Collection of data for economics studies frequently is a time-consuming and expensive process. This is particularly true of studies of plants that process and distribute agricultural products. During the last 2 years the Agricultural Marketing Service has been experimenting with a low-cost...

In 2008, wheat futures prices spiked and then crashed along with prices for other agricultural and nonagricultural commodities. Market observers offered several theories to explain this common movement, or comovement, in prices, and have proposed policies to address the perceived problem of...