This dissertation explores the impact of international trade on the geographic location of manufacturing activities and on regional productivity growth patterns within countries. This study develops models of trade with monopolistic competition in the context of a two-region country. It also provides empirical estimates of the e ect of tari policy on the distribution of industrial activities and on productivity growth di erentials across Colombia's regions. The rst essay investigates the consequences of trade liberalization for the distribution of manufacturing activities between large and small cities. It presents an extension of the Melitz (2003) model of trade with monopolistic competition and heterogeneous rms where producers' location and export market participation decisions depend on their productivity. As a country's exposure to trade shifts, rms and output are reallocated between large and small urban areas. Data from Colombia's manufacturing sector lend support to theoretical predictions concerning tari reduction's impact on the repartition of industrial activities between metro- and nonmetropolitan areas in this country. The second essay extends the New Economic Geography, Footloose-Capital model to examine the e ect of commercial policy on the distribution of industrial activities between regions within a country. This study aims at distinguishing theoretical cases with regard to the nature of the trade policy change or to the source of asymmetry between regions. It shows that trade liberalization can have adverse consequences for the manufacturing sector of a small or isolated region under bilateral liberalization, but a positive impact under unilateral trade liberalization. The third essay adapts the Melitz and Ottaviano (2008) model of trade with monopolistic competition, heterogeneous rms, and variable mark-ups to analyze the relationship between trade openness, regional market size, and regional aggregate industry performance. It demonstrates that the impact of trade liberalization on aggregate industry productivity growth varies across regions as a function of regional market size and proximity to foreign markets. A larger region experiences a greater increase in aggregate productivity through intra-industry reallocation of market shares. Similarly, a region with better access to international markets enjoys a higher productivity growth from tari reduction. Empirical evidence is obtained from the Colombian manufacturing sector.

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 an inferior good. Moreover, as income increases, households are more likely to shift from buying conventional milk to organic milk and from private label conventional milk to branded conventional milk, as indicated by the asymmetric cross price elasticities. In Chapter Three, we examine whether households’ preference for organic food can affect their retail format choices for their grocery shopping trips. We model households’ choices of five major retail format with a conditional logit model, also using the Nielsen Homescan data. Our main findings are that regular organic user households are more likely to patronage organic specialty stores and discount stores, but less likely to shop in warehouse clubs. Price, consumer loyalty, and household shopping behavior also affects household retail format choice. In Chapter Four, we examine the relation between farmers’ adoption of organic farming and direct marketing, given their similar objectives in satisfying consumer demand and increasing farm income. We model farmers’ adoption of the two practices with a bivariate simultaneous linear probability model using data from USDA Agricultural Resource Management Survey. Our main finding is that the farmers’ adoption of organic farming decreases their probability of adopting direct marketing, whereas the reverse effect is insignificant. Also, organic farming is found to improve gross farm income.

Changes within and outside of agricultural education were analyzed between 2009-2014 which coincided with a reduction of male pre-service agricultural teachers. Under the lens of the Theory of Gender Re-alignment, special attention was given to changes in legislation, curriculum, recruitment, and economic factors which relate to structural and cultural changes within agricultural education. The Changes identified in this study explain why male students are being outperformed by female students at a two to one ratio in regards to agricultural education degrees obtained.

By examining a sector of the economy that was exposed to increased imports more than four decades ago, Crumley illuminates the economic pressures, resistance, and reform that help to shape Russia's agrarian sector today. Contents: The impact of trade on Russian agrarian institutions: an introduction -- Conceptualizing alternative approaches to institutional change in Russia -- Soviet agrarian institutions and interests -- Administrative and organizational changes as agrarian reform, 1972-1990 -- The decentralization of decision-making institutions in the era of market reforms, 1990-2002 -- Government incentives, traditional values, and the shaping of agrarian interests -- Changes and constraints in agrarian institutions. / https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu_books/1037/thumbnail.jpg

The study of bananas in East Africa by geographers has been neglected. Some study has been made by agriculturists and anthropologists on a small scale. The anthropologist have concentrated their work more on ethnic groups than on the spatial pattern of the crop as such. In none of the studies has distribution been correlated with the Bantu people in East Africa. For a long time the banana has been a staple food la the region. The present study points out that in spite of the many changes which have occurred the banana continues to serve as the staple food crop of many people in East Africa, especially the Bantu peoples. Further, it tries to show how closely the distribution of the Bantus and bananas are related in all regions of East Africa.

This paper looks at the development of U.S. immigration policy since 1965. In attempts to lower the number of immigrants from the southern border, Congress and the Executive branch have passed immigration measures that bolster illegal immigration. Furthermore, these policies have created an agricultural sector that is reliant on illegal migrant workers. However, recent changes in immigrant characteristics and attitudes are negatively impacting farmers. Going forward, temporary migrant worker programs must be expanded and improved upon to ensure the health of the agricultural industry.

