Master of Science / Department of Agricultural Economics / Glynn Tonsor / Accessing new management information is crucial for the effective management of an operation in any industry. Beef producers are no exception to this as producers are exposed to numerous risks. The use and implementation of new management information by producers can assist in managing the operation to limit a producer’s risk exposure. The beef industry in the United States today is comprised of a large number of small producers, and operations can be categorized into three segments - cow-calf, stocker/backgrounder and feedlot. Identifying and understanding the characteristics of beef producers assists in the effective design, development, and delivery of educational materials and new information. In 2008, a National Stocker Survey was conducted to collect data from producers nationwide on operation characteristics and production practices as they related to the stocking and backgrounding of calves. The survey was comprised of 10 areas which focused on all aspects of production during the stocker phase. Included in the survey was a section on communication and education, where producers were asked to indicate their level of trust for the 14 sources and 11 methods where by management information might be accessed. The primary objective of this thesis is to identify specific producer and operation characteristics that are key drivers of producer trust for a number of sources and methods where producers may access management information. The factor analysis procedure was utilized to determine the underlying common factors which represented the sources and methods that are used to access management information. Multivariate tobit regression analysis was used to determine the influence producer, operation, and management characteristics had on trust for the underlying factors which represent the sources and methods of information. Summary statistics from this research provide relevant information and show the average level of trust survey respondents have in the sources and methods included. While the models were unable to identify key producer, operation, and management characteristics that are significant drivers of trust, the results of these models do provide insights that may be useful in guiding future research. Producer trust for a number of the sources and methods will likely continue to shift as new technology continues to be integrated into the beef operations and new information is discovered.

The softwood lumber trade dispute between Canada and the United States has centered on the debate over the existence of a stumpage subsidy in Canada and recently on dumping by the Canadian softwood lumber producers in the U.S. markets. This thesis contains three essays that investigate the subsidy and dumping issues in this dispute. The results of these analyses indicate the economic performance of Ontario’s stumpage system. The first essay investigates the market performance of Ontario’s stumpage system by examining the long-run equilibrium and Granger-causality relationships between the stumpage prices and the market prices of various end products (lumber, pulp and wood composites) from June 1995 to February 2005 using Johansen’s multivariate co-integration approach and the Granger-causality test. Test results indicate that in terms of SPF (spruce, pine, fir) for lumber and pulp, Ontario’s stumpage system can establish stumpage prices that have the potential to reflect the market values of timber. However, there is a need to modify the system for the other products. In the second essay, an Enhanced Parity Bounds Model (EPBM) is developed and used to examine the discrepancy between the stumpage price of SPF timber for producing lumber and its market value from June 1995 to January 2007. The results show that in the short run, the stumpage prices were below or above the market values. However, in the long run, the underpayment and overpayment will even each other out. The results, therefore, imply that Ontario’s stumpage system has the ability to capture the full economic rents in the long run and thus does not confer a subsidy to Ontario’s softwood lumber producers. The third paper examines the issue of whether Ontario’s softwood lumber industry had dumped softwood lumber into a major US market from April 1996 to September 2006 using the EPBM. This is a critical issue for Ontario’s stumpage system because dumping could lead to lower stumpage prices under the current stumpage system. This analysis indicates that the industry gained considerably more profit from the U.S market than from the home market and did not dump lumber in the US market during this period.

