Cointegration methods are increasingly used to test for market efficiency and integration. The economic rationale for these tests, however, is generally unclear. Using a simple spatial equilibrium model to simulate equilibrium price behavior, it is shown that prices in a well-integrated,...

Agricultural commodities are typically produced over an extensive spatial area and are costly to transport relative to their total value. These characteristics yield a complex set of spatial price linkages which are often studied to gain insights into the performance of markets. An extensive...

A computer system for implementing electronic markets on networks of personal computers is described. The program allows a researcher or teacher to design market simulations to meet a variety of goals, and records a complete set of market activities for analysis. Illustrations of example markets...

Monitoring is an important and costly activity in resource management problems such as containing invasive species, protecting endangered species, preventing soil erosion, and regulating contracts for environmental services. Recent studies have viewed optimal monitoring as a Partially Observable...

Structural uncertainty arises when key features of the behavior of a system are not well understood. Observational uncertainty arises when key variables in a system are not directly observed. Both types of uncertainty lead to problems for standard dynamic optimization approaches. The replacement...

Since cotton producers do not own legal rights to kill insect populations that are susceptible to insecticides, individual producers may have no incentive to account for future, insecticide-resistance productivity losses arising from their pest-management decisions. As a result, the collective...

An extension of Schwartz's model of futures price term structure that includes seasonality is developed. The approach allows futures prices for all maturities to be estimated simultaneously by exploiting arbitrage relationships. An application to wheat futures prices is presented.