With one day left before the 2020 election, one issue hasn’t received any attention, but it may be the biggest challenge facing policy makers starting in 2021: fiscal policy and the federal budget. We are now one month into the new FY 2021, and don’t have a spending bill for the rest of the year (that expired in December and will have to be finalized in a lame duck session of Congress). We don’t have that fourth leg of the COVID relief support program finished either. That will either be taken up in the lame duck session, with election maneuvering cooled, or, based on the election outcome and control of the Senate, will be pushed until early 2021. But as the economy comes off its huge 33 percent rebound in GD...
Forecasting developments in production agriculture
On behalf of a private U.S. agricultural technology provider, WPI’s team generated an econometric model to forecast the movement of concentrated corn production north and west from the traditional U.S. Corn Belt. WPI’s model has subsequently provided quantitative support to a multi-million-dollar investment into short-season corn variety development. WPI’s methodology included a series of interviews with regional grain elevators and seed consultants. Emphasizing outreach and communication with stakeholders who possess intimate sectoral knowledge – on-the-ground insights – is a regular component of WPI’s methodologies, made possible by WPI’s ever-growing network of industry contacts.