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Why do stock prices vary? Using survey forecasts, we find that cash flow growth expectations explain most movements in the S&P 500 price-dividend and price-earnings ratios, accounting for at least 93% and 63% of their variation. These expectations comove strongly with price ratios, even when price ratios do not predict future cash flow growth. In comparison, return expectations have low volatility and small comovement with price ratios. Short-term, rather than long-term, expectations account for most price ratio variation. We propose an asset pricing model with beliefs about earnings growth reversal that accurately replicates these cash flow growth expectations and dynamics.

Compared with traditional clusters, heterogeneous clusters cherish the high performance to price ratio. However, compared with the rapid development of hardware technology, the current sof...

Knowledge about how stand age affects N response in first-year corn (Zea mays L.) following alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) is needed to improve N credit predictions. In a 3-yr study, we evaluated response to N in first-year corn following fall-terminated 1- to 3-yr-old alfalfa stands with stand densities of 33 to 579 plants m–² at Lamberton and Waseca, MN, each year. At both locations, alfalfa stand age had minor impacts on soil inorganic N content and aboveground corn dry matter (DM) yield, N concentration, and N uptake during first-year corn. On medium-textured soil at Lamberton, first-year corn following 3-yr-old alfalfa stands required no fertilizer N to economically optimize grain yield, but required 64 and 97 kg N ha–¹ following 2- and 1-yr-old stands, respectively, at the fertilizer cost (US$ kg–¹ N)/corn grain price ($ kg–¹ grain) ratio of 5.6. At the same price ratio on fine-textured soil at Waseca, first-year corn required 94 kg N ha–¹ following both 2- and 3-yr-old stands and 118 kg N ha–¹ following 1-yr-old stands. Therefore, current alfalfa N credit guidelines from land-grant universities that are based on alfalfa stand density at termination were not accurate for alfalfa stands ≤3 yr old that frequently had high densities. These results also confirm that alfalfa stand age affects the frequency and level of fertilizer N response in first-year corn, and support the role of soil texture in altering the effect of stand age.

Kenya is a globally recognized maize “success story.” As the overall percentage of maize farmers growing hybrids tops 80% and the seed industry matures, the slow pace of hybrid replacement on farms, and the continued dominance of the seed industry by Kenya Seed Company, may dampen productivity. Our econometric analysis identifies the factors that explain farmer demand for hybrid seed, and the age of hybrids they grow, considering hybrid seed ownership. Male-headed households with more education, more assets, and more land plant more hybrid seed. Scale of seed demand per farm is differentiated by agroecology. We find a strong farmer response to the seed-to-grain price ratio, which we interpret as evidence of a commercial orientation even on household farms. However, despite the dramatic increase in the number of hybrids sold and the breadth of seed suppliers as seed markets liberalize, an older hybrid still dominates national demand.

Life cycle assessment practitioners struggle to accurately allocate environmental burdens of metals recycling, including the temporal dimension of environmental impacts. We analyze four approaches for calculating aluminum greenhouse gas emissions: the recycled content (RC) or cut-off approach, which assumes that demand for recycled content displaces primary production; end-of-life recycling (EOLR), which assumes that postuse recycling displaces primary production; market-based (MB) approaches, which estimate changes in supply and demand using price elasticities; and value-corrected substitution (VCS), which allocates impact based on price differences between primary and recycled material. Our analysis suggests that applications of the VCS approach do not adequately account for the changing scrap to virgin material price ratio over time, whereas MB approaches do not address stock accumulation and depletion. The EOLR and RC approaches were analyzed using two case studies: U.S. aluminum beverage cans and vehicle engine blocks. These approaches produced similar results for beverage cans, which have a closed material loop system and a short product life. With longer product lifetimes, as noted with the engine blocks, the magnitude and timing of the emissions differs greatly between the RC and EOLR approaches. The EOLR approach indicates increased impacts at the time of production, offset by negative impacts in future years, whereas the RC approach assumes benefits to increased recycled content at the time of production. For vehicle engine blocks, emissions using EOLR are 140% higher than with RC. Results are highly sensitive to recycled content and future recycling rates, and the choice of allocation methods can have significant implications for life cycle studies.

