverty Rates In 2017: An Upper-Midwest Comparison, Trey V. Perez

Undergraduate Economic Review

The American upper-Midwest as a region throughout the 2010s has experienced lower-than-average poverty rates. This paper seeks to uncover the determinants that have the greatest impact on the county-level poverty rates for five states (Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the Dakotas). Outcomes for this study came from an Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression to estimate the impact each independent variable had on the poverty rate. The empirical results showed the unemployment rate, the percentage of households headed solely by females, and percent of the population that was Native American in 2017 had a significant impact on a county’s poverty rate.

Alternatives To High Nebraska Agricultural Land Real Estate Taxes, Part 2 Of 2: Like-Kind Exchange, Austin Duerfeldt

Extension Farm and Ranch Management News

In part one of this series of articles, I touched on the idea that, when holding land as an investment, considering alternatives is important. We discussed the process of selling the ground, paying the capital gains and then investing in alternatives such as stocks. Here in part two, we will continue to consider the question of agricultural land being the correct investment for your portfolio but will take a different alternative approach. Now, we will look at like-kind exchanges.

1031 Like-Kind Exchange

With a 1031 like-kind exchange, we are taking a real property asset and exchanging it for another real …

Advanced Health Care Directives In Nebraska: Health Care Power Of Attorney And Living Wills, J. David Aiken

Extension Farm and Ranch Management News

First paragraph:

During this period of coronavirus pandemic, some Nebraskans may be concerned about how medical decisions will be made for them if they are unable to communicate their wishes to their health care providers themselves. In these circumstances, health care providers will normally consult with the patient’s family members who may be available (spouse, then adult children–consensus, then parents, etc.) If no family members are present, the health care providers will use their best medical judgment in making health care decisions for the patient.

Disclaimer

This information is intended for educational purposes only; it must not be taken as …

Shocks To Aggregate Demand And Aggregate Supply In The Midst Of Covid-19, Anna M. Gellerman

Publications and Research

COVID-19 sent shockwaves throughout the economy, changing the amounts of goods and services distributed and altering the demand. This article discusses the negative demand shock and adverse supply shock that the U.S. economy faced in 2020, and the policies that the government implemented to reverse these effects.

The Effect Of Sex Of Firstborn Children On Attitudes Towards Intimate Partner Violence, Shuvam Rizal

Master's Theses

What are the different ways in which one’s life is influenced by the sex of their children? Is there an effect on how they view Intimate Partner Violence? If so, is there a difference in how the male parent is affected by the sex of his child than the female parent? Bodies of conflicting Social Sciences literature suggest having a daughter makes one both more and less likely to engage in Intimate Partner Violence. In this paper, I approach this question through the use of a Linear Probability Fixed-Effects model on Demographic Health Surveys (DHS) datasets, using data from the …