| No macroeconomic theory of debt exists. This study proposes that the supply of and demand for farm non-real estate debt (excluding commodity credit corporation program payments) can be explained by levels of income, wealth, input price variables and the cost of money. The effects of three macroeconomic variables, deflated gross national product, deflated exchange rate and inflation are also studied. Positive relationships between all variables (except exchange rate) and non-real estate debt are hypothesized by generalizing about the debt attitudes of the subgroup of farmers with sales of $100,000 and over. This group was selected as the focus group because it has been the largest contributor to aggregate farm non-real estate debt in recent years. The... |
