Ryan Larsen, assistant professor of agribusiness and applied economics, attended the second annual Cooperative Value in Internationalized Operations conference in Helsinki, Finland, in June.

He presented a paper, titled “The Effects of Uncertainty on Cooperative Firm Leverage,” which he co-wrote with Gregory McKee, associate professor of agribusiness and applied economics and director of the Quentin Burdick Center for Cooperatives. The paper analyzed the impact of macroeconomic uncertainty on firm-level decisions such as debt levels of North Dakota cooperatives. The conference brought in participants from 14 countries and consisted of formal meetings and an agriculture tour in Finland. The tour provided participants with an opportunity to experience a dairy cooperative, lumber operation and a traditional Finnish livestock operation.

NDSU is recognized as one of the nation's top 108 public and private universities by the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education.