Vertical Integration in the Malting Barley Industry: A "Silver Bullet" for Coors?

The Coors Brewing Company owns a single-site, integrated malting facility and brewery in Golden, Colorado; a second brewery in Memphis, Tennessee; and a mixing facility in Elkton, Virginia. Coors operates a research and development program that breeds barley varieties suitable for malting at the Golden site. Coors contracts with 900 growers in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming for approximately 160,000 acres of malting barley. This case study is designed for senior- and graduate-level courses in agribusiness management. The case relates three theories of vertical coordination to Coors' decision to contract 100% of its malting barley requirements.     

Faster Implied Volatilities via the Implicit Function Theorem

We present a faster, more accurate technique for estimating implied volatility using the standard partial derivatives of the Black‐Scholes option‐pricing formula. Beside Newton‐Raphson and slower approximation methods, this technique is the first to provide an error tolerance, which is essential for practical application. All existing noniterative approximation methods do not provide error tolerances and have the potential for large errors.     

Organization size, budget cycle, and budget related influence in city governments: An empirical study

This paper explores the relationship between budgeting and perceived power in city government organizations. Data are reported from a survey of perceived budget influence in six city governments in Texas. The findings suggest that perceived influence varies by stage of budget cycle, city size, level of hierarchy, department function, and vertical vs horizontal direction of influence. For example, during budget formulation city managers were perceived as having the most vertical power. During budget implemetation, there was a perceived increase in department head vertical power and a decrease in city council power. Perceptions of horizontal power suggested that budget departments generally had greater perceived influence than operating departments for budget formulation, but not for budget implementation. The findings are used to develop a strategic contingencies model of budget-related power, and to suggest some research steps for testing the proposed model.     

Hypothesis testing based on goodness-of-fit in the moving average time series model

Small sample properties of t-tests are compared with those of tests based on relative goodness- of-fit in the context of the first order moving average time series model. Monte Carlo experiments reported in the paper suggest that the actual size of these t-tests greatly exceeds theoretical large sample significance levels, while conformity of goodness-of-fit statistics to the appropriate chi-square or F-distributions is much closer. The evidence presented suggests that practitioners are well advised to employ goodness-of-fit tests as a check on results of t-tests particularly when the latter indicate ‘significance’.     

SOCIO-ECONOMIC FACTORS IN LAND CLASSIFICATION

Three interpretive systems of soil classification for agriculture were compared with respect to land use, crop yields, and certain economic characteristics. Sixty-eight farms in the Peace River area of British Columbia were classified as high or low under the ARDA, soil survey, and agronomic classification systems. Mean values for the two categories of farms under each classification system were computed and tested for statistical significance. The results indicated that as the number of significant differences increased, so did the management consideration. Consequently, the agronomic classification was the best indicator, followed by the ARDA system, and then the soil survey productivity index. Considering the basic concepts of the classification systems, this trend was not entirely unexpected. The results suggest that the management factor should play a larger role in developing viable interpretive soil classification systems and that co-operation should be sought among the various disciplines concerned with agricultural land use. LES FACTEURS SOCIO-ECONOMIQUES DANS LA CLASSIFICATION DES SOLS ACRICOLES – Trois systèmes de classification des sols agricoles ont été comparés avec I'aide du type d'utilisation des sols, du rendement des récoltes et de certaines caractéristiques économiques. Soixante-huit fernws dans la zone de “Peace River” en Colombie Britannique out été classifiés, en deux catégories avec I'aide de I'ARDA de I'enquête des sols et des systèmes de classification agronomique. Les principals valeurs pour les deux catégories de fermes appartenant à chaque système de classification ont été calculées et testées afin de vérifier leur signification statistique. Les résultats indiquérent que le nombre de différences significatives augmentaient en mêmc temps que la qualityé du “management”: Conséquence directe, la classification agronomique etait le meilleur indicateur, suivi du systeme ARDA et enfin de lindice de productivityé de l'enquête des sols. Étant donné les concepts de base de ces systèmes de classification, cette tendance n‘était pas complètement inattendue. Les résultats suggèrent que le facteur de “management” devrait jouer un rôle plus large en développant des systèmes de classification des sols viables et que la coopération devrait être recherchée parmi les différentes disciplines concernées par Vutilisation agricole des sols.