Members in the News: Sykuta, Hurt, and Young

Michael Sykuta, University of Missouri High-Frequency Trading for Bitcoins By: Bloomberg - May 16, 2018 Should index funds be illegal? No, write Thomas Lambert and Michael Sykuta of the University of Missouri, in “The Case for Doing Nothing About Institutional Investors’ Common Ownership of Small Stakes in Competing Firms”: We show that the theory of anticompetitive harm from institutional investors’ common ownership is implausible and that the empirical studies supporting the theory are methodologically unsound. The theory fails to account for the fact that intra-industry diversified institutional investors are also inter-industry diversified and rests upon unrealistic assumptions about managerial decision-making. The empirical studies purporting to demonstrate anticompetitive harm from common ownership are deficient because they inaccurately assess institutional investors’ economic interests and employ an endogenous measure that precludes causal inferences. (Continued...) Read more on: Bloomberg Chris Hurt, Purdue University Pork Producers Feel Pain From Mexico's Tariff Retaliation Plan By: Bloomberg - May 31, 2018 “It’s a tragedy if we lose any major portion of our export business,” Christopher Hurt, a professor of agricultural economics at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, said in a telephone interview. “It comes at a bad time.” Hurt is forecasting average losses for U.S. hog farmers of about $9 per animal in 2018 and $13 next year. Those estimates don’t include any impact from tariffs by China or Mexico, and the trade disputes may not necessarily cause exports to drop, he said. If they do decline for any reason, the losses for ranchers could be even larger. If the portion of U.S. output that’s exported was to fall to 18 percent from 22 percent currently, the losses in 2019 may widen to $18 a hog, Hurt estimates. (Continued...) Read more on: Bloomberg Chris Hurt, Purdue University Bob Young, American Farm Bureau Federation A closer look at the impact of the Bayer-Monsanto merger By: Agri Pulse - May 30, 2018 The Justice Department said the agreement it has reached with Monsanto and Bayer contains “robust enforcement provisions” to ensure that the companies adhere to its conditions. “This needs to be watched,” said Chris Hurt, an agricultural economics professor at Purdue. “We need to make sure we always have effective competition.” Bob Young, president of Agricultural Prospects and former chief economist at the American Farm Bureau Federation, said that “when you recognize that DowDuPont had gone forward already,” it made sense to create another large company to compete with it. “If you’re going to have one of these seed-chemistry firms you want to have at least two of them." (Continued...) Read more on: Agri Pulse

See other Member in the News items If you would like to improve your scientific communications and media skills, attend the Post-conference Workshop on Science Communications and Media Engagement. It is Wednesday, August 8 morning, and costs just $25. Make this important event a part of your meeting schedule this year. Know another AAEA Member who has made statewide, national, or international news? Send a link of the article to salvarado@aaea.org What research and topics are you working on? Want to be an expert source for journalists working on a story? Contact Allison Scheetz at ascheetz@aaea.org.

*Articles in response to the AAEA Communicating Out Strategy Press Releases highlighting: Government Relations, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Applied Economic Perspectives & Policy, Choices Magazine, General Media, and/or 2018 AAEA Annual Meeting in Washington D.C.