The softwood lumber trade dispute between Canada and the United States has centered on the debate over the existence of a stumpage subsidy in Canada and recently on dumping by the Canadian softwood lumber producers in the U.S. markets. This thesis contains three essays that investigate the subsidy and dumping issues in this dispute. The results of these analyses indicate the economic performance of Ontario’s stumpage system. The first essay investigates the market performance of Ontario’s stumpage system by examining the long-run equilibrium and Granger-causality relationships between the stumpage prices and the market prices of various end products (lumber, pulp and wood composites) from June 1995 to February 2005 using Johansen’s multivariate co-integration approach and the Granger-causality test. Test results indicate that in terms of SPF (spruce, pine, fir) for lumber and pulp, Ontario’s stumpage system can establish stumpage prices that have the potential to reflect the market values of timber. However, there is a need to modify the system for the other products. In the second essay, an Enhanced Parity Bounds Model (EPBM) is developed and used to examine the discrepancy between the stumpage price of SPF timber for producing lumber and its market value from June 1995 to January 2007. The results show that in the short run, the stumpage prices were below or above the market values. However, in the long run, the underpayment and overpayment will even each other out. The results, therefore, imply that Ontario’s stumpage system has the ability to capture the full economic rents in the long run and thus does not confer a subsidy to Ontario’s softwood lumber producers. The third paper examines the issue of whether Ontario’s softwood lumber industry had dumped softwood lumber into a major US market from April 1996 to September 2006 using the EPBM. This is a critical issue for Ontario’s stumpage system because dumping could lead to lower stumpage prices under the current stumpage system. This analysis indicates that the industry gained considerably more profit from the U.S market than from the home market and did not dump lumber in the US market during this period.

Master of Science / Department of Agricultural Economics / Glynn Tonsor / Stocker cattle economic research is very limited in scope. A focus of this research is to deepen our understanding of how cattle price and animal performance variability is viewed and approached by stocker cattle producers in the United States. Another part of this research focuses on what characteristics may be drivers of whether producers choose to practice different risk management strategies. To analyze how cattle price and animal performance variability is viewed and approached by stocker cattle producers, a stated preference valuation method was used to find willingness-to-pay (WTP) estimates. Two different approaches were used to provide outcome probability information where one approach had probabilities for expected ADG change across scenarios and ADG ranges were held constant (Treatment Group A) and the second approach had ADG ranges change across scenarios and the probabilities were held constant (Treatment B). The results of our study suggest that survey respondents process scenarios differently when presented in formats Treatment Group A versus Treatment Group B. The underlying reason for this is beyond identification in this study as respondent certainty and comfort as assessed in follow-up questions was similar across the treatments. Results indicate that producers value buying cattle versus opting out of purchasing cattle and they value higher performing cattle; however, each additional pound is not valued the same. To determine the characteristics of producers and their operations that use different risk management practices, we estimated multiple probit models with the dependent variables being use of the different risk management practices. Results from the probit models suggest how producers source cattle for their operation, whether it is the region or the different markets they source from, are key determinants on whether producers practice different management strategies for market and price risk. The results suggest the model were not a good fit. Of the 30 explanatory variables included in the model, on average five explanatory variables were significant throughout the seven different dependent variables. This could be attributed to factors our study does not explicitly observe; therefore it remains a knowledge gap for the industry.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Agricultural Economics / Allen M. Featherstone / This study focuses on the productivity and on-farm efficiency impacts of adopting biotechnology enhanced soybeans (BES). Previous research suggests the adoption of BES and subsequent time savings resulted in labor allocation to off-farm employment and reduced on-farm efficiency. Using continuous panel data for 129 farms enrolled in the Kansas Farm Management Association (KFMA) with production and financial crop records from 1993 through 2011 that also provided information on their BES adoption experience, this study provides estimates on the technical efficiency, cost efficiency, and Malmquist productivity indexes (MI) with decompositions into efficiency change (EC) and technical change (TC) to provide insights on the impacts of adopting BES for set of sample farms. Using data envelopment analysis to construct nonparametric efficiency frontiers and measurements assuming constant returns-to-scale (CRS) and variable returns-to-scale (VRS) technologies for the farms, this study provides insights on the impact of yield impacts of BES adoption. A biennial Malmquist productivity index (BMI) is developed to consider estimation of the productivity impacts between BES adopters and non-adopters assuming VRS. This analysis used five input categories: Labor, general, direct inputs, maintenance, and energy; and five outputs: corn, soybeans, sorghum, wheat, and other crops. Tobit regression analysis of the panel of Kansas farms provided evidence of a positive impact from adoption of biotechnology enhanced soybeans on on-farm technical efficiency. Kolmogorov-Smirnov goodness-of-fit distributional hypothesis tests showed significant differences between analyzing the farms under CRS and VRS assumptions. T-tests showed a bias existed when assuming CRS if the true underlying technology was VRS in productivity analysis. However, there was not a strong statistically significant difference between the distributions of productivity measures from the underlying populations of BES adopters and non-adopters in the sample of Kansas farms. A revenue-indirect cost efficiency analysis of the sample farms demonstrated that different conclusions were reached under CRS and VRS when considering the differences in the average of the means of estimated efficiency scores and Tobit regression results considering BES adoption. Assuming CRS resulted in positive marginal effects for adopting BES of 0.017 significant at the 5% level. The marginal effect of BES adoption was not statistically significant under VRS.

