Biography
Dr. Irwin helps farmers in Illinois, the United States, and throughout the world make more informed production, marketing, and financial decisions by evaluating the economic factors that affect corn and soybean prices. He also leads farmdoc, a pathbreaking Extension project that provides timely, useful, and relevant online information about Corn Belt farm economics.
Dr. Scott H. Irwin is a national and international leader in the field of agricultural economics. His research on agricultural markets is widely-cited by other academic researchers and is in high demand among market participants, policymakers, and the media. He is best known for his work on the impact of speculation in commodity markets. Irwin has published numerous academic articles on the subject and has been called upon to provide testimony before the U.S. Congress, the OECD, and the CFTC, as well as publishing op-ed articles in the New York Times and Washington Times. He is also a well-known innovator in the development of agricultural extension programs that have helped hundreds of thousands of farmers in Illinois, the U.S. and throughout the world make more informed production, marketing, and financial decisions. His vision and leadership have been the driving force behind the award-winning farmdoc project at the University of Illinois since its inception in 1999. Irwin is a member of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA) and was named a Fellow in 2013, the highest honor bestowed by the Association. He has also received the Distinguished Group Extension Program Award (three times), the Quality of Communication Award, and Quality of Research Discovery Award from the AAEA.
Research Interests
My lifelong fascination with commodity markets started as a young boy tagging along with my father to check the latest prices from ‘Chicago’ at our local grain elevator. I have had the good fortune of being able to continue research on these ever changing markets for my entire professional career. Specific research interests include price analysis and forecasting, forecast evaluation, performance of market advisory services, agricultural risk management, commodity market efficiency, and the behavior and role of speculators in commodity markets. My focus has always been on research that (hopefully) addresses timely and relevant questions of broad interest to market participants, regulators, and policymakers. A notable example is AgMAS, a long-term research project to provide unbiased and rigorous performance evaluations of agricultural market advisory services. The research results have been widely-used by U.S. farmers in deciding whether to subscribe to an advisory service and have also provided the foundation for a new generation of grain market ‘averaging’ contracts. Most recently, I have been an active participant in the world-wide debate about the market impact of financial index investment in commodity markets, popularly known as “financialization.”
Research Description
- Commodity futures markets, agricultural price analysis and forecasting, biofuels markets and policy, value of information
Education
- B.S., Iowa State University, 1980
- M.S., Purdue University, 1983
- Ph.D., Purdue University, 1986
Additional Campus Affiliations
Professor, Agricultural and Consumer Economics
L. J. Norton Chair, Agricultural and Consumer Economics
Recent Publications
Bian, S., Serra, T., Garcia, P., & Irwin, S. (Accepted/In press). New evidence on market response to public announcements in the presence of microstructure noise. European Journal of Operational Research. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2021.07.030
Franken, J. R. V., Irwin, S. H., & Garcia, P. (2021). Biodiesel hedging under binding renewable fuel standard mandates. Energy Economics, 96, [105160]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2021.105160
Huang, J., Serra, T., Garcia, P., & Irwin, S. H. (Accepted/In press). To batch or not to batch? The release of USDA crop reports. Agricultural Economics (United Kingdom). https://doi.org/10.1111/agec.12667
Isengildina-Massa, O., Cao, X., Karali, B., Irwin, S. H., Adjemian, M., & Johansson, R. C. (2021). When does USDA information have the most impact on crop and livestock markets? Journal of Commodity Markets, 22, [100137]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcomm.2020.100137
Schnitkey, G. D., Paulson, N. D., Irwin, S. H., Coppess, J., Sherrick, B. J., Swanson, K. J., Zulauf, C. R., & Hubbs, T. (2021). Coronavirus Impacts on Midwestern Row‐Crop Agriculture. Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, 43(1), 280-291. [e13095]. https://doi.org/10.1002/aepp.13095