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With the decline of US net farm income from $123.8 billion in 2013 to $71.5 billion forecasted for 2016, concern has developed regarding the future path of agricultural land values. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between net farm income, cash rents and land values in the state of Kansas and provides insight regarding future land values.

This study estimates partial adjustment models for cash rent and land values and uses those results to infer long-run capitalization rates and earnings multipliers. These models are used to forecast Kansas land values through 2018 and also the long-run price of farmland given 2016 expectations.

Land adjusts to changes in Kansas net farm income slowly with a one-year elasticity of 6.7 percent. The long-run elasticity is 96.9 percent which is very close to the 100 percent suggested by the theoretical income capitalization model. The long-run multiplier for income in Kansas is 21.71 which implies a capitalization rate of 4.61 percent. The estimated results suggest that Kansas land values would peak in 2016 and begin to slowly decline. If market conditions were to remain the same, land values would ultimately decrease to $1,171 per acre, a 28 percent decline from current levels.

Declines of the magnitude in estimated land values could negatively affect the financial condition of the sector. Factors such as a change in the long-run capitalization rate or unexpected supply or demand shocks for agricultural commodities globally could certainly alter the long-term prospects. However, current expectations as of March 2016 suggest that farmers will face difficult conditions over the next few years.

A self‐help guide to achieving success in business. Directed more towards the self‐employed, it is relevant to other managers in organizations. Divided into clear sections on creativity and dealing with change; importance of clear goal setting; developing winning business and marketing strategies; negotiating skills; leadership; financial skills; and time management.

This study aims to determine the optimal value of concession period length in combination with capital structure in build–operate–transfer (BOT) contracts, based on direct negotiation procurement and considering the conflicting financial interests of different parties involved in the project.

The financial model of a BOT project is developed considering all the influencing factors. Then, fuzzy set theory is used to take into account the existing risks and uncertainties. Bilateral bargaining game based on alternating-offers protocol is applied between the government and the sponsor to divide project financial benefit considering the lender’s requirements. Finally, concession period and equity level will be determined simultaneously according to the sponsor’s and government’s share of project financial benefit and the lender’s requirements.

The proposed model is implemented on a real case study, and a fair and efficient agreement on concession period length and capital structure is achieved between the government and the sponsor considering the lender’s requirements. It is revealed that being the first proposer in the bargaining process will affect the concession period length; however, it will not affect the equity level. Moreover, it is shown that considering income tax as a part of government’s financial benefit increases the length of concession period.

The presented model concentrates on direct negotiation procurement in BOT projects where the sponsor and government bargain on dividing financial benefits of project. It is assumed that the product/service price is determined before according to market analysis or users’ affordability. All the revenue of project during concession period is assumed to belong to the sponsor.

The proposed model provides a practical tool to aid BOT participants to reach a fair and efficient agreement on concession period and capital structure. This could prevent failing or prolonging the negotiation and costly renegotiation.

By investigation of previous studies, it is revealed that none of them can determine the optimal value of concession period length and capital structure simultaneously considering the BOT negotiation process and different financial interests of parties involved in the project. The proposed model presents a new approach to determine the financial variables considering the conflicting interests of involved parties. The other novelty aspects of the presented model are as follows: introducing a new approach for calculating the sponsor and the government’s share of project financial benefit that will affect the determination of the concession period length and considering the effect of existing risks and uncertainties on final agreement between the involved parties using fuzzy set theory.

Hailstorms are a major risk in agriculture. In order to mitigate the negative consequences on farm revenues, in the present paper the authors analyse the choice between insurance contracts and anti-hail nets. Furthermore, the authors discuss the consequences of anti-hail nets adoption on the actuarial soundness of the insurance market.

In this paper the authors firstly develop a theoretical model based on expected utility theory to compare the profitability of no-hedging against insurance and anti-hail nets. Subsequently, they test their theoretical model predictions with data of South Tyrolean apple producers.