This dissertation includes three essays on U.S. beef market. Each essay has looked at this market from a different point of view. The first essay investigates the price adjustment along the different levels of this market. The second essay discusses the impact of food safety incidents on export levels in this market. The third essay considers the environmental loading of U.S. beef market. A summary of each article is as follows. The first essay (chapter 2) analyzes price adjustment of the U.S. beef sector with a focus on the Great Recession. To this purpose, the Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) and historical decomposition graphs are applied to monthly data. The results indicate that retail prices have lower speeds of adjustment than wholesale prices. Also, the magnitude of price adjustment in the presence of the Great Recession, as an exogenous shock, is different for each level of the U.S. beef market. It is concluded that, with respect to both the speed and magnitude of the price adjustment, the U.S. beef sector has an asymmetric price adjustment, pointing to the inefficiency of the U.S. beef supply chain. These results have welfare implications for U.S. beef consumers and producers. The primary objective of the second essay (chapter 3) is to quantify the impact of consumer awareness about beef safety on U.S. beef exports. To do that, an index is used to reflect consumer’s awareness about beef safety based on the publicized reports in the media. Quarterly panel data is applied to the top importing countries, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, and Canada for the period 2000-2016. Applying the gravity model, results show that a 0.8% reduction in U.S. beef exports arose from the foodborne-disease news. In addition, using impulse response functions derived from panel vector autoregressive (Panel VAR) estimation, results show that the negative impact of a shock in food safety news intensified after three quarters, and then diminished slowly over time. In order to regain consumers’ confidence and to compensate for the economic loss arising from a foodborne outbreak, bilateral cooperation among trade partners seems necessary. Investing in any scheme that minimizes the impact of food safety events, such as disease eradication programs, traceability systems, quality labeling, and third-party certification that conveys the safety message to consumers is suggested. The third essay (chapter 4) has two purposes. First, it quantifies the environmental loading of U.S. beef sector by calculating emission levels over the period 1970-2014. Beef cattle is one of the most emission-intensive sectors, which is responsible for 35% to 54% of total GHGs from livestock. Following International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) guideline, this study identifies three sources of emissions, including enteric fermentation, manure management, and manure left on pastures. Second, it provides an understanding of consumption-environmental connection related to the beef industry using time series techniques. Finally, it is suggested that providing information to the public regarding livestock and climate change relationship would be beneficial. This knowledge might help to avoid the catastrophic consequences of climate change in the future.

The Federal Reserve has increased nominal interest rates since early 2016. It is expected that commodity prices will drop in response to this monetary intervention. The overshooting hypothesis explains that commodity prices are more flexible than manufacturing prices and therefore are more volatile. In this situation, it is expected that agricultural commodities decline significantly (i.e., overshoot) and gradually return to their long-run equilibrium. This adjustment behavior has implications for income stability and financial viability of farmers. This research contributes to the overshooting literature by including the energy sector in the overshooting model. The interlinks between energy and other sectors in the economy as well as the vast resource allocation to biofuel production in recent decades demand more attention to the impact of energy on the dynamic adjustment path of relative prices’ reaction to monetary shocks. We assume energy prices have independent adjustment path and include the links between the energy and agricultural sectors through biofuel production in our model. Our theoretical model shows that by including energy prices in the model, agricultural prices and the exchange rate overshoot less than the prediction of prior studies. This happens because we expect that flexible energy prices share the burden of the shock with other flexible prices in the model. We also describe how an increasing share of biofuels in the total fuel consumption will reduce the flexibility of energy prices. In our empirical analysis, we use monthly data from January 1975 to December 2017 for three producer price indexes (i.e., agricultural commodities, energy, and industrial goods), exchange rates, and money supply to test the overshooting hypothesis. We found the series to be nonstationary and cointegrated of the order one, I(1). Thus, we estimated a vector error correction model to identify the short run adjustment parameters while maintaining the long-run relationships between the variables. We identify and control for three possible structural breaks in the data that coincide with two economic crises and the biofuel production era. We also estimated the empirical model using a sub-sample from January 1975 to March 1999 and compared the results with the findings in previous studies. Our empirical results confirm the theoretical expectation that agricultural commodities adjust faster than manufacturing prices. The analysis of the impulse response functions shows that after a money supply shock, agricultural prices were the most responsive, followed by energy prices and exchange rates. In both full sample and the sub-sample, the volatility of prices and exchange rates happen during the first 5 to 10 months. The sluggish adjustment of manufacturing prices was evident from the corresponding impulse response functions. The empirical evidence rejects the long-run money neutrality, consistent with the findings of previous empirical studies. Compared to previous models, our empirical model shows that including energy prices will reduce the extent to which agricultural commodities overshoot. Therefore we expect the disturbances to the farm income variability, in response to monetary policy, to be less than what prior model would have estimated. In this regard, energy prices are a stabilizing factor in this model. We find that increased share of biofuel from total fuel consumption would positively affect the overshooting of agricultural prices. So, higher biofuel mandates could reduce the flexibility of the energy prices and therefore have an adverse effect on the farm price stability.

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 increases 25%. The results demonstrate that more than half of the regions have higher probabilities of triggering indemnities at every coverage level when compared to the US, MPP margin. Margins change in response to the policy effects, where lower coverage levels experience margin increase, and higher coverage levels experience margin decrease. In the US, MPP margin, risk reduction is observed at every coverage level. The program was found to decrease risk at most coverage levels, where higher shocks to the margin increased the protection offered by the program’s effects.

Background: As rural hospitals in Kentucky face insolvency, stakeholders must assess the value of rural hospitals as well as alternatives such as rural clinics and private physician offices. Objective: To identify the value of attributes of healthcare facilities based on Kentucky’s rural residents’ willingness-to-pay (WTP). Methods: A survey instrument was created and distributed to ten counties in rural Kentucky. A conditional logit model was used to obtain baseline values and then a mixed logit model was used to address heterogeneity among consumers in estimating WTP. WTP values incorporated respondents’ demographic characteristics and their health status from self-reported frequency of use of medical services and distance from these services. Results: The results indicate that on average respondents were willing to pay $69.90 each year for the attribute of a facility that treats patients whether they have health insurance or not, compared to a facility that only accepts patients with private health insurance. Uninsured residents were willing to pay $81.15 for this attribute level. Conclusion: The study suggests that uninsured residents value this attribute level of a facility that grants them access to care. Stakeholders may justify such welfare benefit amounts in support of the establishment or maintenance of such a facility.