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Cost-share programs to improve sustainable land and water use are offered from federal, state, and non-governmental entities to non-industrial private (NIP) landowners. Despite the broad attention given to the ecological benefits of these programs, far less attention has been focused on their social impacts and benefits. To achieve the desired environmental objectives laid out within these programs, natural resource agencies must work to maintain high levels of satisfaction and participation among private landowners. The purpose of the study was to examine the attitudes and motivations of participants enrolled in one of three cost-share programs in Mississippi and compare those with the views of natural resource professionals throughout the state regarding landowner attitudes and motivations. Overall, landowners had positive views of their program experiences and the views of natural resource professionals coincided largely with those of landowners.

Much of the recent work in the area of implicit contract theory hypothesizes that firms and workers differ in their attitudes towards risk. The optimal wage and employment contract calls for shifting some of the risk associated with a randomly fluctuating marginal product of labor from the more risk averse party to the less risk averse party. The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the empirical implications of this risk shifting hypothesis. In particular, the following question is addressed: "How can we empirically identify whether risk shifting is occurring in the labor market?” Chapter 2 explores this question in the context of an implicit contract model with nominal variables and a randomly fluctuating price level. Under the usual assumption of risk neutral firms and risk averse workers the implications of the model are refuted by the industry level nominal wage stylized facts. Under the assumption that risk neutral workers insure risk averse firms the model is capable of explaining the stylized facts about the co-movements in nominal wages and employment. Chapter 3 explores this question in the context of a long-term implicit contract model with bankruptcy constraints. It is shown that if risk neutral firms insure risk averse workers then the real wage will respond asymmetrically to permanent and temporary revenue function disturbances. In particular, the real wage will respond more to a given permanent shock than to a temporary shock of the same size. Chapter 4 empirically tests this asymmetric wage response implication. A frequency domain technique is developed for decomposing a measure of revenue function disturbances into its permanent and temporary components and the real wage is regressed on each component. A sample of 12 4-digit SIC code industries are tested. The industry wage responses are estimated separately and as a system of seemingly unrelated regressions. Estimated separately, the results support the asymmetric response implication for 7 of the 12 industries at the .10 level of significance and 6 of the 12 industries at the .05 level. Estimated as a system the joint asymmetric response hypothesis is supported at the .01 level of significance for the 12 industries. / Ph. D. / incomplete_metadata

The factory-built housing industry, while originating from mobile homes, has seen new industry-segments emerge such as, for example, modular, panelized, and pre-cut homes. These new segments have promoted the ability of existing producers to diversify. As producers of factory-built homes merge their production capabilities amongst these industry-segments the structure and the capacity of the industry is profoundly changing. This study looks at both the manufactured home industry-segment as well as the entire factory-built home industry to analyze how the current state of the industry is positioned to drive these foreseeable changes. Analysis of the manufactured home industry-segment is highlighted by econometric modeling of market share data across manufactured housings' product life-cycle curve. Results of this modeling mimic three periods of product life cycle change that ends with the current market share decline. Being so, it is concluded that manufactured housing firms are currently seeking fight or flight strategies to combat deepening market share losses. Producers of manufactured housing who persist in this industry-segment will confront mounting consolidation whereas producers who flee are likely to undergo strategic transformations. A mail questionnaire alternatively targeted the U.S. factory-built home industry to assess how diversification currently impacts industry structure and market share positioning. Results of this questionnaire reveal that two-product producers are strategically diversifying to hedge current demand fluctuations in the U.S. residential home market while also promoting market share positions. As a result it is concluded that product diversification positively impacts market share growth within the factory-built home industry. / Master of Science

25 airports have a connection with the local rail transit system, but each is unique. Variables such as network size, train frequency, type of airport station, time, and cost vary by airport. Both airport passengers and planners should have a technical basis of selecting which system is the most useful, efficient, and reliable. To date, there have been no scoring procedures created to rank the airports in order of quality of connection. This thesis analyzes rail transit accessibility for all 25 airports (3 of which have 2 separate transit systems) by investigating 8 characteristics, 3 of which are market factors and 5 of which are system factors. The 5 system factors are travel time difference between car and train, transit cost difference between car and train, airport/transit connection type, network size, and train frequency. The 3 market factors are rail transit mode share, business traveler percentage, and low-cost carrier percentage. A scoring system was then developed and each airport's characteristics were inputted. The airports were scored using three different methods and were subsequently evaluated to understand why airports received the scores they did. This evaluation led to a better understanding of airport transit best practices. The scoring system was used again to evaluate an airport (Washington-Dulles) undergoing radical changes to understand by what factor a score can improve. A "top 10" list of airport transit connections was produced with JFK coming in first. This method is a starting point for developing a robust system to evaluate transit connections to airports. / Master of Science

No / Trade data are often classified by product characteristics. We propose a new classification ¿sophistication¿ as a means of distinguishing between products. We construct a sophistication index based on the income levels of exporting economies. Sophistication captures a range of factors including technology, ease of product fragmentation, natural resource availability, and marketing. We calculate sophistication scores at the 3- and 4-digit levels and test how far the index relates to existing technological classifications of products. We use the index to examine trade patterns and illustrate how it can be applied in the analysis of export performance of individual economies.