The conventional dividend–price ratio is highly persistent, and the literature reports mixed evidence on its role in predicting stock returns. We argue that the decreasing number of firms with a traditional dividend-payout policy is responsible for these results, and develop a model in which the long-run relationship between the dividends and stock price is time varying. An adjusted dividend–price ratio that accounts for the time-varying long-run relationship is considerably less persistent. Furthermore, the predictive regression model that employs the adjusted dividend–price ratio as a regressor outperforms the random-walk model. These results are robust with respect to the firm size.

A tough fiscal stance has become the norm for discouraging tobacco consumption. Tax and excise rises serve to increase the price of licit relative to illicit tobacco. Consequently there has been a rise in black market tobacco consumption. This paper investigates the degree of substitution between licit and illicit tobacco using novel survey data. We find that illicit tobacco smokers are sensitive to the price ratio between licit and illicit tobacco. This implies that high tobacco taxes have spillover effects that need to be accounted for in policy evaluation.

Aquaculture growth has led to worries about overfishing and reduction in wild-caught food fish supply because of increased demand for fish meal. As such, the price ratio between fish meal and soybean meal has received much attention as an indicator of changing market conditions. In recent years, the price ratio between these two commodities has become more volatile. Several authors have suggested that the traditional relationship between fish meal and soybean meal has broken down and that this is evidence of increased demand pressure on fish meal. In this article, we investigate the hypothesis that there are two regimes for the relative price between fish meal and soybean meal. The empirical results support this hypothesis, with the low-price regime representing the traditional stable relative price. The continued linkages between the fish meal and the soybean meal markets indicate that aquaculture is reducing its dependency on marine proteins in favour of vegetable proteins.

High-yield soybean ( Glycine max L.) has a high rate of N uptake during grain fill which may exceed N available from biological N fixation and mineralization of soil organic N. Other research findings show a low probability of response to N applied at early grain fill for yield 60 bu/acre yield are inconsistent. The effect of applying N and S to the soil at early podfill was determined in Nebraska by conducting 56 irrigated trials, including 44 with mean yield >60 bu/acre. Mean yield increases with 27 lb/acre N applied and >60 bu/acre yield were 2.5 bu/acre in south-central, 1.6 bu/acre in northeast, and not significant in southeast Nebraska. There was no added yield with applying 54 compared with 27 lb/acre N or with the addition of 4.5 lb/acre S. Variations in soil properties and in leaf N and S concentrations were not related to yield or the response to applied N. Depending on the grain to fertilizer price ratio, application of N at early pod fill may be profitable, especially if the cost of application is low such as through fertigation.

The soybean-to-corn price ratio has long been considered one of the triggers that farmers use in the decision to produce corn or soybeans, but little has been done to analyze its dynamics. Recently, the soybean-to-corn price ratio options were introduced on the Chicago Board of Trade, providing the market participants with an opportunity to trade the relative prices of the crops. In this study, the author investigates potentially nonlinear dynamics of the soybean-to-corn price ratio by applying the smooth transition autoregression (STAR) modeling framework to the soybean-to-corn price ratio, derived from monthly futures prices of corn and soybeans. The estimated model demonstrates nonlinear dynamics, resulting in asymmetries in the adjustment to the long-run equilibrium of the soybean-to-corn price ratio. The findings of this research provide insightful implications to crop producers, input suppliers, and other market participants.

Historical patterns of hog slaughterings are analyzed and related to a hog-corn price ratio series using the transfer function or dynamic regression technique. This technique permits explicit tests of causal relationships and provides a systematic means for specifying distributed lag forms. It is determined that the hog-corn price ratio series leads hog slaughterings and that there is no feedback. The estimated transfer function is analyzed in terms of its implications for the supply of hogs and its implications for the length of the hog cycle. Nous analyserons les schemas historiques de l'abattage de pores et Us mettrons en correspondence avec une serie de rapportsprix du porc —prix du mais en ulilisant lafonction de transfert ou la technique de regression dynamique. Cette technique permet de tester explicitement les relations causales et foumit un moyen systematique de specifier les formes de retard distribue. On a determine que Vabattage de pores depend de la serie de rapports prix du pore —prix du mais mais que I'inverse n'est pas vrai. La fonction de transfert est analysee en fonction de ce qu'elle impliquepour I'approvisionnement en pores et pour la longueur du cycle chez les pores.

