Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the market microstructure related to the Farm Credit System (FCS), Commercial Banks (CB) and Farm Services Administration (FSA). The commercial banks frequently call out the FCS as having an unfair advantage in the agricultural finance market place due to tax exempt bonds, and an implied guarantee of those bonds. This paper addresses the issue by examining the interrelationships since 1939, while addressing the historically distinctive roles that the FCS, CB and FSA have played in the US agricultural credit market.

Design/methodology/approach

There are two components to our model. The first is the estimation of short and long run credit demand elasticities, as well as land elasticities. These are estimated from a dynamic duality model using seemingly unrelated regression. The point elasticity measures are then used as independent variables in least square regressions, combined with farm specific and related macro variables, for the Cornbelt states. The dependent variable is the year-over-year changes in paired FCS, CB and FSA loans.

Findings

The genesis of the FCS was to provide credit to farmers in good and bad years. Therefore, we expected to see a countercyclical relationship between FCS and CB. This is found for the farm crisis years in the 1980s but is not a continuous characteristic of FCS lending. In good times the FCS and CB appear to compete, albeit with differentiated market segmentation into short- and long-term credit. The FSA, which was established to provide tertiary support to both the FCS and CB, appears to be responding as designed, with greater activity in bad years. The authors find the elasticity measures to be economically significant.

Research limitations/implications

The authors conclude that the market microstructure of the agricultural credit market in the US is important. Our analysis applies a broader definition of market microstructure for institutions and intermediaries and reveals that further research examining the economic frictions caused by comparative bond vs deposit funding of agricultural credit is important.

Originality/value

The authors believe that this is the first paper to examine agricultural finance through the market microstructure lens. In addition our long-term data measures allow us to examine the economics through various sub-periods. Finally, we believe that our introduction of credit and land demand elasticities into a comparative credit model is also a first.

中文翻译：

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市场微观结构与美国农业信贷体系、农业服务机构与商业银行贷款的历史关系

目的

本文的目的是调查与农业信贷系统 (FCS)、商业银行 (CB) 和农业服务管理局 (FSA) 相关的市场微观结构。由于免税债券和对这些债券的隐含担保，商业银行经常指责 FCS 在农业金融市场上具有不公平的优势。本文通过研究 1939 年以来的相互关系来解决这个问题，同时阐述了 FCS、CB 和 FSA 在美国农业信贷市场中所扮演的历史独特角色。

设计/方法/方法

我们的模型有两个组成部分。第一个是对短期和长期信贷需求弹性以及土地弹性的估计。这些是使用看似无关的回归从动态二元模型估计的。然后将点弹性度量用作最小二乘回归中的自变量，结合农场特定和相关的宏观变量，用于玉米带各州。因变量是成对的 FCS、CB 和 FSA 贷款的同比变化。

发现

FCS 的起源是在好年景和坏年景中为农民提供信贷。因此，我们预计 FCS 和 CB 之间会出现逆周期关系。这是在 1980 年代的农业危机时期发现的，但不是 FCS 贷款的连续特征。在经济繁荣时期，FCS 和 CB 似乎会展开竞争，尽管在短期和长期信贷方面存在差异化的市场细分。为向 FCS 和 CB 提供三级支持而成立的 FSA 似乎正在按设计做出反应，在糟糕的年份开展更多活动。作者发现弹性度量具有经济意义。

研究限制/影响

作者得出结论，美国农业信贷市场的市场微观结构很重要。我们的分析为机构和中介机构应用了更广泛的市场微观结构定义，并表明进一步研究由比较债券与农业信贷存款融资引起的经济摩擦很重要。

原创性/价值

作者认为，这是第一篇从市场微观结构角度研究农业金融的论文。此外，我们的长期数据测量使我们能够通过不同的子时期检查经济状况。最后，我们认为我们将信贷和土地需求弹性引入比较信贷模型也是第一次。