Other Economics Commons^™

Development Of A New Us Currency For The Post-Pandemic Remote Culture, F. Matthew Mihelic

Faculty Publications

The contemporary dollar currency was already under significant pressure prior to the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the economic pressures resulting from the national and world “lockdown” have very significantly exacerbated the vulnerabilities of those Federal Reserve Notes. The ostensible nationalization of the Federal Reserve by the United States federal government in April 2020 is a harbinger of a need to restructure the US currency. Today’s developing remote culture necessitates a new form of electronic currency. Herein is a conceptual blueprint for the development of such a restructured US currency that would function in the post-pandemic remote culture.

Green Gold: Avocado Price Shocks And Violence In Mexico, Katie Roett

Master's Theses

The role of economic incentives in political armed conflict is well documented, but there is very little evidence on a growing and increasingly globalized form of violence: organized crime. Most existing research focuses on the impact of price shocks on wages and how this affects an individual’s opportunity cost to join an armed group or political movement. However, unlike other violent groups, organized criminal groups do not compete for political power, but profits in illegal markets. In Mexico, these groups have more than doubled in the past two decades, leading to an explosion of violence and record high 35,000 people …

Age Appropriate Wisdom? Ethnobiological Knowledge Ontogeny In Pastoralist Mexican Choyeros, Eric Schniter, Shane J. Macfarlan, Juan J. Garcia, Gorgonio Ruiz-Campos, Diego Guevara Beltran, Brenda B. Bowen, Jory C. Lerbak

ESI Working Papers

We investigate whether age profiles of ethnobiological knowledge development are consistent with predictions derived from life history theory about the timing of productivity and reproduction. Life history models predict complementary knowledge profiles developing across the lifespan for women and men as they experience changes in embodied capital and the needs of dependent offspring. We evaluate these predictions using an ethnobiological knowledge assessment tool developed for an off-grid pastoralist population, known as Choyeros, from Baja California Sur, Mexico. Our results indicate that while individuals acquire knowledge of most dangerous items and edible resources by early adulthood, knowledge of plants and animals …

Accounting For Ag: Step Up While Passing Down, Austin Duerfeldt

Extension Farm and Ranch Management News

Summary

Through this article, I hope you’ve gained a better understanding of the basics of a step up in basis. A step up in basis can be viewed as an opportune time to sell long held farm ground that appreciated in value, with little to no capital gain issues. It plays a vital role in estate planning. In the individual case of each farmer/rancher, how the step up in basis might work for your operation varies on many specific circumstances. Developing an estate planning team that includes professionals such as an attorney and accountant, as well as, investment and insurance …

Alternatives To High Nebraska Agricultural Land Real Estate Taxes, Part 1 Of 2: Capital Gains And Alternative Investments, Austin Duerfeldt

Extension Farm and Ranch Management News

First paragraph

In Nebraska, most of my conversations about managing agricultural properties, whether rental or production, tend to steer toward real estate taxes at some point. While many counties in Nebraska have seen agricultural land taxes drop slightly since the 2015-2017 period, they are still a significant portion of operational expense. For example, dryland acres in Southeast Nebraska ballpark around $60 an acre. For someone looking to cash rent inherited ground, this becomes a major point of concern when looking for a tenant. If that ground cash rents for $190 an acre, and $60 an acre goes towards real estate …

Shutdown Policies And Worldwide Conflict, Nicolas Berman, Mathieu Couttenier, Nathalie Monnet, Rohit Ticku

ESI Working Papers

We provide real-time evidence on the impact of Covid-19 restrictions policies on conflicts globally. We use daily information on conflict events and government policy responses to limit the spread of coronavirus to study how conflict levels vary following shutdown and lockdown policies. We use the staggered implementation of restriction policies across countries to identify their effect on conflict incidence and intensity. Our results show that imposing a nation-wide shutdown reduces the likelihood of daily conflict by around 9 percentage points. The reduction is driven by a drop in the incidence of battles, protests and violence against civilians. Across actors the …

Innovation Dynamics Of Cultural Production: Evidence In Rap Lyrics, James M. Zumel Dumlao, Junjie Lei, Emeka Nwosu, Li Yu Oon, Tsai Ling Jeffrey Wong, James Rising, Jesse Anttila-Hughes

Master's Theses

Culture is a driving force in organizing the structure of societies, and is conjoined with economic development. However, quantifying the impact of culture is difficult. Culture manifests itself in cultural production, through art, performance, music, etc. Innovation and influence in cultural production industries partially determines product quality. Using techniques from the “digitized humanities”, we agnostically identify informational distance to describe the spatiotemporal dynamics of innovation and influence in Rap music lyrics. Rap emphasizes lyricism and hometown pride more than other genres of popular music, and is interesting as a globally impactful manifestation of the racially segregated labor market in the …

