Agricultural production is affected by a range of policy and climatic variables. This research explored the impacts of cap and trade, climate change and agricultural policy scenarios on water resource use and allocation in agricultural production. The research is organized into three separate studies, one for each set of scenarios.The first study focused on cap and trade policy for controlling greenhouse gas emissions, combining cost of production estimates with output price projections to determine the overall economic impact of cap and trade legislation, as well as its impact on agricultural water consumption. Price projections that included carbon offsets were higher than projections that did not, due to land being taken out of production and prices being bid up. HR2454 will increase production costs, particularly energy intensive inputs. Output prices increase as producers reduce production in response to cost increases. If agricultural offsets are allowed, output prices will be bid up further. Offsets allow producers to receive payments for cutting emissions. Producers benefit due to indirect price effects. Since water is quantity limited, total water use is unchanged.The next study looked at the physical impacts of climate change on production, particularly rising temperatures and carbon dioxide concentrations. By analyzing the anticipated yield effects, it was found that overall net incomes would decrease and the water constraint would remain binding - meaning total water use is unchanged.The third paper analyzed the effects of agricultural policy on land and water resource allocation. Cotton is directly subsidized. Corn and grain sorghum are subsidized indirectly through ethanol subsidies. Sugar cane prices are artificially high due to tariff rate quotas on sugar imports. Removal of any of these interventions decreased net profits to producers, but water use remains unchanged. Removing all farm programs significantly decreases acres under cultivation, and reduces water use below the water constraint. It comes at a great cost to producers however, given the small amount of water saved.

To achieve economic development, regional authorities have to address issues that relate to climate change, efficient information flow in the market place, and health care. This dissertation presents three essays on current issues of concern to economic development in Africa. Climate change is examined in terms of its effects on the Egyptian agricultural sector; transmission of world price to small scale growers is examined in Uganda; and the benefits of insecticide-treated bed nets use is examined in Africa. In essay I, to address the impact of climate change on the Egyptian agricultural sector under alternative population growth rates, water use and crop yield assumption; the Egyptian Agricultural Sector Model (EASM) is updated and expanded to improve hydrological modeling and used to portray agricultural activity and hydrological flow. The results indicate that climate change will cause damages (costs) to the Egyptian agricultural sector and these will increase over time. Egypt may reduce these future damages by controlling its population growth rate and using water conservation strategies. In essay II, I use vector autoregressive analysis to examine the transmissions of price information to Uganda coffee growers; using monthly coffee price data on retail, futures, farmgate and world prices from 1994 to 2010. Improved transmission of world prices to farmers may increase their decision making to obtain a better market price. Directed acyclic graphs reveal that there is a causal flow of information from the indicator price to the London futures price to the Uganda grower?s price in contemporaneous time. Forecast error variance decomposition indicates that at moving ahead 12 months, the uncertainty in Uganda grower price is attributable to the indicator price (world spot price), own price (farmgate), London future and Spain retail price in rank order. In essay III, the cost of malaria in children under five years and the use of insecticide treated bed nets is examined in the context of 18 countries in Africa. I examine the direct and indirect cost of malaria in children under five years and the benefit of investing in insecticide treated mosquito nets as a preventative strategy in 18 African countries. The results indicate that the use of mosquito treated nets reduces the number of malaria cases in children; and this can induce 0.5% reduction in outpatient treatment costs, 11% reduction in inpatient treatment costs, 11% reduction in productivity loss, and 15% reduction in disability adjusted life years (DALY) annually.

Magister Economicae - MEcon / In this thesis, I explore the allocation and use of water for productive and domestic purposes in the village of Siyandhani in the Klein Letaba sub-area, and how the allocation and use is being affected by new water resource management and water services provision legislation and policies in the context of water reform. This problem is worth studying because access to water for domestic and productive purposes is a critical dimension of poverty alleviation.The study focuses in particular on the extent to which policy objectives of greater equity in resource allocation and poverty alleviation are being achieved at local level with the following specific objectives: to establish water resources availability in Letaba/Shingwedzi sub-region, specifically surface and groundwater and examine water uses by different sectors (e.g. agriculture, industry, domestic, forestry etc.,); to explore the dynamics of existing formal and informal institutions for water resources management and water services provision and the relationship between and among them; to investigate the practice of allocation and use of domestic water; to investigate the practice of allocation and use of irrigation water.The study concludes that there is a problem of water scarcity in the study area and that the water scarcity is caused by the growth in the population, specifically in the Giyani area; these problems are exacerbated by financial and institutional obstacles within local institutions of governance. The water scarcity is not, therefore, natural but anthropogenic in nature.The water scarcity is not felt by all sectors, however: some farmers have access to water for irrigation, while many others face great challenges in their farming activities.Overall, people in Siyandhani and surrounding villages surrounding villages in the Letaba Catchment do not have access to water because of human action, hence the use of the concept of manufactured scarcity. The lack of access to water, it is argued,leads to the violation of the human right to water. This study concludes that water reform, which is widely seen as a priority for South Africa, has not yet reached the villages of the Klein Letaba.