Search Results
Journal Article
The geography of value added
Working Paper
Loanable funds, risk, and bank service output
This paper develops a unified theory of bank operations that integrates theories of financial intermediation, asset pricing, and production. In a simple dynamic model, banks maximize the present value of future profits generated through three categories of qualitatively distinct functions: (1) resolving information asymmetry in order to make loans, (2) providing transaction services, and (3) financing loans with borrowed funds. Risk determines the rate of return on the funds and in turn the discount rate for future profits. But risk affects the quantity of bank services generated in the first ...
Working Paper
Service output of bank holding companies in the 1990s and the role of risk
This paper constructs a new measure of output for Bank Holding Companies (BHCs) over the period 1986 to 1999. This flow measure of bank value added follows from a unified model of bank operation that integrates theories of production, financial intermediation, and asset pricing. The primary contribution of the model is to demonstrate how one should account for risk when measuring the value added of bank services. One key implication is that the risk-related return on the funds banks borrow and lend should be excluded from the nominal value of the services banks produce, since the model ...
Journal Article
How New York State's agriculture industry is staying competitive
We examine some of the challenges facing New York's agriculture industry and outline some innovative responses. We distinguish between two types of agriculture: commodities and value-added consumer foods. We show that commodities are a small fraction of the agriculture industry in New York State and are not a growing market segment, while value-added goods are the primary products of New York farms and represent a market segment that is growing significantly. We then briefly discuss important strategies that agricultural producers are using to remain competitive, including the adoption of ...
Journal Article
People have to eat
Food processing in the district is doing surprisingly well. But its future-and that of rural areas that attract food plants-depends on economic forces that run much deeper than the recent downturn