The paper examines the impact of MFIs on microenterprises in Ghana. Employing the financing constraints approach and using 2007 BEEPS data, supported with a Propensity Score Matching method, results indicate that unconstrained microenterprises are less sensitive to internal funds and thus MFIs...

This Discussion Paper describes developments affecting Parmalat of Italy, once one of the world's leading dairy-food firms, which filed for bankruptcy protection in December 2003. After the bankruptcy, it was discovered that fraud on a massive scale had occurred at Parmalat, putting the firm in...

This study develops a new and straightforward economic model of basis forecasting that outperforms the simple three-year average method suggested in much of the literature. We use monthly data of the corn basis in the Texas Triangle Area from February 1997 to July 2008. The results and the...

An agronomic crop growth model, Decision Support System for Agro-Technology Transfer (DSSAT), is used to find optimal crop management strategies for cotton production in Mitchell, Miller, and Lee Counties in Georgia during the past 10 years. Planting date and irrigation threshold are the two...

The commodity bull cycle of 2006-2008 and subsequent dramatic price decline have been a source of hardship for traditional commodity market participants such as producers and merchant/shippers. The usefulness of futures markets has been called into question, especially given that some market...

The major finding is that liquidity costs in futures options market are two to three times higher than liquidity costs in the futures market. Liquidity cost is one potential factor to consider when choosing between hedging with a futures contract or with an option contract. While there is...

This paper investigates the dynamics of sequential decision-making in agricultural futures and options markets using a quantile regression framework. Analysis of trading records of 12 traders suggests that there is great heterogeneity in individual trading behavior. Traders respond differently...

A comparative analysis was performed looking at using cash, futures, options, or insurance to manage the price of calves for cow-calf producer. Risk can be reduced with the futures market and with options or LRP insurance. Options and LRP insurance are equivalent in the amount of risk that is...

Hedging effectiveness is the proportion of price risk removed through hedging. Empirical hedging studies typically estimate a set of risk minimizing hedge ratios, estimate the hedging effectiveness statistic, apply the estimated hedge ratios to a second group of data, and examine the robustness...