The authors find that the benefit of anti-hail nets compared to insurance is an increasing function of the overall risk of hail damages, of the farmers' level of risk aversion and of the worth of the agricultural output.

Given the authors’ findings that anti-hail nets are more profitable for riskier, risk-averse and high-profitable farmers, the diffusion of anti-hail nets could be beneficial for the actuarial soundness of insurance markets.

The model developed in the paper is specifically designed to compare the profitability of different agricultural hedging options and can be easily extended to cover other hazards.

A pressing research question in human resources (HR) is how to determine the value HR adds to a firm. This article seeks to address this issue

As summarized here, benchmarking techniques, ROI tools, behavioral analyses and other types of quantitative efforts have attempted to provide answers, but such methods also have downsides. In the present paper, the long‐established finance concept of net present value (NPV) is applied in order to determine the value that HR activities provide to an organization's business strategy.

A specific example is used to illustrate how NPV can be used to value the HR activities in a firm pursuing an innovation business strategy. An explanation is also given of how NPV can be used in making decisions related to HR outsourcing.

NPV is used to operationalize the strategic net benefit (SNB) of HR's costs and contributions to a firm's business strategy.

The long‐established finance concept of net present value (NPV) is applied in order to determine the value that HR activities provide to an organization's business strategy.

The selection of the optimal credit investigation policy is a sequential decision problem that Mehta solved using decision tree analysis. This paper explores the managerial implications of the credit investigation/credit granting policy. The credit policy selected effects the resources required for credit investigation, the scale of collection efforts, the level and breakdown of accounts receivable, cash budgets, and total sales and production costs.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it intends to assess the level of comparability of the fair value-based valuation criteria for biological assets of Portuguese dairy farms after the adoption of the Portuguese Accounting Standardization System. Second, it presents an innovative valuation model to assess the fair value of dairy herds.

The paper conducts a multiple case study at dairy farms in the central region of Portugal which had adopted the new Accounting Standardization System. Data were captured through interviews to assess how dairy farms were using the new valuation criteria required by this recent accounting frame of reference. A proposal for a model to measure fair value is presented.

Main findings indicate that market values for dairy production animals are inconsistent, reducing financial information comparability levels. To solve these problems, the authors propose a new model to assess fair value based on the net present value (NPV) of future cash-flows. This is a possible method to measure bovines that are in a breeding stage and it will assure the comparability of financial statements among dairy farms.

The study is confined to one case study and one country, not allowing generalization.

Results indicate the need to harmonize one possible method for measuring cattle that are in a breeding stage. In order to overcome these shortcomings, a model was designed to calculate the fair value of dairy production based on the NPV of future economic benefits.

The purpose of this paper paper is to study effective measures in dealing with the phenomenon of insurance claims’ fraud. In fact, fraud is one of the major industry concerns. It occurs in all classes of insurance and accounts for a substantial portion of indemnity payments each year.

This paper develops a model framework based on a costly state verification setting in which – while policyholders observe the amount of loss privately – the insurance company can decide to audit incoming claims at some cost. The aim is to derive optimal auditing strategies from the insurance company’s perspective while maintaining contract attractiveness to policyholders willing to adhere to the insurance relationship. The possibility for each stakeholder to adapt its behavioral strategy over the course of several periods is taken into account. Using a numerical approach based on Monte Carlo simulations, the impact of different parameterizations on the optimal auditing range by means of a sensitivity analysis is illustrated and analyzed.

The central outcome of the model is an auditing range which selects those claims which should be subject to verification.

This paper comes to the conclusion that, given some constant cost per audit, it is optimal to verify the accuracy of claims from the mid-value segment. Furthermore, it can be shown that while the option to adapt one’s strategy might be favorable from the insurance company perspective, it has a negative impact on the policyholders’ position. This disproves the common belief that adapting the defrauding strategy with the help of signals from service providers would be advantageous.

This paper extends the stand of literature on costly state verification and gives indications for optimal auditing strategies in industry practice.