Yes / This paper investigates the relation between insider trading and the likelihood of insolvency with a specific focus on the directors’ sale and purchase transactions preceding insolvency.We use a unique data set on directors’ dealings in 474 non-financial UK firms, of which 117 filed for insolvency, over the period 2000–2010.We show that the directors of insolvent firms increase their purchase transactions significantly as the insolvency approaches. The results also reveal a significant relation between three different measures of insider trading activity and the likelihood of insolvency, which is observed to be positive only during the last six-month trading period. The relation is negative for the earlier trading periods. While the earlier purchase transactions appear to be motivated by superior information held by insiders, the purchase trades closer to the insolvency date are possibly initiated by directors’ motives to influence the market’s perception of the firm in an attempt to avert or delay insolvency.

Yes / This paper examines the effect of textual risk disclosure on the amount of firm-specific information incorporated into share prices, as measured by stock price synchronicity, for Chinese listed firms during 2007-2011. We find that synchronicity is inversely associated with risk disclosure, suggesting that risk disclosure is firm specific and useful to investors. In addition, our results document that the usefulness of risk information is statistically and economically more pronounced among internationally oriented firms than their domestically oriented peers, consistent with the necessity for risk disclosure to be more meaningful when it relates to greater uncertainty. Finally, we find that internationally oriented firms tend to disclose more risk factors than their domestically oriented counterparts. Our findings are robust to a variety of specifications and the use of alternative measures of risk disclosure, stock price synchronicity and international orientation. Our paper has practical implications since its findings shed light on the current debate on whether or not narrative sections of annual reports convey useful information to investors.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-25T16:44:46Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Aiman I Mourad.pdf: 835035 bytes, checksum: 22b317316a9fe33feb87a64d3fb86e6a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-01-27 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Having a differentiated positioning is essential for a organization to survive in some highly competitive, and fast in terms of technology and globalized markets. The positioning is considered one of the key elements in modern marketing management, however, the term positioning has introduced some confusion between marketing and academic professionals. Using mind share and market share as measurable variables of brand positioning and competitive performance, respectively, this study sought to identify the main objective when the brand positioning can influence the competitive performance of an organization. To this end, a quantitative approach was used on a longitudinal desk research and applied to the Spearman correlation technique. It was not possible to identify if the brand positioning is determinant on competitive performance, however, it was concluded that this exerts a moderate influence on the organization's competitive performance, since the analyzed period showed a moderate positive correlation between the variables, indicating they moves in in the same direction and that the greater the growth of a variable, the larger the probability of occurring the same with each other, contributing to earlier studies. This study also corroborate the definition and distinction in relation to the concepts of brand positioning and competitive positioning, besides to proposing the use of identity as a leading element for the brand positioning strategy / Ter um posicionamento diferenciado é indispensável para a organização sobreviver em alguns mercados altamente competitivos, globalizados e velozes em termos tecnológicos. O posicionamento é considerado um dos elementos-chave na gestão de marketing moderna, porém, o termo posicionamento tem apresentado certa confusão entre profissionais de marketing e acadêmicos. Utilizando o mind share e o market share como variáveis mensuráveis do posicionamento de marca e do desempenho competitivo, respectivamente, o presente trabalho buscou como objetivo principal identificar quanto o posicionamento de marca pode influenciar no desempenho competitivo de uma organização. Para isso, foi utilizada uma abordagem quantitativa em uma desk research longitudinal e aplicou-se a técnica de correlação de Spearman. Não foi possível apontar se o posicionamento de marca é determinante do desempenho competitivo, contudo, concluiu-se que este exerce influência moderada no desempenho da organização, dado que o período analisado apresentou correlação positiva moderada entre as variáveis, indicando que estas movimentam-se na mesma direção e que quanto maior o crescimento de uma variável, maior a probabilidade de ocorrer o mesmo com a outra, contribuindo com estudos anteriores. Este estudo também corroborar na definição e distinção em relação aos conceitos de posicionamento de marca e posicionamento competitivo, além de propor a utilização da identidade como elemento direcionador para a estratégia de posicionamento de marca