The Critical Access Hospital (CAH) Program was created in response to the dramatic deterioration of financial conditions and the potential threat of closure of small rural hospitals under the Prospective Payment System (PPS). CAHs receive cost-based reimbursement for services provided to Medicare patients in exchange for accepting a number of restrictions. The PPS, which pays a fixed price per case, provides an incentive for hospitals to reduce costs and increase efficiency. In the first essay, I examine the impact of conversion to CAH status on hospital efficiency. The estimated results show that CAHs are less cost and allocatively efficient than non-converting, PPS rural hospitals, without being less technically efficient. Relative to their pre-conversion selves, CAHs appear to be slightly less allocatively efficient, while they are slightly more technically efficient, and no less cost efficient. The second essay examines cost efficiency differences between CAHs and non-converting, PPS rural hospitals using quality controls and alternative methods of efficiency analysis. The results show that CAHs are, on average, less cost efficient than non-converting, PPS rural hospitals. The third essay estimates the marginal effects of environmental variables on the technical efficiency of CAHs. The results suggest that enhanced Medicare reimbursement may not have had a detrimental effect on the technical efficiency of CAHs. Overall, the results of this dissertation have important policy implications. First, they show that cost-based reimbursed CAHs are, on average, between 4.5 and 6.7 percentage points less cost efficient than non-converting, PPS rural hospitals. This can be translated in a cost per CAH between $751,000 and $1.12 million (in 2005 dollars) higher than the cost that would have been under the PPS. Second, the results show that the technical efficiency of CAHs improved relative to the pre-conversion period and that CAHs are as technically efficient as non-converting, PPS rural hospitals. It may be the case that the CAH Programs requirements have resulted in technical efficiency improvements comparable to the PPS. Third, improved technical efficiency of CAHs in conjunction with their decreased cost efficiency suggest that reductions in CAHs cost efficiency may not be a function of direct overconsumption of physical inputs. Rather, decreased cost efficiency of CAHs may be driven by allocative inefficiency generated by the inability of these hospitals to substitute to lower input cost combinations in the production process.

With an overall lack of economic information available on energy cane production, the aim of this research has been to provide some insight on the economic feasibility of producing energy cane in Louisiana as a feedstock for cellulosic ethanol production. When dealing with a non-traditional crop such as energy cane, increased uncertainty surrounding potential costs and returns can make the crop seem much less appealing to potential producers. As a high-fiber hybrid of traditionally produced sugarcane, energy cane production costs have been estimated using a standard enterprise budgeting approach developed for sugarcane, along with actual yield and fiber data from energy cane field trials. Monte Carlo simulation was performed in order to estimate energy cane costs and yields under stochastic input prices and yield levels. Breakeven yields for third through sixth stubble were calculated in order to determine the potential optimal crop cycle length that would maximize an energy cane producers net returns. Delivered feedstock costs to an ethanol producer were estimated along with potential processing costs in order to assess the total cost of producing cellulosic ethanol from energy cane. Overall, the average variable cost of energy cane production was about $14 per wet ton and the average total cost of producing energy cane was approximately $23 per wet ton. Energy cane yield estimates ranged from 36 to 68 tons per acre and results suggest that the optimal crop cycle length for energy cane is production through sixth stubble, or 8 years. Compared to similar economic studies for other energy crops, the findings of this study indicate that energy cane is capable of producing higher biomass yields at a lower cost. Furthermore, the results suggest that cellulosic ethanol producers utilizing energy cane as a feedstock can attain a minimum ethanol selling price between $2.00 and $2.30 if processing costs remain below $0.90 per gallon and the energy cane supply is sourced from farms within a 40 mile radius of the processing facility.

The research problem of this thesis was to compare strategies and costs of protecting impatiens in greenhouse culture from western flower thrips that would provide a plant of acceptable quality to the market and would address the issue of development of resistance to commonly used pesticides by evaluating biopesticides. Partial budgets based on alternative strategies were identified. Six control strategies were identified from a combination of commercial growers, research experts and biopesticide recommendations from product distributors. The research-recommended strategy 6 had the highest total production cost ($197.44), while one of the grower strategies based on conventional pesticides had the lowest total cost ($153.28). The second growers strategy had the second lowest total cost by relying on scouting and pesticide application as needed. This strategy used the smallest quantity of pesticides, and was expected to reduce or prevent resistance and minimize environmental impacts. Biopesticides had higher prices than conventional pesticides. Three biopesticide recommendation strategies (3, 4 and 5) were in the midrange of production cost. The treatments containing biopesticides usually had higher product and production cost than treatments that included only nonbiopesticides. An integer linear programming model was developed to determine the optimal WFT control program for impatiens. Constraints included pesticide mortality and label limits on consecutive or total applications per crop cycle. All pesticides in the linear programming solution were conventional. Biopesticides were not included in the solution because mortalities of biopesticides were far below the threshold, according to research reported through the IR4 program. The costs of using pesticides include economic product costs and environmental costs. Using biopesticides to replace conventional pesticides in a rotation scheme of conventional ones with different modes of action could reduce water and soil pollution while maintaining crop quality.