Comovement And Instability In Cryptocurrency Markets, Pierangelo De Pace, Jayant Rao

Pomona Economics

We analyze the extent of comovement between daily price returns of nine major cryptocurrencies during the first three main phases of their development, from April 2013 to November 2018. We assess its evolution using bivariate and multivariate modelling approaches, and detect pronounced time variation. Generally, comovement is initially low and positive, but increases between early 2017 and late 2018. We then adopt a right-tail version of the Augmented Dickey-Fuller unit root test to identify periods of mildly explosive behavior (statistical instability) in the Network Value to Transactions (NVT) ratio (a measure of the dollar value of cryptocurrency transaction activity relative …

The Nebraska Economy Responds To The Covid-19 Pandemic, Eric Thompson

Business in Nebraska

The Nebraska economy will contract in 2020 but the rate of decline will not be as rapid as nationwide. The economic structure of Nebraska is more focused on production and transportation than the national economy and less focused on hard-hit industries such as hospitality, entertainment, automobile parts and assembly, and oil production. Nebraska also may benefit from a higher quality workforce, which is better able to adapt to changing economic conditions.

Employment will drop by 2.4% in Nebraska in 2020, much less than the national rate of decline. Employment will rebound by 2.0% in 2021 and 1.4% in 2022. With …

Asset Price Volatility And Price Extrema, Carey Caginalp, Gunduz Caginalp

ESI Publications

The relationship between price volatility and expected price market extremum is examined using a fundamental economics model of supply and demand. By examining randomness through a microeconomic setting, we obtain the implications of randomness in the supply and demand, rather than assuming that price has randomness on an empirical basis. Within a general setting of changing fundamentals, the volatility is maximum when expected prices are changing most rapidly, with the maximum of volatility reached prior to the maximum of expected price. A key issue is that randomness arises from the supply and demand, and the variance in the stochastic differential …

Opportunities And Obstacles In The Transition To A Distributed Network Of Rooftop Solar: A Multi-Method Approach, Steve M. Hall

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

This paper investigates the feasibility and viability of providing power to Ada County, Idaho, using a distributed network of rooftop solar photovoltaic panels. Using a multi-disciplinary and multi-method modeling approach, a detailed simulation is performed where existing structures are retro-fitted with grid-tied solar photovoltaic systems using currently available technology. Feasibility is determined using simulated supply and demand per building, while viability is determined through standard financial metrics used in the energy sector. A major critique of solar energy comes from the vast amounts of space required to efficiently capture solar power, along with the inefficiencies created by transmission loss and …

Paternal Provisioning Results From Ecological Change, Ingela Alger, Paul L. Hooper, Donald Cox, Jonathan Stieglitz, Hillard S. Kaplan

ESI Publications

Paternal provisioning is ubiquitous in human subsistence societies and unique among apes. How could paternal provisioning have emerged from promiscuous or polygynous mating systems that characterize other apes? An anomalous provisioning male would encounter a social dilemma: Since this investment in prospective offspring can be expropriated by other males, this investment is unlikely to increase the provisioner’s fitness. We present an ecological theory of the evolution of human paternal investment. Ecological change favoring reliance on energetically rich, difficult-to-acquire resources increases payoffs to paternal provisioning due to female–male and/or male–male complementarities. Paternal provisioning becomes a viable reproductive strategy when complementarities are …

Institutions, Opportunism And Prosocial Behavior: Some Experimental Evidence, Antonio Cabrales, Irma Clots-Figueras, Roberto Hernán-González, Praveen Kujal

ESI Working Papers

Formal or informal institutions have long been adopted by societies to protect against opportunistic behavior. However, we know very little about how these institutions are chosen and their impact on behavior. We experimentally investigate the demand for different levels of institutions that provide low to high levels of insurance and its subsequent impact on prosocial behavior. We conduct a large-scale online experiment where we add the possibility of purchasing insurance to safeguard against low reciprocity to the standard trust game. We compare two different mechanisms, the private (purchase) and the social (voting) choice of institutions. Whether voted or purchased, we …

Information Aggregation And The Cognitive Make-Up Of Traders, Brice Corgnet, Mark Desantis, David Porter

ESI Working Papers

We assess the effect of the cognitive make-up of traders on the informational efficiency of markets. We put forth that cognitive skills, such as cognitive reflection, are crucial for ensuring the informational efficiency of markets because they endow traders with the ability to infer others’ information from prices. Using laboratory experiments, we show that information aggregation is significantly enhanced when (i) all traders possess high levels of cognitive sophistication and (ii) this high level of cognitive sophistication is common information for all traders. Our findings shed light on the cognitive and informational constraints underlying the efficient market hypothesis.

