Production Incentives from Static Decoupling: Entry, Exit and Use Exclusion Restrictions

The use of agricultural decoupled support has increased as World Trade Organization (WTO) member nations implement less trade distortive policies. However, the true production effects of these policies are still unclear. We show how the exclusion restrictions of U.S. direct payments, namely, the fruit and vegetable restriction and the requirement of keeping land in good agricultural use, cause the decoupled payment to become fully coupled over time as relative profits adjust. Theoretically, decoupled payments can be more trade distorting than an equivalent (same level of taxpayer expenditure) fully coupled subsidy.decoupled payments, infra-marginal support, cross-subsidization, Agricultural and Food Policy, International Relations/Trade, Land Economics/Use, Q15, Q17, Q18,

Decoupled Direct Payments Under Base Acreage and Yield Updating Uncertainty: An Investigation of Agricultural Chemical Use

Decoupled payments were thought to have minimal impacts on current production decisions and input use. However, the literature has identified several mechanisms through which decoupled payments become coupled. We analyze the effects of uncertainty regarding future policy changes on farm-level production decisions and input use, focusing on farmers’ expectations of base acreage and yield updating. Using farm-level data, we find positive relationships between both decoupled and other government payments and real per acre expenditures on agricultural chemicals. Furthermore, there is evidence that decoupled payments may affect the intensive margin more than other government payments.coupling, decoupled payments, input use, intensive margin, updating, Agricultural and Food Policy, Risk and Uncertainty, Q12, Q18,

Consumer Financed Export Subsidies and the Agreement on Agriculture

International Relations/Trade,

An Empirical Examination of the Relationship Between Real Options Values and the Rate of Investment

This paper examines the relationship between uncertainty and investment decisions by food and non-food firms. Using hysteresis and the real options paradigm, we review why uncertainty might cause firms to delay investment. In particular, our model looks for a negative relationship between capital invested and uncertainty. In the alternative, if the relationship is positive, this may be consistent with the exercise of growth options or competitive markets. Empirical results are mixed. In one of the four models we present there is clear evidence of hysteresis, that is a negative relationship between year over year investment and uncertainty. The remaining 3 models indicate the opposite, a positive relationship between investment and risk. Although the models differ, the first model is the stronger of the three. Nonetheless, the results are ambiguous. Although we use a large cross sectional, time series panel set of data, we find nothing remarkable about the food industry per se, except that across industries, their level of investment is about in the middle.Financial Economics,

Quantifying long-range correlations in complex networks beyond nearest neighbors

We propose a fluctuation analysis to quantify spatial correlations in complex networks. The approach considers the sequences of degrees along shortest paths in the networks and quantifies the fluctuations in analogy to time series. In this work, the Barabasi-Albert (BA) model, the Cayley tree at the percolation transition, a fractal network model, and examples of real-world networks are studied. While the fluctuation functions for the BA model show exponential decay, in the case of the Cayley tree and the fractal network model the fluctuation functions display a power-law behavior. The fractal network model comprises long-range anti-correlations. The results suggest that the fluctuation exponent provides complementary information to the fractal dimension

Cross-Subsidization and Exit Deterrence due to Infra-Marginal Support: Implications for Agricultural Policy Analysis

Agricultural and Food Policy,

Our Administrative System of Criminal Justice

To commemorate our founding in 1914, the Board of Editors has selected six influential pieces published by the Law Review over the past 100 years and will republish one piece in each issue. The fourth piece selected by the Board is Our Administrative System of Criminal Justice, an article written by Gerard E. Lynch that is among the most cited works in the Law Review’s history. This article illustrates how the practice of plea bargaining blurs the boundaries between adversarial and inquisitorial criminal justice systems. Judge Lynch now sits on the Second Circuit having eventually succeeded the late Judge Joseph M. McLaughlin, who also is honored in the pages of this book for the permanent mark he left on Fordham Law School and the Law Review. We think it is fitting that the Law Review feature two of the many contributions that judges of the Second Circuit have made to legal education and scholarship in this issue

Neutrino-induced deuteron disintegration experiment

Cross sections for the disintegration of the deuteron via neutral-current (NCD) and charged-current (CCD) interactions with reactor antineutrinos are measured to be 6.08 +/- 0.77 x 10^(-45) cm-sq and 9.83 +/- 2.04 x 10^(-45) cm-sq per neutrino, respectively, in excellent agreement with current calculations. Since the experimental NCD value depends upon the CCD value, if we use the theoretical value for the CCD reaction, we obtain the improved value of 5.98 +/- 0.54 x 10^(-45) for the NCD cross section. The neutral-current reaction allows a unique measurement of the isovector-axial vector coupling constant in the hadronic weak interaction (beta). In the standard model, this constant is predicted to be exactly 1, independent of the Weinberg angle. We measure a value of beta^2 = 1.01 +/- 0.16. Using the above improved value for the NCD cross section, beta^2 becomes 0.99 +/- 0.10.Comment: 22pages, 9 figure

Limits on Neutrino Oscillations from the CHOOZ Experiment

We present new results based on the entire CHOOZ data sample. We find (at 90% confidence level) no evidence for neutrino oscillations in the anti_nue disappearance mode, for the parameter region given by approximately Delta m**2 > 7 x 10**-4 eV^2 for maximum mixing, and sin**2(2 theta) = 0.10 for large Delta m**2. Lower sensitivity results, based only on the comparison of the positron spectra from the two different-distance nuclear reactors, are also presented; these are independent of the absolute normalization of the anti_nue flux, the cross section, the number of target protons and the detector efficiencies.Comment: 19 pages, 11 figures, Latex fil