Master of Science / Department of Agricultural Economics / Jeffrey M. Peterson / Understanding irrigation water demand is vital to policy decisions concerning water scarcity. This thesis evaluates irrigation water-use responses to changes in prices, while accounting for cross-sectional characteristics of irrigators’ resource settings. An irrigator’s profit-maximizing decision is modeled in two stages. In the first stage, he decides which crop to plant, and in the second stage he decides how much water to apply given the crop choice. This thesis employs an econometric modeling technique not previously used in the irrigation water demand literature, a multinomial logit selectivity model. This econometric technique allows the intensive (change in water use for each crop in the short run) and extensive (change in water use in the long run due to changes in crop-choice) margin effects to be computed in a simultaneous equation system. A multinomial logit selectivity model has applications to many resource issues in production agriculture where the two-stage decision process is common. The model is estimated from field-level data on water use and crop-choice for a 25-county region in western Kansas over the period 1991-2004. Water use was found to be highly inelastic to the price of natural gas, but becomes more elastic as the price increases. The intensive margin effect was significant for natural gas price. The extensive margin effect only comprised half the total effect under high natural gas prices and was negligible for low prices. However, the extensive margin effect under high natural gas prices declined over time due to more efficient irrigation systems and improved crop varieties. The intensive margin effect explained most of the water use response from changes in other variables, including corn price. An increase in corn price has a negligible extensive margin effect because corn is most often substituted with alfalfa, which has a similar water requirement. Inelastic demand implies that policies aiming to conserve the Ogallala Aquifer by increasing the price of water will not accomplish their purpose and will affect irrigators’ incomes. More effective policies would be voluntary or mandatory quantity restrictions. However, efficient restrictions would need to account for spatial variation in the rate of depletion and the remaining saturated thickness.