The ever increasing demand for the shrimp products in the 1980s and 1990s caused the volume of shrimp imports to increase. The import of shrimp has had an upward trend, from 847 million pounds in 1997 to 1,636 million pounds in 2010.The imports price has declined since 1997. Along with the decrease in imports price, the U.S. domestic shrimp price has also declined. However, the annual production of shrimp from the Gulf of Mexico has, in the long-run, remained relatively stable. These facts indicate that there is not the same quantity-price relation between the U.S. domestic shrimp market and shrimp imports market. Therefore, an ordinary demand or an inverse demand can only demonstrate one aspect of demand behavior either the quantities consumed are a function of prices or the prices are a function of quantities demanded, and are not able to respond in a more complicated system of demand. The basic objective of this dissertation is to determine a closer approximation of the effects of events in the real U.S. shrimp demand market. To accomplish this objective, a mixed demand system was adopted. A mixed set of demand functions contains both coefficients of a regular demand system and of an inverse demand system (Barton, 1989). This study adopts the Brown and Lee parameterization (2006), known as the mixed Rotterdam demand system. The shrimp products were divided into two subgroups: 1) shrimp imports (group a); and 2) Gulf of Mexico shrimp landings (group b). Countries considered in the analysis include China, Ecuador, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Thailand, Vietnam, and a final category includes all other exporting countries ans named as Other Countries. Demand for Gulf shrimp is specified by size of shrimp with three sizes: Large, Medium, and Small. The U.S. imports from these countries were modeled in a quantity dependent framework, while demands for domestic shrimp products were modeled in a price dependent framework. The summary statistics and estimated results for the model parameters indicate that Thailand has the largest share and largest marginal share among all exporting countries and Gulf shrimp landings. As theoretically expected, all own-price elastisities of regular demand are negative, implying an inverse relation between the quantity of imports from a selected country and its price of imports. Among all countries, China, India, Mexico, and Vietnam have the largest and almost the same own-price elasticities (-0.40). Thailands own-price elasticity is smaller than these countries, although it has the largest share in U.S. total expenditure on shrimp products. This means that there are fewer substitutes for Thailands shrimp than these countries shrimp in the U.S. shrimp market. Cross-price elastisities of regular demand were positive, indicating that the price of a selected countrys shrimp has a direct effect on the quantity of other countries shrimp exports. The positive cross-price elastisities also indicate that the U.S. shrimp imports from different countries are substitutes for each other, as expected. Thailands export prices have the largest cross-price elastisities. This means that other countries quantities of exports are more sensitive to a change in Thailands export prices than the other countries prices and their own prices. The price elasticity/flexibility of inverse demand illustrates that no countrys export prices have a substantial effect on any size of Gulf landings. The most effect is associated with about 0.02% on the price of small size Gulf landings for a 1% change in the price of Thailands exports to the United States. Vietnam, India, Mexico, China, and Thailands income elasticities are greater than one. Therefore, one can conclude that a change in U.S. expenditure on shrimp products not only increases the consumption of these countries shrimp products but that the proportion (share) of these products also goes up in U.S. total expenditure on shrimp. Income elasticities for inverse demand represent the Gulf dockside price sensitivities relative to a change in U.S. expenditure on shrimp. Results illustrate that if U.S. expenditure on shrimp products increases 100%, the Gulf large, medium, and small size shrimp prices will increase 12%, 15%, and 19%, respectively. All of these elasticity estimates are statistically significant at 1% and 5% levels.