The specification of supply/demand relationships has received considerable attention in agricultural economics (Heien 1977). Economic theory has helped provide a basis for the specification of such relationships, one of its contributions being the proposition that prices should be interpreted only in relative terms. This has had a profound influence on model building in agricultural economics, leading a number of researchers to avoid the use of absolute prices in economic analysis. For this reason, numerous market models of the agricultural economy use price ratios as explanatory variables (e.g., Chen; Chen et al.; Heien, 1976; Gerra; Kulshreshtha and Wilson; Rahn; Talpaz; Morzuck et al.; Houck and Gallagher; Wilson et al.); these examples suggest that the use of such ratios is fairly widespread in econometric modeling of the crop and livestock sectors. One of the best examples of price ratios is the “feed cost to price” ratio commonly used in the analysis of livestock supply response. Indeed, since feed cost constitutes a major part of the total production cost in livestock activities, the “feed cost to price” ratio is often considered a proxy for profitability. For this reason, data on such ratios are regularly published for various livestock activities (e.g., USD A). Also, “feed cost to price” ratios are often employed in the specification of models of livestock supply response, (e.g., Chen; Chen et al.; Heien 1976; Gerra; Kulshreshtha and Wilson; Rahn; Talpaz). However, not all models of aggregate supply response follow this approach. For example, Freebairn and Rausser, and Arzac and Wilkinson, use prices as separate variables rather than in ratio forms in their models. In particular, they do not employ price ratios in their livestock and crop supply equations. The existence of these different approaches raises questions about the appropriateness of the use of price ratios in the modeling of aggregate supply.

We construct a quarterly time series of the rent-price ratio for the aggregate stock of owner-occupied housing in the United States, starting in 1960, by merging micro data from the last five Decennial Censuses of Housing surveys with price indexes for house prices and rents. We show that the rent-price ratio ranged between 5 and 5.5 percent between 1960 and 1995, but rapidly declined after 1995. By year-end 2006, the rent-price ratio reached a historic low of 3.5 percent. For the rent-price ratio to return to its historical average over, say, the next five years, house prices likely would have to fall considerably.

This paper investigates the effect of aging on the performance of aqueous foams as absorbers of thermal radiation. It employs a previously developed engineering method to evaluate the performance of fire-fighting foams exposed to high fluxes of thermal radiation (5-40 kW/m2). A radiator cone from the ISO 5660 cone calorimeter is utilised to generate a uniform heat flux of thermal radiation on a 50mm thick aqueous foam layer. A comparison of the effect of thermal radiation on freshly-made and aged foam in terms of the drainage, evaporation and foam-decay characteristics is carried out. Class B fire-fighting foams in the expansion range 5-30 are studied. The experimental data for the aged foam reflect real-life situations. A performance-cost index developed previously by the authors, is applied to quantify the overall stability of aged fire-fighting foams exposed to fluxes of thermal radiation. The index demonstrates the superior performance of fresh foams in comparison to aged foams and shows that the low expansion foam (E=5) displays the worst performance to price ratio.

The paper focuses on the delineation of geographic markets in competition analysis, investigating the use of tests of price co-movement in the market definition exercise. To this end, the first part is devoted to a conceptual framework for market definition (adopted from Haldrup (2003)). Thereafter, a variety of price tests are explored that can be applied within the quantitative part of the framework. Similar to Forni (2004), the paper emphasizes the use of stationarity tests (that is, tests for the existence of unit roots) – illustrating their application to a recent competition investigation in South Africa.

This paper examines the long-term relationship between the export prices of Canadian and US hard wheat and the effects of the US Export Enhancement Program (EEP). Using monthly prices for 1974–2001, we adopt the cointegration procedure of Johansen et al. (2000) which permits structural breaks. Results show that a long-term relationship exists, and there are two breaks that coincide with the EEP. The first break is in late 1985 when the long-term US/Canadian price ratio fell by 5.5%, while the second is in early 1995 when it increased by 9.2%. Weak exogeneity tests imply that Canada is the price leader, and impulse responses show that long-term equilibrium is restored within five months following a shock to either price.

