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Article: Corn prices take on new economics.(Special Report: 2009 Outlook)
- Article from:
- Feedstuffs
- Article date:
- November 3, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2008 Miller Publishing Company, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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UNTIL recently, economists had a model of annual average corn prices that used the ratio of ending stocks to use to explain the rise and fall of the corn market. The relationship is shown in Figure 1.
The economics of this simple diagram are clear. Stocks:use is a simple measure of the abundance or scarcity of corn. As the ratio declines, corn become scarcer. As corn becomes scarcer, the price rises. The relationship is far from perfect, but it is a good general indicator of the direction and level of prices.
Over the last two years, this simple relationship has been profoundly affected by energy prices and federal biofuel policy. Figure 2 shows that ...