As a consequence of the growing concerns about human health and the environment, consumers are becoming more interested in grass-fed beef than conventional grain-fed beef. Therefore, the study of consumers preference towards grass-fed versus grain-fed beef steak is the focus of research. In this paper, 2,000 respondents who indicate they have eaten grass fed beef in the past years and 2,000 respondents that complete a nationally representative sample is the general population. Conjoint analysis is utilized to analyze the preference of consumers. Participants are presented ten hypothetical beef steaks to rate. All steaks are identical excluding their product type, source of production, grade and price. Respondents were asked to rate each product from 1 to 10. Results show that for both grass-fed beef eaters and the general population, the target market has a higher demand for local prime grass-fed beef with a USDA certification with a relatively lower price. Consumers who live in the west tend to purchase more grass-fed beef with USDA certification. The research also suggests among the four attributes, product type is the most essential attribute, followed by source as the second most important attribute for both groups. The highest utility rank for grass-fed eaters comes from the combination of grass-fed beef with USDA certification, local, prime, and $2.99 per pound; for general population, the highest utility rank is the combination of grass-fed product with USDA certification, local, choice, and $2.99 per pound. These results will help to reallocate input and resources as well as target and develop a market for grass-fed beef. Limitations to this research still exist because more interaction effect should be studied. Future research may focus on an increased number of variable samples in order to provide realistic assessments of the market allocation.

A large array of literature has revealed the complexity of export performance analysis. Using the case of Ghana, this dissertation, divided into three essays, seeks to provide the methodological guidance, empirical and simulation evidence necessary to analyze a countrys export performance. The choice of Ghana was motivated by the countrys growth experience, strong export and agricultural sectors and implemented reforms and programs since 1983. In the first essay, we created a new trade-weighted Cedi index or real effective exchange rate (REER) that takes into account Ghanas most relevant patterns of trade and captures the evolution of Ghanas export price competitiveness overtime. Other factors of export performance have been identified collecting the perspectives of Ghanas agricultural export sector stakeholders and using grounded theory. This research showed that Ghanas export price competitiveness, as depicted by the REER, has improved since 1983 but has revealed many additional factors that played a role in the performance of Ghanas agricultural export sector. Following export demand theory and the procedure of Toda and Yamamoto (1995) and Dolado and Lütkepohl (1996) (TYDL), the second essay estimates causal relationships between exports, the REER and foreign activity over the 1970-2009 period. Two additional models (VAR-GARCH-in-mean) were estimated to investigate the impact of exchange rate volatility on Ghanas exports. The results support the view that some of the implemented macroeconomic reforms have been the cause of Ghanas export performance. Additionally, we found that third-country exchange rate volatility has hampered Ghanas export growth. The third essay tackles methodological shortcomings of the TYDL procedure. In a Monte Carlo experiment, we compared the Schwarz Bayesian criterion (SBC) and the likelihood ratio (LR) tests in terms of their lag order frequency distributions and the finite sample properties of the resulting modified Wald (MWALD) tests. We found that in general, the SBC selects the true lag length more often than the LR tests and that in large samples the choice of the lag selection method does not influence non-causality tests results. This research also revealed that in the presence of moving average terms or in the case of mixed unit-root processes, MWALD tests perform poorly.

As healthcare costs and premiums have increased in the recent past, hospitals are forced to try to provide healthcare on tight budgets. In many cases, quality is often sacrificed in an effort to manage patient wait-times and costs. This research attempted to add to the existing body of knowledge of quality of care by defining a relationship between quality of care provided and total hospital costs. This study used the 2006 American Hospital Associations Annual Survey Database and the 2006 Hospital Compare dataset to meet the data requirements for the study. A log-log, as well as a translog, cost function was used to estimate the relationship between quality of care provisioned for community acquired pneumonia and heart failure and total hospital costs. Regressors for the cost function included hospital outputs, inputs and wages as well as variables for patient-mix, case-mix, ownership status and medical school affiliation. Ultimately this study concluded that by increasing the quality of care score associated with community-acquired pneumonia by ten percent would decrease total hospital costs by 2.44 percent. However, several improvements were found that would improve the ability of the quality of care data and estimation methodologies to more comprehensively represent quality.