More and more applications in the Internet are requiring an intelligent service infrastructure to provide customized services. In this paper, we present an infrastructure, which can transparently and effectively provide customized active-services to end users and dynamically adapt to changing customized policies in large distributed heterogeneous environments. The infrastructure consists of two components: the policy agent and middleware box. Particularly, our technologies include: (1) Generic active-service based infrastructure, where the policy agent can integrate policies requested by applications, and middleware boxes can transparently execute services and (2) Distributed policy processing in the middleware box. We study two policy partitioning schemes to achieve conflict-free policies for distributed policy processing and guarantee the correctness of the policy execution. We conduct extensive performance evaluations on different schemes proposed. Our experimental results demonstrate that our policy partitioning schemes can effectively generate partition-capable and conflict-free policy sets. The evaluation results also show that distributed policy processing can achieve over 70% increase in performance/price ratio with proper assignment of the policy distribution degree compared to a purely centralized approach. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The U+S+ hog industry expanded rapidly during the 1980s and 1990s+ Along with this expansion, hog farms have become larger, partly due to economies of size and new business arrangements+ Using markov chain analysis, this study analyzes the movement of hog farms among three different size categories+ Results indicate that the hog‐corn price ratio has continued to affect the entry and exit of small hog farms, and has influenced the movement of hog farms among size categories+ Interest rates, processing capacity, and agglomeration economies have impacted new entry of hog farms in the Unites States @L110, L230#+ © 2001 John Wiley & Sons , Inc+

Estimates of factors influencing Cameroon's exports of cocoa, coffee and cotton are derived in a system of equations using the Engle–Granger and Johansen co-integration and error-correction representation procedures. Two co-integrating vectors involving cocoa and coffee exports as endogenous variables are identified in the system while tests for exogeneity of cotton exports are consistent with the independence of cotton from the other two commodities. These findings are corroborated by estimates of a restricted error-correction model which lead to acceptance of the hypothesis that cocoa and coffee exports are indeed determined endogenously to the system and not linked to cotton exports. Statistical significance of the error-correction terms for cocoa and coffee validates the existence of an equilibrium relationship among the variables in each of these co-integrating vectors. The combined short-run dynamic effect of lagged quantities of cocoa and coffee, export/domestic price ratio and GDP jointly explain changes in exports of cocoa whereas lagged quantities exported do not seem to have a significant short-run dynamic effect on changes in coffee exports.

This article uses marketing margin theory and Gardner's six equation model to estimate the impacts of banning a postharvest pesticide from use in the fresh grapefruit industry. Specifically, the study calculated four impacts of a postharvest pesticide ban: the impacts are on the farm price, retail price, farm-retail price ratio, and use of agricultural inputs for fresh grapefruit. The percent of postharvest losses following the ban is varied to determine the sensitivity of the cost of the ban to the grapefruit industry and society as a whole. ©1994 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Acreage stability and resource allocation are evaluated in the Florida celery market before and after the installment of a marketing order. Prior to the marketing order, producers placed emphasis on the lagged ratio of the fresh vegetable price index and the Florida celery price, lagged California quantity, and lagged Florida celery acreage to determine acreage planted. With the marketing order, the price ratio had less impact. Marketing orders may modify and possibly eliminate the cobweb cycle. Thus, a marketing order may improve the acreage stability and allocation of resources in a market. © 1992 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

New methods for analyzing nonlinear dynamic processes are used to evaluate the hogcorn price ratio. The results present evidence of nonlinear dynamics in the pork cycle. Moreover, while GARCH processes account for some of the nonlinearities, the pork cycle is apparently characterized by more complex dynamic forms. The empirical analysis provides some evidence of the presence of chaos in the pork cycle. The results also indicate that the dynamic process generating the pork cycle is nonlinear and cannot be adequately characterized by a small number of state variables.

The hog-corn price ratio has long been used as a proxy for profits in the pork sector. This statement remains true even though Blosser pointed out a decade ago that the hog-corn price ratio is deficient on at least two grounds: corn is not as important an input in producing hogs as it once was and the same price ratio implies different levels of profitability depending on the level of corn and hog prices.' Why has the hog-corn ratio remained a widely used measure of profitability? Part of the answer can be found in the simplicity of the ratio. In addition, the stability of corn (feed) prices over much of the past twenty years meant that the price ratio moved directly with hog prices and that an increase in the ratio implied an increase in profitability. Thus, notwithstanding Blosser's concerns about the relative decline of corn as an input, the hog-corn price ratio apparently was an excellent measure of profitability. During 1970-75, corn prices were more volatile and higher (table 1) than in previous years, suggesting the hypothesis that the hog-corn price ratio would be less useful as a predictor of hog supply since the correlation between hog prices and profitability declines as corn prices become more variable.2 In addition, the greater variability may provide more precise estimates of the separate supply inducing effects of corn and hog prices. This note has two objectives: to determine the supply response of U.S. pork producers to changing hog and feed prices over time and to determine if the hog-corn price ratio is an adequate predictor of hog supply when the prices of both hogs and feed are volatile. A polynomial distributed lag model of quarterly U.S. hog supply response is estimated for two different time periods, 1960-69 and 1970-75. For Table 1. Coefficients of Variation for Hog Price, Feed Price, and the Hog-Corn Price Ratio

