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Announcements for Friday, April 1, 2011

Announcements

  • Free screening of Academy Award documentary -- "Inside Job" -- March 27

    There will be a free screening of this year's Academy Award Winner for Best Documentary: Inside Job. It promises to be a hard hitting look at the causes of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008. There will be two screenings this Sunday, March 27th at 1:00 pm and 4:00 pm in the Soults Family Visitor's Center in the Memorial Union.Click on the link to view the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzrBurlJUNk

  • EGSA "Friday After Class"

    On Friday, April 1, EGSA will host its first "Friday After Class" event, with appetizers and drinks at Legends Grill starting at 5:30 PM. Faculty, staff, and students are encouraged to attend.

News

  • Wednesday's Department Seminar: "Role of Financial Variables in Explaining the Profitability of North Dakota Farm Supply and Grain Marketing Cooperatives," with Gregory McKee, North Dakota State University

    Gregory McKee is Director of the Quentin Burdick Center for Cooperatives and Assistant Professor in the Department of Agribusiness and Applied Economics at North Dakota State University. His research and teaching focuses on how participants in a market can coordinate in order to improve their welfare. Currently, Dr. McKee teaches a semester-length course on cooperative business management to undergraduate students at three universities in North Dakota and a course in game theory and strategy for agribusiness management. Recent research has focused on determinants of profitability for North Dakota agricultural cooperatives and credit unions as well as authoring several case studies about significant management decisions made by cooperatives headquartered in the Upper Great Plains. 


    Abstract: This paper examines the profitability of a balanced sample of 58 North Dakota farm supply and grain marketing cooperatives over the period 2003-2007. Our findings reveal that increased liquidity tended to allow farm supply cooperatives to operate more efficiently, but reduced the efficiency of cooperatives which provide farm supply and grain marketing services. These results suggest strategies for cooperatives during times of illiquidity and other credit constraints for achieving profitability objectives.

  • Friday's Department Seminar: "Land-use regulation and welfare," with Matthew Turner, University of Toronto

    Matthew Turner is a professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Toronto. His current research focuses on the economics of land use and transportation and he is broadly interested in understanding the economics of environmental regulation. He holds a bachelors degree from the University of California, a Ph. D. in economics from Brown University, has held post-doctoral fellowships at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Hoover Institution, and is an associate editor at the Journal of Urban Economics, the Journal of Economic Geography and Regional Science and Urban Economics. His research appears in the American Economic Review, the Journal of Political Economy, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Review of Economic Studies, and is regularly featured in the popular press.


    Abstract: We estimate the effect of land use regulation on the value of land by exploiting variation in regulation and land values across municipal borders. Since the value of land gives us the market’s measure of the attractiveness of a location, our estimates allow us to draw conclusions about the effect of land use regulation on welfare. Reductions to an aggregate measure of regulatory intensity are welfare improving. Looking at a more detailed description of regulation we find that complexity of the planning process and a planning process subject to political manipulation are most likely to lower welfare. Regulation that requires minimum lot sizes for residential development increases land values.

  • Friday's Behavioral/Experimental Workshop: "Candidate Canvassing: How Campaigns Win Votes and Influence Elections," with Marco Castillo, George Mason U.

    Marco Castillo received his PhD in agricultural and applied economics from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His research interests include experimental economics and development economics, especially bargaining and the behavior of groups. He has published in the American Economic Review, Games and Economic Behavior and Economic Inquiry.



    "Candidate Canvassing: How Campaigns Win Votes and Influence Elections"


    Abstract: We investigate the impact of candidate canvassing on voter turnout and voter choices by implementing an experiment in a recent election for county government in a Midwestern state. To our knowledge, this is the first experiment that evaluates the impact of a candidate’s direct campaigning on voters’ decisions. We randomize the content of the campaign pamphlet delivered to the household and whether the candidate delivered the pamphlet in person. The control group was left untouched. Contrary to the get-out-the-vote literature, we find no evidence that visits by a canvasser (the candidate personally) increase turnout. Importantly, we find that certain messages can depress turnout, whether delivered by the candidate or not, but more so when delivered in person. Turnout among voters that are ex-ante less likely to vote is reduced by 12 percentage points for some treatments, but the effect is negligible among more likely voters. With respect to voter support for the candidate, pamphlets alone have no robust effect. However, candidate canvassing does increase the likelihood of voting for the candidate by roughly 20 percentage points. This effect is largest among unaffiliated or persuadable voters. Consistent with signaling theories of political campaigning, the effect of campaigning on who voters support is largest among those that are ex-ante less likely to vote and less likely to support the candidate.

  • Weekly media connections for the Department of Economics

    Information courtesy of Jackie King, ISU News Service.

