World Perspectives

Incongruous Economics

There are many similarities between the U.S. and EU, but many differences as well. When the common currency euro was introduced in 1999, it was valued at the equivalent of $1.16. It hit a peak of €/$1.58 in 2008 but has since slid back and is currently at €/$1.07. The forecast has it rising to €/$1.11 near the end of this year and then sliding lower. The exchange rate is important, particularly for trade in higher value food products. The determinants of that rate are complex and imprecise. One factor should be core interest rates. The European Central Bank has hiked interest rates but is a full percentage point behind the U.S. federal funds rate. Just as the Federal Reserve could hike again, so could the ECB.  Anoth...

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From WPI Consulting

Communicating importance of value-added products

Facing increasing pressure to quantify the value of export promotion efforts to investors, a U.S. industry organization retained WPI to develop a quantitative model that better communicated the importance of exports. The resulting model concluded that value-added meat exports contributed $0.45 cents per bushel to the price of corn, increasing support for that sector’s financial support of WPI’s client. In addition to serving the red meat industry with this type of analysis, WPI has generated similar deliverables for the U.S. soybean and poultry/egg industries.

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