Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Environmental Values, Stated Preferences, And Hypothetical Bias, Jerrod M. Penn

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

Contingent Valuation (CV) methods are a primary tool in environmental economics to ascertain non-use or other values not observable through existing market mechanisms. Because common CV approaches typically rely on hypothetical answers from surveys in order to generate welfare estimates, these are often labelled stated preferences. Results from stated preference methods often diverge from those obtained when actual preference or behavior are involved. This divergence is commonly known as Hypothetical Bias (HB). This dissertation addresses HB as it applies to environmental applications. To begin, a meta-analysis using a sample of studies many times larger than previous works was performed. Its …

The Role Of Snap And Habit Formation On Household Consumption Behavior, Shaheer Burney

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

This collection of essays examines the impact of two antecedents of household food consumption: SNAP and habit formation to nutrients. Household food choice invariably plays a substantial role in health outcomes such as obesity. Low-income households may be especially vulnerable to obesity as they face a more restricted set of food choices due to income constraints and may have less information on healthy eating relative to high-income households. This dissertation unravels this dynamic by providing causal estimates of the effect of two major determinants of food choice.

Chapter 2 and chapter 3 test the impact of SNAP participation on consumption …

The Margin Protection Program For Dairy: A Forecast & Ad Hoc Regional Analysis, Jessica A. G. Richard

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

This study examined The Margin Protection Program for Dairy’s impact on the “effective margins” or margins realized by dairy producers in various regions. Each selected margin and percentage of production history offered by the national policy was analyzed in a forecasting, national and regional manner. Couplet margins were simulated for fifteen regions from 2017 through 2020. Five scenarios were analyzed for the change in MPP’s effects under a 15%, 10%, and 5% drop in the price of milk as well as a 50% increase in the price of corn and a scenario where milk decreases 15% while corn prices simultaneously …

Export Demand Estimation For U.S. Corn And Soybeans To Major Destinations, Sayed Y. Saghaian

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

The United States is the leading producer and exporter of corn and soybeans in the world. The United States exports 20% of the world’s corn and 30% of soybeans in a typical year (USDA, ERS). The U.S., being the top producer and exporter of these commodities, is also confronting major rivals such as Argentina, Brazil, and Ukraine, which are increasing their exports and causing the U.S. to lose some of its market share. In order to stop this decline in market share, the U.S. can adopt and implement different policies to manage resources and employ advanced technology more effectively.

In …

Essays On Organic Food Marketing In The U.S., Bo Chen

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

This dissertation examines organic food marketing from three aspects: household demand for organic food, household choice of retail formats accounting for preference organic food preference, and farmers’ joint adoption of organic farming and direct marketing methods. In Chapter Two, given the fast growth of private label milk and organic milk in the U.S., we estimate a censored demand system to study the demand relations among types of milk differentiated by brand types and organic status, using recent Nielsen Homescan data. We find that sociodemographic factors still play important roles in a household choice of milk types, and fluid milk is …

Natural Resource, Regional Growth, And Human Capital Accumulation, Na Zuo

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

The dissertation research will comprise three essays on the topic of the resource curse hypothesis and its mechanisms. The phenomenon of low economic growth in resource-rich regions is recognized as the “resource curse”. These essays will contribute to an understanding of the regional resource-growth relation within a nation.

Essay one tests the resource curse hypothesis at the U.S. state level. With a system of equations model, I decompose the overall resource effect to account for the two leading explanations — crowding-out and institution effects, thus investigate whether the institutions mediate the crowding-out effects. I did not find evidence of an …

Three Essays On Food Safety Regulations And International Trade Of Agricultural Products, Jun Ho Seok

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

This dissertation investigates food safety regulations and international trade of agricultural products dividing into three aspects: the signalling effect from U.S. strict food safety regulations on U.S. vegetable exports, political determinants of sanitary and photosanitary non-tariff barriers, and the impact of trade barriers on employment in developing countries. In chapter 2, we investigate the impact of high U.S. maximum residue limit (MRL) standards on U.S vegetable exports to 102 countries utilizing the hierarchical model. MRL, which is one of non-tariff barriers with respect to food safety, is applied to home and foreign countries at the same time. Thus, firms in …

Agricultural Input Intensification, Productivity Growth, And The Transformation Of African Agriculture, Didier Y. Alia

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

This dissertation studies agricultural input intensification, defined as the increased use of modern inputs such as hybrid seeds, mineral fertilizer, herbicide, and pesticide in African agriculture. It also analyses the potential of this intensification to accelerate productivity growth and tests the effectiveness of two policies, input subsidies and land reforms, in promoting it and consequently in increasing crop yield. In the first essay, we argue that to create the conditions for the emergence of a green revolution in Africa, modern agricultural technologies have to be adopted as a package, not in a piecemeal fashion. This argument is consistent with a …