In a letter to the editors of the Wall Street Journal appearing in today's edition, Professor Ronald L. McKinnon of Stanford University writes about the "currency wars," in which governments can manipulate the external value of their currencies by their choices in setting domestic monetary policies. In his view, the U.S. Federal Reserve has been the "leading manipulator" of the world dollar standard by setting interest rates at such low levels that "hot money" flooded to other countries — especially emerging markets — in search of better returns. According to Professor McKinnon, this happened in late 2002 when the Fed cut the federal funds rate to just 1 percent, sending U.S. dollars off to countries such as China and Brazil. The U.S. dol...
Yesterday, Alberta held a referendum on whether to begin the process toward independence from Canada. With more than one million votes counted as of early Tuesday morning, around 77 percent supported remaining in Canada, and 23 percent voted to start the process of separation, according to unof...
Mediterranean/Middle East/North Africa/Africa – MEA Region Pakistan’s smaller wheat farmers have been holding protests to complain about the lack of a support price for wheat and the potential expansion of GMO crop production. They also want the reinstatement of PASSCO, the governme...
What You Need to Know Today: Harvest pressure in the U.S. sent corn and soybeans lower as supplies increased and there were signs USDA’s upward revisions to yields in the October WASDE could be close to right. The conflict between Russia and Ukraine escalated over the weekend, with Ukrai...
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.