Public Health Coronavirus Lockdown Hits Shanghai, Case Rates Fall With rapid spread of the COVID-19 Omicron variant, health authorities in China have imposed a city-wide lockdown on Shanghai. The plan is to conduct the lockdown in two stages over a nine-day period as the metropolis is home to more than 25 million people. Widespread testing is being deployed. As a major financial and commercial city, the closure of Shanghai poses potential short-term economic heartaches. Countrywide, the daily case count has fallen to a seven-day average of 9,403 cases and 167 related death this week. New cases are down by 49 percent in the past week. Clearly, the lockdown strategy has the ability to cut spread in the short-term, but larger questions remai...
What You Need to Know Today: Russia rejected calls for a ceasefire in the Black Sea, including a proposal to halt attacks on civilian shipping that could help restore grain flows from Ukrainian ports. Tyson Foods announced plans to permanently close its Joslin, Illinois, beef processing facili...
What You Need to Know Today: Wholesale inflation was flat in July, with the Producer Price Index (PPI) unchanged versus expectations for a 0.2 percent increase. Core PPI rose 0.2 percent, also below expectations. The softer inflation data has reduced the odds of a September interest rate incre...
From WPI Consulting
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.