Neoclassical Supply And Demand, Experiments, And The Classical Theory Of Price Formation, Sabiou M. Inoua, Vernon L. Smith

ESI Working Papers

"The 1870s neoclassical marginal revolution in economics culminated a century later in a striking conclusion: The core utility maximization principle of neoclassical economics was shown to have no interesting implication for aggregate market behavior (Sonnenschein, 1972, 1973a, 1973b; Debreu, 1974; Mantel, 1974; Kirman, 1989; Shafer & Sonnenschein, 1993; Rizvi, 2006). We argue that neoclassical price theory was founded on two axioms—price-taking behavior and the law of one price in a market—that, if imposed on the theory, were logically inconsistent with a theory of market price formation. This logical gap in neoclassical theory was filled essentially with thought experiments: Jevons derives …

Grain Marketing 2020: Survival And Covid-19, Robert Tigner, Jessica J. Groskopf

Extension Farm and Ranch Management News

First paragraph:

Let’s state the obvious: this isn’t a typical year and we all know it. For farmers, it is a survival year. Why? And what might be done to make it through to the other side of the COVID-19 pandemic? This article will discuss how to build a marketing strategy to assure that the farm continues to the next crop year.

Conclusion

This year is shaping up to be a survival year for crop producers. Crop producers need to know at what crop price they will recapture all of the cash they will spend this year. Implementing a marketing …

Has Covid-19 Impacted Price-Weight Relationships And Value Of Gain?, Elliott James Dennis

Extension Farm and Ranch Management News

First paragraph:

In the beginning of COVID-19, much of the attention was focused on managing the redirection of meat product from food service to retail stores. This past month has keenly focused on packing plant closures due to COVID-19 cases among workers and how to manage the supply of fat cattle already ready for slaughter. Fat cattle available for slaughter either cannot get bids or bids are significantly below breakeven prices leaving feedlots with decisions to be made about marketing and placements. The April 2020 Cattle on Feed report (https://usda.library.cornell.edu/concern/publications/m326m174z) revealed March placement decisions. Placements were down about …

Exchange Rate Regimes And Economic Growth, Amandarae Matthew

Undergraduate Theses

This paper explores the relationship between economic growth and exchange rate regimes among countries of lower income, lower middle income, upper middle income, and high-income countries. Countries must make careful consideration when choosing an exchange rate regime because each regime can have different long-term effects. A cross section pooled time series data will be used for a sample of 42 countries over the period of 2000-2018. Multiple models will examine the various relationships between types of exchange rate regimes, changes in exchange rate regimes, and economic growth. The components of the models being tested include political stability, change in terms …

Live Cattle Basis Due To Covid-19: Deviations And Convergence, Elliott James Dennis

Extension Farm and Ranch Management News

A Fundamental Review on Basis

Basis is defined as the cash minus futures. Cash market reflects today's supply conditions and price. Futures market reflects upcoming supply and demand conditions. If it is anticipated that there will be a period of increasing supplies, futures prices will decline to reflect that information. Likewise, periods of time with expected decreasing supplies, future prices are expected to increase.

Since cash and futures prices can move simultaneously, basis will fluctuate through time. In periods where basis becomes more positive (i.e. basis is said to be strengthening/narrowing) it implies that cash prices are increasing more relative …

Assumptions (Mistakes) That Parents Make With Estate Plans, Allan Vyhnalek

Extension Farm and Ranch Management News

Excerpt:

The main take-home message should be that the parents: 1) have a plan and continue to revise that plan from time to time and 2) be sure to think through the unintended consequences of your plan. Hopefully, some of the common assumptions mentioned here can be put into place so that the family does stay together for decades to come.

This is not an exhaustive list of assumptions that can go awry. It is being presented as a place for family thought and discussion to start. For more information go to: http://agecon.unl.edu/succession. There are other articles and video …

Pre Covid-19 Market Conditions Persist & The Stocker Industry Can Dampen The Damage, Elliott James Dennis

Extension Farm and Ranch Management News

First paragraph:

The effects of COVID-19 on the livestock market are well known and felt. Some effects include depressed futures and cash prices, unusual basis patterns, decreased packer bids and sale barn volume, packing plant closures, consumer hording of meat products, and shifting food service products for retail consumption. All these effects occurred as market participants grappled with everchanging government and industry policy which reduced consumer demand and resulted in bottlenecks and increasing supply gluts upstream. Simultaneously reducing demand and increasing supply always cause prices to plummet, and in the case of COVID-19 very rapidly. Some segments of the market …

Cares Act 2020: Unemployment Insurance And Farmer/Ranchers, Robert Tigner

Extension Farm and Ranch Management News

First paragraph:

Generally, unemployment insurance across the country is managed by state government. Each has different rules, with oversight by the US Department of Labor. The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES) Act made changes to the unemployment coverage for workers and appropriated funds for the changes. The act tasked the Labor Department with writing rules for the changes and it has issued an Unemployment Insurance Letter — UL No. 16-20 — that begins the rulemaking process. This guidance will then be used by Nebraska to implement the CARES Act. This article reviews what is known now with …

Housework For Revolutionaries: Between Theory And Experience, Megha Summer Pappachen 20

Honor Scholar Theses

No abstract provided.

