Issues in Canadian Agricultural Economic Data: A Selected Review

This article expresses the concern that major agricultural data series fail to reflect well changes in efficiency or incomes of those engaged in the industry. Current farm income data focus on income from farm sources, and a shift in emphasis is suggested to value-added by farming and nonfarm agriculture businesses, to total incomes rather than farm incomes of those engaged in farming, and to asset accounts for those producing farm products. The result would be better understanding of the contribution of agriculture to the economy, and better understanding of the well-being of farm people. This may also be an appropriate time to question the value of the farm as a unit for collecting or for publishing agricultural data, as well as a time to seriously rethink the data implications of long-run resource issues in agriculture. ?auteur s'inquiète de ce que les principales séries de données agricoles ne reflètent pas adéquatement les changements survenus au chapitre de ?efficacité ni au chapitre des revenus chez les personnes engagées dans ce secteur. Les données actuelles sur les revenus de ?exploitation agricole mettent ?accent sur les sources de revenu propres a ?agriculture et ?auteur soutient que Ton devrait s'intéresser davantage à la valeur ajoutée par ?agriculture et par les activités agricoles extérieures à ?exploitation agricole, insister sur les revenus totaux plutôt que sur les revenus agricoles des personnes engagées dans le secteur et mettre ?accent sur les comptes de valeurs des producteurs agricoles. On parviendrait ainsi à mieux comprendre la contribution de ?agriculture à ?économic et le problème du bien-être des agriculteurs. Le temps est peut-être également venu de remettre en question la valeur de ?exploitation agricole comme unité de collecte ou de publication de données agricoles ainsi que de repenser sérieusement les incidences que pourront avoir sur les données les questions relatives aux ressources à long terme en agriculture.     

A Comparison of Ex Post and Ex Ante Measures of Producers' Surplus in Estimating the Returns to Canadian Federal Sheep Research

The returns to Canadian federal sheep research expenditures between 1968 and 1984 are estimated using the economic surplus approach. Ex post and ex ante measures of the change in producers' surplus are compared. Regression analysis is used to estimate the lag structure of the effects of research on the national supply function, facilitating the estimation of returns on average and at the margin. The effect of the excess burden of tax collection on returns to sheep research is investigated. The internal rate of return to sheep research has been about 25% at the margin exclusive of the effects of the excess burden. This rate of return falls to 20% when the costs of an excess burden of 20 cents on the dollar is assumed. Nous calculons le rendement estimatif des défenses consacrées à la recherche sur le mouton par le gouvernement du Canada entre 1968 et 1984 à ?aide ?une méthode fondée sur les surplus économiques. Nous comparons les mesures objectives (ex post) et subjectives (ex ante) des changements survenus au chapitre des excédents à la production. ?analyse de régression nous permet ?estimer la structure de retard des effets de la recherche sur la fonction de ?approvisionnement national, ce qui facilite ?évaluation du rendement moyen et du rendement à la marge. Nous examinons également les effets du fardeau excessif de ?impôt sur le rendement de la recherche sur le mouton. Le taux interne de rendement de la recherche portant sur le mouton a été évalué à environ 25% à la marge, en excluant les effets du fardeau excessif. Ce taux de rendement est abaissé à 20 % lorsqu'on tient compte ?un coût présumé du fardeau excessif de 20 cents par dollar.     

Calendar effects and the pricing of risk: the UK evidence

For some time there has been a puzzle surrounding the seasonal behaviour of stock returns. This paper demonstrates that there is an asymmetric relationship between risk and return across the different months of the year. The paper finds that systematic risk is only priced during the months of January, April and July. Variance risk and firm size are priced during several months of the year including January. An analysis of the relative behaviour of size based securities reveals that firm capitalization makes a valuable contribution to the magnitude of risk premiums.     