Master of Science / Department of Agricultural Economics / Hikaru H. Peterson / The geographic distribution and structure of the U.S. dairy industry have changed considerably during the last 30 years with larger herds representing an increasing proportion of the nation’s overall dairy cow inventory and producing a greater share of the milk. Geographically, the migration of dairies from traditional production regions to states formerly unfamiliar with dairy production has transpired with the greatest increases in Federal Milk Marketing Order marketings occurring in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Arizona, New Mexico, West Texas and Southwest Kansas since the 1980’s. This study seeks to define the factors influencing the dairy location decision applying spatial econometric techniques. To examine the effects of county-specific demographic, environmental, and market factors as well as to test for the influence of spatial agglomeration economies on the geographic distribution of the U.S. dairy industry, a spatially explicit, county-level model of the dairy production sector was developed. Quantities of milk marketed through the Federal Milk Marketing Order during the month of May for counties in 45 states during 1997 and 2002 were specified as a function of natural endowments, business climate, production resource availability, milk price, and market access. The model was estimated according to spatial autoregressive (spatially lagged dependent variable) and spatial Durbin (lagged dependent and independent variables) specifications accounting for the censored nature of the dependent variable and heteroskedastic errors. Based on RMSE, the spatial error model was selected to make out of sample predictions for 2004. The change in milk marketings between 1997 and 2002 was regressed on the 1997 independent variables using non-Tobit versions of the same models with limited success. Results indicated a small but statistically significant presence of spatial agglomeration effects in the dairy industry in both 1997 and 2002 and revealed changes in the degrees of influence of several variables between the two periods examined. Population and the wages of agricultural workers became significant in 2002, while the elasticities of feed availability diminished, consistent with an increase in western-style dairy production. Interestingly, the spatial parameter decreased from 0.052 in 1997 to 0.028 in 2002 suggesting spatial agglomeration economies had a diminishing role in determining the amount of milk marketed in a county.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Agricultural Economics / Terry Kastens / The production of corn-based ethanol in the U.S. has increased from 1,630 million gallons in 2000 to 4,855 million gallons in 2006, representing a 198% growth over the period considered. This growth is favored by the availability of more efficient technologies in the production process of ethanol and is sustained by the high prices of ethanol in the market. The industry is also supported by a favorable public policy, expressed in the form of laws, mandating an increase in the use of ethanol, and also in the form of tax incentives. The tremendous increase in the use of corn for the ethanol industry is made at the expense of the livestock industry that was the traditional destination for much of the U.S. corn grain. As the ethanol industry continues to expand, concerns are raised in regard to its impact as more and more corn is diverted from the livestock sector. This study investigates the economic impact of the ethanol industry on the U.S. livestock sector. Specifically, a shipping cost model is developed to simulate the impact of the ethanol industry on the shipping cost of corn at the national and individual state levels. The dynamics for major livestock producing states are also analyzed at the crop reporting district level. Different scenarios based on assumptions on the availability of corn and the production capacities of the ethanol industry are displayed. Results from the model indicate that nationwide there is a 5 to 22% increase in the shipping cost of corn for the livestock industry due to the ethanol industry, depending on the scenario involved. At the state level, there is an increase in the transportation cost for most of the states, with shipping cost doubling in some cases. Nevertheless, some states benefit from the dynamics created by the development of ethanol plants and are experiencing a reduction in their livestock industry corn transportation cost.

Master of Science / Department of Agricultural Economics / Vincent R. Amanor-Boadu / Interest in commercialization of university research has accelerated since the Bayh-Dole Act (1980) granted authority to universities and federally-funded nonprofit institutions, among others, to obtain patents, grant licenses, and transfer custody of patents with the explicit purpose of promoting the utilization and marketing of their inventions. This interest is supported by these institutions' need to expand their funding sources as growth in their traditional funding has lagged their needs. This study seeks to assess the level of understanding of research commercialization and entrepreneurship aspects by the faculty researchers nearly 10 years after Bayh-Dole Act using a survey of university faculty. The results show that there is indeed the desire to move research from universities to the marketplace through technology commercialization and entrepreneurship, but there is need for educational programs to enhance the current perceptions about the commercialization and entrepreneurship among faculty. We show that this need is independent of the demographic characteristics of faculty but influenced the university's policies covering intellectual property and commercialization.

Master of Science / Department of Agricultural Economics / Vincent R. Amanor-Boadu / The promulgation of the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, a declining share of federal research expenditures to the university, and the enforcement of intellectual property rights have contributed to the evolution of university research missions. This thesis sought to understand how the intellectual property policies and commercialization initiatives at research universities affect their commercialization activities and intensity. The ability of universities to engage in commercialization activities is dependent on the willingness of the researchers to disclose their inventions. We used cross-sectional data from AUTM (Association of University Technology Managers) and other sources to evaluate the effect universities intellectual property policies and other factors on faculty willingness to disclose their inventions and discoveries. The research revealed that universities' commercialization efforts have been intensifying over the years and across the institution. Intellectual property policies were found to have insignificant effect on the number of disclosures. This supports earlier research that has shown many faculty members were ignorant about such policies. On the other hand, licensing revenue, which basically goes to fund future research, was a very significant factor in disclosures and hence commercialization initiatives at universities.