It was a humbling and unexpected surprise when I was notified of my selection for a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Southern Agricultural Economics Association (SAEA). My colleagues continually ride me about moving into administration and losing touch with “the real world.“ Given my eight years in a series of administrative positions, they may be partly right. Fortunately, my economics and business training hold me in good stead when addressing the issues that face the Texas AgriLife Extension Service. I want to thank the colleagues who nominated me and the Association for granting me this honor. It is greatly appreciated.

During 2008 extreme price volatility in grain markets led to country elevators incurring unprecedentedly large margin calls on their futures hedges. As a result elevators' traditional liquidity sources and lines of credit were stretched to breaking point. This article explores the potential liquidity benefits of making available an Over-the-Counter Margin Credit Swap contract to grain hedgers. The swap would enable hedgers to draw upon sources of capital outside the farm credit system to provide liquidity needed to make margin calls. Simulation results clearly show that a Margin Credit Swap contract would provide significant liquidity benefits to hedgers during volatile periods.

One of the impacts of higher prices along with greater volatility in futures and basis is that there is pressure for an escalation in cash contracting for grain. This volatility has resulted in an unprecedented level of contracting with growers in recent years. There is a wide array of cash contracts with varying terms. There is also a growing realization of growers not delivering on contracts, in part due to escalation in postcontract prices. These are evolving as major strategic issues for buyers and the marketing system, particularly as buyers seek to use such contracting strategies as an element of risk mitigation. There are three purposes of this article. First is to provide a broad survey of contract terms used in grain contracting with growers. Second, we illustrate some issues in contracting of some of the grains (durum, malting barley) in the upper Midwest. Third, we show some of the common contract clauses being adapted in these contracts. Finally, we summarize these issues with respect to industry implications.

It is commonly asserted that speculative buying by index funds in commodity futures and over-the–counter derivatives markets created a “bubble“ in commodity prices, with the result that prices, and crude oil prices, in particular, far exceeded fundamental values at the peak. The purpose of this paper is to show that the bubble argument simply does not withstand close scrutiny. Four main points are explored. First, the arguments of bubble proponents are conceptually flawed and reflect fundamental and basic misunderstandings of how commodity futures markets actually work. Second, a number of facts about the situation in commodity markets are inconsistent with the existence of a substantial bubble in commodity prices. Third, available statistical evidence does not indicate that positions for any group in commodity futures markets, including long-only index funds, consistently lead futures price changes. Fourth, there is a historical pattern of attacks upon speculation during periods of extreme market volatility.

This paper examines three invited papers focused on commodity prices. Public responses to high nominal commodity prices and perceived increases in price risk have ranged from attempts to assign blame, attempts to change contracting arrangements, and development of public policy that “protects“ the market from future occurrences of unacceptable behavior. Interestingly, a result of increased commodity price volatility has suggested that futures markets no longer “work.“ This is ironic given that futures markets initially came into existence as tools for managing the negative impacts of commodity price risk. In response to perceptions of market failure some are looking for strategies to regulate the who and how of futures trading.

While state government spending on early education has grown in recent years, accessibility of preschool programs for rural children remains a problem. Using census-tract data from a nationally-representative data set on U.S. children, multinomial logit estimation reveals significant differences in early education experiences between rural and nonrural children. Both rural children and children of less-educated mothers are less likely to participate in preschool. This paper concludes by discussing the appropriate role of local, state, or federal governments in funding rural preschool programs. While early educational investments are being touted as effective economic development tools, the nature of the positive externalities associated with preschool makes it unlikely that any single rural community would invest in high-quality programs without state or federal assistance.

Community colleges likely draw to college individuals who would otherwise not attend due to their low costs and open admission requirements. This is labeled as the democratization effect. They may also divert individuals away from 4-year to terminal 2-year college degrees (the diversion effect). This study estimates democratization and diversion effects separately for nonmetropolitan and metropolitan youth using nationally representative data and models that account for endogenous institution selection. We find the democratization effect to exceed the diversion effect of community colleges for both metro and nonmetro youth. The democratization-diversion ratio is slightly higher for urban youth.

Noncognitive factors such as discipline (and its mirror, punishment in the form of discipline referrals) can affect school and labor market outcomes, human capital development, and thus the economic well–being of communities. It is well–known throughout the United States, but particularly in rural areas of the south that black males drop out of school more frequently than white males, face higher levels of unemployment, and are incarcerated at a disproportionate rate compared with their white cohorts. Also students in low–income homes were three times more likely to drop out than those from average–income homes and nine times more likely than students from high–income homes. This paper tests the hypothesis that the odds of a student being referred for disciplinary action in the middle school setting (8th grade) increases if the student is male, black, in special education classes, or is poor. We conclude that is indeed the case, with the exception of students assigned to special education classes. In particular, we find that low income students are up to eight times more likely to be sent for disciplinary referrals than others. We next tested the hypothesis that the gender and race of the teachers who refer students for disciplinary action have a significant impact on the first hypothesis. Here the evidence that there is a “color to discipline“ in this school district is weak.

One of the most critical elements of a nation's social infrastructure is its system of education. Concerns with accessibility, achievement, and choice are significant elements in determining the quality of life for all communities, but most especially for rural communities where resources, and in many cases, opportunities, are perceived to be less plentiful than for their urban and suburban counterparts.