The federal government has recently approved legislation to develop revenue insurance products that are affordable and user-friendly for livestock producers. The features of the products will be the ultimate determinant of product acceptance among producers. The objective of the study was to determine the relative importance of livestock revenue insurance product attributes as well as to identify the characteristics of beef cattle producers who prefer certain levels of a given product attribute. Conjoint analysis was utilized to determine the importance of selected attributes. Conjoint Designer was used to develop eleven hypothetical insurance products from four attributes with three levels each. Producers rated each product from 0 (least preferred) to 10 (most preferred). The products were rated given four different economic scenarios to determine the influence of the cattle cycle on producers' preferences and purchase decisions for products. Data were collected via personal interviews with 52 beef cattle producers in 15 parishes in Louisiana. A two-limit tobit model was used to analyze producer preferences. The part worth utility values estimated were used in a cluster analysis to segment producers based upon their preferences. Univariate probit models were estimated for nine products to evaluate the influence of various producer characteristics on purchase decisions. The results of the aggregate conjoint analysis indicated that producers preferred products with a $2.24|$0.00/cwt premium|deductible, a 180-day policy length, a state price series, and an in-person method of marketing. The price series made the largest contribution to the preference rating, and the results suggested that the economic scenario did not significantly impact preferences. The cluster analysis identified three market segments that exhibited significant differences in primary source of income, farm size, marketing strategies used, and risk attitude. The results of the univarite probit models revealed that the economic scenarios had a significant impact on producers' insurance purchase decision. Producers who were risk averse and depended on income from beef cattle were more likely to purchase insurance. Producers who were older and/or had other means of mitigating risk were less likely to purchase insurance.

The structure of the U.S. hog industry is changing rapidly. U.S. hog farms have become smaller in number, larger in size and more specialized. This study examines the factors that influence the hog producer's choice among business arrangements offered in the U.S. hog industry. A national survey was mailed to 4,986 hog producers to determine these factors. The survey consisted of questions covering topics such as: production characteristics, autonomy, transaction costs, risk, social relationships, and demographics. A response rate of 21% was received from the mailed surveys. Four alternative business arrangements were used: independent production, cooperative farming, flat-fee contract, and incentive payment contract. The multinomial logit and binomial logit models were employed to determine factors influencing producers' choice of business arrangement. Results indicate that independent producers are, in general, more likely to be breeding sow operators, diversified, corn producers, located in the same counties as flat-fee contract producers, frequent checkers of market prices, have higher debt, value autonomy and relationships with feed merchants more, and be relatively more educated than incentive payment contract producers. Cooperative producers are also more likely to be breeding sow operators, diversified, corn producers, and located in the same counties as flat-fee contractees. They are also likely to have accumulated higher assets, have higher debt and greater farm assets, be risk averse, be concerned about autonomy and relationships with feed merchants, and be relatively more educated than incentive payment contract producers. Flat-fee contract producers are more likely to be finishers located in counties with independent and cooperative producers, work more hours off-farm, and be owners of greater farm assets. They are less likely to value autonomy and more likely to value relationships with neighboring farmers. Finally, incentive payment contract producers are generally larger, lower debt finisher or breeding sow operators who work more hours off-farm, value autonomy less and relationships with lenders more than other business arrangements. They are likely to be located in counties with cooperative producers.

The alternative rough rice marketing and storage strategies were evaluated using three methods of analysis. The methods used in this study were MOTAD, simulation, and stochastic dominance. Historical rough rice prices from 1980/81 - 2000/01 was used and tested for trends and seasonality in order for the methods to be formed properly. SAS was used to verify that the data used in this study did not follow any time trend or reflect seasonality. MOTAD, simulation, and stochastic dominance were used to determine the most efficient marketing and storage strategy that will enable rice farmers to make the best decisions and earn the highest average net returns. Results from the MOTAD analysis suggest that producers should take 100% of their loan deficiency payment in August. This study defined loan deficiency payments and storage usage as a type of marketing strategy. Once the statistical results clearly showed that loan deficiency payments were best taken in August, it was not utilized as a marketing strategy in the simulation analysis. The simulation analysis utilized fixed and flexible marketing strategies that incorporated storage usage. The fixed strategies were modeled and gave the lowest average returns. As more and more flexible strategies were incorporated into the study, average returns increased. When world export, production, and ending stock flexible strategies were incorporated, the average net return increased dramatically. The results of the simulation analysis were tested using first degree stochastic analysis. The stochastic analysis and simulation analysis both chose the same marketing strategy as the most efficient strategy a farmer should adopt. Results of this study indicate that farmers who store rice earn higher average net returns when they pay attention to monthly marketing year prices. Farmers that do not store rice should sell 100% of the rough rice in August. The study also suggests that average net returns are higher when loan deficiency payments are taken in August. These results are consistent with a similar study conducted on rice marketing strategies.