Invasive insect species cause billions of dollars of direct and indirect damage to U.S. crops each year. The market for insuring insect damage is, however, far from complete. The objective of this study is to design and value insect derivatives, or "bug options," which would offer growers a...

The market for insuring insect damage is far from complete. This study introduces a new type of derivative instrument-insect derivatives-that provide growers a market-based means of transferring insect risk to speculators or others who may profit from higher insect populations. A risk-neutral...

The Tokyo Grain Exchange (TGE)’s itayose mechanism provides the opportunity to analyze functioning Walrasian tâtonnement auctions (WTA). In 15,677 auctions conducted over 1997–1998 for corn and redbean futures contracts, price formation is unexpectedly similar to that observed in continuous...

We conduct a detailed analysis of the relationship between excess demand and the convergence of price to equilibrium during a real-world Walrasian auction, paying special attention to the size and speed of the price adjustment. Using data from the Tokyo Grain Exchange (TGE), we first show that...

No matter how pronounced intraday patterns may appear, it is difficult to account for cross-correlations among related assets when those assets trade continuously and simultaneously. Futures contracts are auctioned periodically and sequentially on the Tokyo Grain Exchange (TGE). Even though...

Using nutritional information of food items acquired by each household, we evaluate how Mexico's nutritional deficiency (calorie and protein) has changed over time. Our extensive dataset combines household surveys from 1984, 1989, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2010. We find per capita...