Time To Play: The Relationship Between Time Spent Playing And Educational Outcomes In Peru, Jasmine Davidson

Economics Honors Projects

Every day, children around the world are playing. There has been plenty of research on the importance of different kinds of play, but very little on the importance of the quantity of play. Understanding the relationship between educational outcomes and the amount of time spent playing would allow parents to better structure their children’s time and would settle the debate between psychologists and economists on whether play has inherent value for a child’s future outcomes. I focus on Peru because conducting this research in a developing country context broadens the current research mostly focused on high-income countries. Using child-level, longitudinal …

Viral Social Media Videos Can Raise Pro-Social Behaviours When An Epidemic Arises, Youting Guo, Jason Shachat, Matthew J. Walker, Lijia Wei

ESI Working Papers

At the onset of an epidemic, can viral social media videos induce the high levels of trust and pro-sociality required for a successful community response? Shortly after the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus in Wuhan, China, we conducted an experiment assessing the impact of viral videos on individual preferences and pro-social behaviour. Prior to the experiment, participants viewed one of three videos culled from Chinese social media: a central government leader visiting a local hospital and supermarket, health care volunteers transiting to Wuhan, or an emotionally neutral video unrelated to the emergency. Viewing one of the first two videos leads …

A Test Of The Modigliani-Miller Theorem, Dividend Policy And Algorithmic Arbitrage In Experimental Asset Markets, Tibor Neugebauer, Jason Shachat, Wiebke Szymczak

ESI Working Papers

Modigliani and Miller showed that the market value of the company is in dependent of its capital structure, and suggested that dividend policy makes no difference to this law of one price. We experimentally test the MM theorem in a complete market with two simultaneously traded assets, employing two experimental treatment variations. The first variation involves the dividend stream. According to this variation the dividend payout order is either identical or independent. The second variation involves the market participation, or not, of an algorithmic arbitrageur. We find that Modigliani-Miller's law of one price can be supported on average with or …

An Empirical Analysis Of Individual Events In Collegiate Forensics, Jordan Duffin Wong

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Anecdotally, it is a widely accepted notion in the United States’ collegiate competitive speech and debate community that a competitor’s strong record of competitive performance in the activity at the high school level is a powerful predictor of similar success in the activity at the collegiate level. However, no evidence has been brought to bear supporting this claim. This paper uses the universe of American Forensic Association National Individual Events Tournament results from 2013 to 2018 and links collegiate competitors to their respective high school performance data. I demonstrate evidence that high school experience does, in fact, appear to play …

Analysis Of The Impact Of Central Bank Of Nigeria's Agricultural Intervention Funds On The Economy, E. T. Adamgbe, M. C. Belonwu, E. R. Ochu, I. I. Okafor

Economic and Financial Review

This paper set out to investigate the impact of Central Bank of Nigeria's interventions on the agricultural sector within an economy-wide framework of general equilibrium modelling. The paper adopted a dynamic (recursive), two-sector general equilibrium model of the Nigerian economy with some modifications on the standard model developed by the Centre for Econometric and Applied Research (CEAR) and incorporated the contributions of the CBN's agricultural based interventions as increases in the stock of agricultural capital to have a more robust size of interventions into the agricultural sector. The SAM used for the CGE model analysis was derived from the updated …

The Classical Theory Of Supply And Demand, Sabiou M. Inoua, Vernon L. Smith

ESI Working Papers

This paper introduces and formalizes the classical view on supply and demand, which, we argue, has an integrity independent and distinct from the neoclassical theory. Demand and supply, before the marginal rev-olution, are defined not by an unobservable criterion such as a utility func-tion, but by an observable monetary variable, the reservation price: the buyer’s (maximum) willingness to pay (WTP) value (a potential price) and the seller’s (minimum) willingness to accept (WTA) value (a potential price) at the marketplace. Market demand and supply are the cumulative distri-bution of the buyers’ and sellers’ reservation prices, respectively. This WTP-WTA classical view of …

Let’S Chat... When Communication Promotes Efficiency In Experimental Asset Markets, Brice Corgnet, Mark Desantis, David Porter

ESI Working Papers

The growing prevalence of stock market chat rooms and social media suggests communication between traders may affect market outcomes. Using data from a series of laboratory experiments, we study the causal effect of trader communication on the price efficiency of markets. We show that communication allows markets to convey private information more effectively. This effect is most pronounced when the communication platform publicizes a reputation score that might identify a person as not being truthful. This illustrates the need for market designers to consider social interactions when designing market institutions to leverage the social motives that foster information aggregation.