Risk Management by Securities Settlement Agents

As developing countries search for ways to promote capital formation through the establishment of organized exchanges, they will need to pay more attention to the role of risk management in the securities settlement process. The delivery-versus-payment (DVP) agents that facilitate the process of exchanging securities for funds in most world markets have both the incentive and comparative informational advantage to monitor, measure, and manage risks inherent in the securities settlement system.
Unfortunately, most DVP agents have accomplished this task to date through the cumbersome use of position and net debit limits, capital requirements, and collateral requirements. Such limits and requirements are almost everywhere based on relatively arbitrary criteria that may have no relation to the actual replacement cost, principal, or liquidity risk of the transaction, portfolio, or participant on which they are imposed.
To remedy this shortcoming in the current state of risk management at DVP agents, this article holds out the possibility of integrated, comprehensive risk management processes that emphasize and rely on forward-looking measures of risk for individual brokers and across brokers. Many risk measures could serve the settlement agent's purposes, including "value at risk" (or "VaR"), "below target risk,""below-target probability," and "downside semi-variance." The actual summary risk measure used for risk monitoring and control is not as important as the methodology used to generate that risk measure. "The goal of such a process," as the authors put it, "is to ensure that the risks to which a settlement agent and its residual claimants are exposed are those risks to which the agent's shareholders think they are and want to be exposed."     

Leadership run amok. The destructive potential of overachievers

The desire to achieve is a major source of strength in business, and it is on the rise. The authors' consulting firm has seen a steady increase in the extent to which achievement motivates managers. There's a dark side to the trend, however. By relentlessly focusing on tasks and goals, an executive or company can damage performance. Overachievers tend to command and coerce, stifling subordinates. Psychologist David McClelland identified three drivers of behavior: achievement, meeting a standard of excellence; affiliation, maintaining close relationships; and power, having an impact on others. He said the power motive comes in two forms: personalized, in which the leader draws strength from controlling people, and socialized, where the leader derives strength from empowering people. Studies show that great charismatic leaders are highly motivated by socialized power. To look at how motives and leadership style affect a group's work climate and performance, the authors studied 21 senior managers at IBM.The leaders who created high-performing and energizing climates got more lasting results by using a broad range of styles, choosing different ones for different circumstances. Rather than order people around, they provided vision, sought buy-in and commitment, and coached. If you're an overachiever seeking to broaden your range, you can study your actions and ask your team, peers, and manager to give you honest feedback. You can adopt specific new behaviors, such as engaging your team in a discussion of how to achieve goals, rather than issuing a set of directives. The company as a whole can play a part, too: Organizations must learn when to draw on the achievement drive and when to rein it in.     

Individual differences in assessing problem similarity

This paper reports on a study which investigates the potential influence of perceptual differentiation (PD) ability on introductory accounting students' ability to identify and use analogies to solve problems. Accounting students with differing levels of PD ability first studied two sample problems with solutions which provided potential source analogues for analogical transfer. They then attempted to solve two analogous accounting problems differing only in the criteria for identifying problem analogousness. Findings suggest that PD ability may influence a problem solver's ability to identify analogous problems by affecting which problem features (surface or structural) he or she is likely to attend to and use for assessing problem similarity and potential analogousness. The paper concludes by discussing implications for pedagogical practices in accounting.     

The Effects of Occupational Injuries After Returns to Work: Work Absences and Losses of On-the-Job Productivity

We extend the research on postinjury employment by estimating productivity losses for workers with permanent partial disabilities (PPDs) in the first three years after injury. Our method distinguishes between productivity losses attributed to spells of work absence versus reduced earnings during spells of employment. The method is applied to data for 800 Ontario workers with PPDs. The results document large productivity losses persisting at least three years after injury, with different loss patterns for workers returning to stable versus unstable employment. Human capital investments or job accommodations can reduce productivity losses, but the significant determinants of losses differ for the stable versus unstable employment groups.     

美国房市2011年难复苏

2007年以来,笔者经常就美国房地产市场发表评论,说的最多的是在自己的博客,以及一本叫做《市场评论》的季刊上,几乎每每中的。随着2011年到来,购房人税务减免、创纪录的超低按揭利率、止赎事件(指业主失去赎回其抵押房产的权力)频发,及由于各种原因急于出手房产者,对房地产市场造成的冲击依然猛烈,致使房价下跌到2002年前的水平甚至更低。