The economic potential of precision nitrogen application with wheat based on plant sensing

Plant-based precision nitrogen fertilizer application technologies have been developed as a way to predict and precisely meet nitrogen needs. Equipment necessary for precision application of nitrogen, based on sensing of growing wheat plants in late winter, is available commercially, but adoption has been slow. This article determines the expected profit from using a plant-sensing system to determine winter wheat nitrogen requirements. We find that plant-sensing systems have the potential to be more profitable than traditional nonprecise systems, but the existing system simulated was roughly breakeven with a traditional system.     

But are they Meritorious? Genetic Productivity Gains under Plant Intellectual Property Rights

The objective of this paper is to evaluate the effect of Plant Variety Protection (PVP) on the productive merit/yield increases of US seed varieties. As an example, we use wheat varieties, which are and have been available as both protected and unprotected under PVP from both the public and private sectors. We find evidence that PVP has contributed to the genetic improvement of wheat, using varietal trial data from Washington State. As the private open‐pollinated varieties exist only because of PVP and are higher yielding, these results indicate a clear public benefit from PVP.     

Electricity Market Restructuring: Reforms of Reforms

Electricity systems present complicated challenges for public policy. In many respects these challenges are similar to those in other network industries in providing a balance between regulation and markets, public investment and private risk taking, coordination and competition. As with other such industries, naturally monopoly elements interact with potentially competitive services, but electricity has some unusual features that defy simple analogy to other network industries. Following a reversal of a long-term decline in real electricity prices, the last two decades of the twentieth century were for the United States a time of reform, reaction, and reforms of reforms in electricity systems, moving slowly towards greater reliance on competition and markets. Changing technology, new entrants in the generation market, and a legislative mandate to provide access to the essential transmission facility accelerated a process that required major innovations in institutions and operations. Complete laissez faire competition is not possible, and the details of an efficient competitive electricity market are neither obvious nor easy to put in place. The benefits of reform may be substantial, but they require careful attention to market design. A review of the past identifies some choices on the road ahead.     

The comprehensive business exam: Usefulness for assessing instructional and student performance outcomes

The authors explore the results of the Comprehensive Business Exam (CBE) administered to business majors during their senior-year business capstone course. The study results identified students' SAT and grade point average as a predictor of CBE performance, and variables that explain the correlation between CBE performance, SAT score, and grade point average are discussed. This study expands the research stream by demonstrating how faculty can use CBE information to more deeply assess student learning at both the course and instructor level than is possible with the Major Field Test for Bachelor's Degree in Business.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">The Man Who Knew: The Life and Times of Alan Greenspan</Emphasis> by Sebastian Mallaby

I agree that Sebastian Mallaby’s detailed and well-sourced The Man Who Knew: The Life and Times of Alan Greenspan, will be essential for every future economic historian studying the Greenspan era. That said, Mallaby does not convey to his readers a sound understanding of monetary policy. I disagree with Mallaby’s claim that Greenspan could and should have done something about the housing and subprime mortgage bubbles. Peter Wallison makes a strong case that the affordable housing quotas did not just “encourage” but forced the GSEs to buy subprime mortgages. Information available in real time on aggregate subprime mortgage issuance was seriously flawed because the GSEs did not report accurately. Greenspan cannot be held responsible for the GSEs hiding the subprime debt on their balance sheets. These mortgages were central to the crisis. It seems improbable that any monetary policy mistake of 2001–05 was large enough to create the crisis. Mallaby could have written a final chapter emphasizing the Maestro resisting the power of a malign and evil pair of GSEs and the power of the President and Congress of the United States pursuing a disastrous housing policy. Despite the Maestro’s best efforts, Leviathan triumphed and brought ruin upon the Nation.