A stock's relative price ratio, defined as the ratio of the current price to the average of the highest and lowest prices over some holding period, is shown to be a better predictor of future stock returns than firm size. The price ratio has an even stronger January seasonality than does firm size. After controlling for price ratio variations, firm size has no significant relationship to return. The abnormal returns for the price ratio effect are consistent with those predicted by optimal tax selling considerations.

For the classical disposal model for selling an asset with unknown price distribution which is NWUE (new worse than used in expectation) with a given finite mean price, this note derives a policy which is maximin. The gain in using the maximin policy relative to the option of selling right away is convex decreasing in the continuation cost to mean price ratio. The relevant results of Derman, Lieberman and Ross also follow as a consequence of our analysis. Our theorem provides a practical justification of their main result on the cutoff bid for the disposal model subject to NWUE pricing.

Fababeans have recently been promoted as an alternative crop of western Canadian agriculture. They contain relatively high amounts of protein and metabolizable energy and they offer potential as a substitute for imported soybean meal in animal diets. In this study, the economic competitiveness of fababeans in broiler chick diets is determined. The linear optimizing results of three feeding experiments involving different fababean cultivars and different protein and energy levels at a range of relative prices indicate that fababeans are not competitive with soybean meal at any reasonable price ratio in the diets of young broiler chicks. La feverole a recemment ete proposee comme culture de remplacement dans ľouest du Canada. Elle contient des teneurs relativement elevees de proteines et ďenergie metabolisable, et s'avere prometteuse pour remplacer le tourteau de soja importe dans les rations des animaux. Dans la presente etude, les auteurs ont determine la competitivite economique de la feverole dans des rations pour poulets a griller. Les resultats ďoptimisation lineaire de trois experiences ďalimentation comprenant divers cultivars de feverole et differentes concentrations de proteines et ďenergie pour un ecart de prix relatifs revelent que la feverole ne peut concurrencer le tourteau de soja a n'importe quel rapport de prix raisonnable dans des rations pour jeunes poulets a griller.

A quantitative analysis is made herein of the Taiwanese farmhousehold economy in 1931, 1937, 1941, and 1950. The results reveal (1) farm expenditure and income for all types of farmers in 1950 were less than in 1931, the only year for which comparable figures are available; (2) in 1950 both the consumption expenses for most farmers and Engel's Coefficient for all types of farmers showed inferior conditions for that year as compared to the earlier periods; (3) secondary living expenses in 1950 only amounted to two-thirds of those in the previous periods; (4) the poor situation in 1950 was caused by the decline of the rice price ratio and of cultivated area, which combined to offset the benefits derived from rent reduction for tenants, and (5) food expenses for all the periods, however, maintained a per capita annual level of 48–49 yen at the 1937 value.

Selection indexes involving 15 combinations of 6 characters were computed for 2 populations of soybeans. For a 1:.6 price ratio of oil to protein, the advances expected from selection based on oil and seed weight were 101 and 118% of those based on oil, protein, and yield in populations 1 and 2, respectively; and 84 and 95% of those based on all 6 characters.

"SECURITY ANALYSIS can be defined as the study of the record and characteristics of a security for the practical purpose of determining its future potential, and its quality and value relative to other securities."l The security analyst would be aided by an understanding of the risks implied by the current price of a common stock. The measure generally used to quantify risk, the earnings-price ratio (or its reciprocal, the earnings multiplier), is based on several unrealistic assumptions, particularly those about future earnings growth.2 This dissertation seeks to fashion a better measure of the risk implicit in commonstock prices based on more realistic assumptions about future returns from the stock. Three measures of the risk implied in common stock prices are developed and tested to determine their performance as risk measures in relation to the earnings price ratio. These are the implied discount rate