    • Chad Hart, assistant professor of economics and grain markets specialist, spoke with Scott Kilman of the Wall Street Journal about the crop acreage outlook for 2011. He spoke with Alan Bell of GrowingPoint magazine about grain transportation infrastructure. He talked to Tom Polansek of the Dow Jones Newswire about alternatives to the ethanol tax credit and about crop acreage. And he spoke with a reporter from Reuters (Kris Debins?) about crop insurance and increasing production costs for crop producers.
    • CARD scientist Jacinto Fabiosa spoke with Ben Theobald of the Iowa State Daily about how the disaster in Japan might affect the country's imports of U.S. agricultural products.
    • CARD Director Bruce Babcock spoke with Philip Brasher of the Des Moines Register about USDA reports of farmers' planting intentions, and what the federal government can do if farmers don't grow enough acres to satisfy corn demand.
    • Chad Hart, assistant professor of economics and grain markets specialist, spoke with Bill Thompson of Dow Jones Newswire about the farm bill, specifically direct payments; with Andrew Johnson of Dow Jones about grain storage capacity and trends; and with John Pocock of Corn and Soybean Digest about rumored Chinese corn imports, and about the 2011 acreage battle.
    • Jacinto Fabiosa, scientist at the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development, was interviewed by Virginie Robert, a New York correspondent for Les Echos, a French newspaper affiliated with the Financial Times, about the current recovery in the U.S. agricultural sector.
    • Chad Hart, assistant professor of economics and grain markets specialist, responded to many calls pertaining to USDA's release today of its stocks and acreage reports: Phillip Brasher, Des Moines Register; Bethany Pint, Iowa Farm Bureau Spokesman; Fran Howard, AgWeb.com; Larry Kershner, FarmNews; Dan Skelton, KICD radio; Scott Kilman, Wall Street Journal; Nick Nienhaus, Decorah Newspapers.
  • Tuesday's Agricultural Economics Workshop/Econ 693 Presentation: "Organic Crop Prices, or 2x Conventional Ones?" with Ariel Singerman, ISU

    Abstract: Cointegration is tested between organic and conventional corn and soybean markets in several locations throughout the U.S. using a unique data set. Organic prices are found to behave like jump processes rather than diffusions, and Monte Carlo methods are developed to compute appropriate critical values for such tests. Findings indicate that no long-run relationship exists between organic and conventional prices, implying that price determination for organic corn and soybean is independent from that for the conventional crops. This suggests that organic corn and soybean prices are driven by demand and supply forces idiosyncratic to the organic market. For each crop, cointegrating spatial relationships are found between prices at the main organic markets. However, such relationships are generally weaker than the ones for the corresponding conventional prices, implying that organic markets are more affected by idiosyncratic shocks than conventional markets.

Conferences and Calls for Papers

Funding Opportunities

Job Opportunities

  • University of California Lecturer Opening for 2011/2012 Academic Year

    The School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts seeks a Lecturer to teach courses in Economics for Fall 2011 and Spring 2012. Courses being offered may include: Statistical Inference; Intermediate Microeconomic Theory; Econometrics; and Intermediate Macroeconomic Theory. Please indicate your area(s) of interest in your cover letter.

    http://jobs.ucmerced.edu/n/academic/position.jsf?positionId=3188

     

  • KSU research assistant professor position
  • University of North Dakota assistant professor position -- international economics
  • ERS seeks senior cross-cutting commodity economist

    SENIOR CROSS-CUTTING ECONOMIST ANNOUNCEMENT:

    ERS seeks an experienced economist to serve as a senior cross-cutting economist for the Food & Specialty Crops Branch. The Branch’s market analysis activity focuses on issues pertinent to the current market situation and economic outlook for specialty crops; maintains and distributes national and international databases on specialty crops; and supports the Department’s market analysis and commodity projections. The incumbent will be responsible for providing leadership for initiating, formulating, planning, and executing an integrated market analysis and outlook program that examines complex economic issues affecting U.S. interests in markets for specialty crops (including fruits, vegetables, sugar and sweeteners, and rice). The incumbent will use their knowledge of macroeconomics, microeconomics, market structure, and international trade to lead and undertake analysis and research on changing short-and long-term market factors and policies affecting specialty crops. Demonstrated ability to communicate with stakeholders and policymakers is highly desirable.

     U.S. citizenship is required for ERS employment. This position will be filled at the GS15 level ($123,758.00 - $155,500.00 /year); the closing date is May 23, 2011.

    Applications can be made at this link: 

     http://jobview.usajobs.gov/GetJob.aspx?JobID=98115641&JobTitle=Agricultural+Economist%2fEconomist&brd=3876&vw=b&FedEmp=N&FedPub=Y&x=82&y=12&jbf574=AG18&AVSDM=2011-03-31+11%3a45%3a00