D.Com. / Please refer to full text to view abstract

by Wai-wah Ng. / Chinese title: / Bibliography: leaves 215-220 / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1982

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At its peak, Oregon produced 21 percent of the nation's total commercial strawberry production. However, since 1971, Oregon's share of strawberry production has been declining steadily. In fact, for the last three years strawberry production in Oregon constitutes only 8 percent of the nation's total production, which is the lowest since the end of the Korean War (Figure 1). Among other factors, the increase in harvest cost without an offsetting increase in the farm prices of strawberries, is the main cause for the continuing decline of strawberry production in Oregon. Decrease in the supply of strawberry pickers is the main cause for the upward trend of the strawberry harvest cost in Oregon. Particularly, since 1973, due to enactment of the child labor law, the shortage in the supply of strawberry pickers in Oregon has intensified, causing further escalation in harvest cost. Thus, in order to alleviate the problems associated with harvest cost, since 1967, Oregon has been actively seeking to mechanize its strawberry harvest. The principal objective of this thesis has been to evaluate the economic feasibility of mechanical strawberry harvest in Oregon. As demonstrated in Chapter V, depending on the assumptions about the quality and the average yield of the strawberry varieties that would eventually be harvested mechanically, and the efficiency of the harvester; the expected savings per acre to the strawberry growers from the use of mechanical harvester was shown to range from a net saving of $523.50 to a net loss of $186.76 (Table 9). Even though negative savings are shown to appear when extremely unfavorable conditions are assumed, in the majority of cases discussed in Chapter V, the implementation of mechanical strawberry harvesting in Oregon is found to be associated with significant positive returns to the growers. In addition, in Chapter VI, under certain conditions which are expected to prevail if mechanization of strawberry harvest become a reality in Oregon, the annual gross and net 'social rate of returns' were estimated to be 330 percent and 95.7 percent respectively. The difference between the gross and net social rate of return is the wage loss of the displaced workers. Based on the above social return figures and the estimated savings to the growers, it appears that mechanical strawberry harvesting is an economically viable alternative that could eventually solve the problem of the growing shortage of strawberry pickers in Oregon. / Graduation date: 1978

Fishing firms in Oregon operate in a complex and dynamic physical, biological and institutional environment. Within this environment, managers of these firms will attempt to maximize some objective function which may include profit. This maximization is dependent upon the level of output, or the levels of inputs. Given a relationship between output and inputs, production economics theory tells us how to combine inputs so that an optimum level of output is achieved. This study applies production economics theory to commercial fishing firms in Oregon. The primary objective of this research was to determine whether a relationship between output and production inputs could be estimated statistically and provide the marginal value product information to determine the optimum combination of inputs. A second objective was to determine whether a statistical relationship could be estimated which would predict fuel use in terms of physical boat characteristics for the fishing firms in Oregon. Cross-section data were obtained for analysis from a mail survey of the population of 4,462 commercial fishing firms. Response to the survey was excellent, with 45 percent of the surveys returned. The data were used to estimate production relationships among the fishing firms using gross revenue as a dependent variable and independent variables measuring boat length, engine horsepower, hold capacity, fuel consumed fishing in 1979, mandays of labor used, years fishing experience of the skipper, capital investment in electronic gear and capital investment in deck gear. Two functional forms for regression were used; log-linear and linear. It was expected that the log-linear form of the model would provide the best estimate based on its convenient mathematical characteristics and wide use in empirical research applications. It turned out, however, that the better estimate was obtained with the linear form of the model. This estimate was interpreted as a linear approximation to a segment of the production function and was used to calculate estimates of the marginal value products for the production inputs. To investigate whether a better estimate of the production relationship could be obtained by disaggregating the sample, two disaggregations were tried. The sample was disaggregated into groups of firms having similar characteristics of species fished and also boat length groupings. The results obtained from these estimations were statistically inferior to the estimated relationship using the full sample. The conclusion was made that the production relationships were better estimated across all firms in the sample rather than by disaggregation. The estimation of fuel use by boat characteristics was reasonably successful. Again, a linear model was chosen as the best statistical relationship. The model estimated fuel use by boat length, engine horsepower and mandays of labor. A prediction of the fuel used by all fishing firms was made using data on the population of fishing firms from the 1979 Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife license file. The predictive equation used only two variables, boat length and horsepower as these are the only characteristics presently available for the population of firms. / Graduation date: 1981

published_or_final_version / Economics and Finance / Master / Master of Economics

Housing units in China are sometimes sold with fittings (including internal finishes, interior decorations, fixtures, electrical appliances, etc.) and sometimes as bare units (without fittings). This study formulates hypotheses that explain these phenomena and test these hypotheses with empirical data from a sample of 1,704 development projects in China that were sold in the primary market between 2003 and 2007. Based on developers’ risk-aversive behavior, we hypothesize that they are less likely to sell new units with fittings in areas with low land prices. The value of fittings is the highest if the developers can accurately predict the tastes of potential buyers. The risk facing the former is that the fittings may not suit the latter. The risks are higher when the cost of installing the fittings constitutes a relatively high proportion of the market value of a housing unit, which is the case when land prices are relatively low. Since housing construction costs are similar across the different regions in China, land price is a major determinate of housing prices. Due to the problem of information asymmetry between developers and buyers, the former’s reputable or goodwill is important. The market would give a higher valuation for fittings provided by more reputable developers. In addition, potential buyers may worry that the fittings had been used to cover up defective or sub-standard work. Therefore, we hypothesize that reputable developers are more likely to sell housing units with fittings, especially for developments with a high construction cost to market value ratio. Demand and supply conditions play a role in determining a developer’s decision to sell units with fittings. When supply is relatively abundant, competition amongst developers is keen. Developers will tend to compete by providing fittings as sweeteners to attract buyers. The provision of fittings may also be a non-price competition strategy used by developers to differentiate their products from that of their competitors. Therefore, we hypothesize that developers are more likely to sell housing units with fittings when demand is weak or when supply is abundant. Finally, we conjectured that as people’s incomes increase, their time becomes more valuable. Therefore higher income households are less likely to buy bare units, since the costs of shopping for interior decoration contractors, finishes and fittings, etc. are higher for higher income households. We conjecture that developers tend to provide units with fittings in areas with higher average household income. With the exception of the last hypothesis, our empirical results supported all hypotheses. The lack of empirical evidence to support the last hypothesis could be due to a possible opposing force. This force arises from the possibility that higher income households have more sophisticated tastes that are more difficult to predict. Developers, being risk-averse, would tend to supply bare housing units in high income areas. The results in this study contribute to our understanding of developers’ behaviors in the real estate market, particularly in China. The results are also of practical relevance to home buyers, developers, investors, and policymakers. / published_or_final_version / Real Estate and Construction / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Objective The objective of the present study is to explore the associations of health expenditures and cause-specific mortality among countries at different stages of economic development. Methodology Scatter plot and simple linear regression were used to estimate whether there was an association between health expenditures and cause-specific mortality. The statistical significance levels were set at p < 0.05. Mortalities due to all causes, and three specific causes of the global burden of disease (GBD) were used. The three kinds of cause-specific mortalities were: communicable, maternal, perinatal and nutritional conditions (CMPN), non-communicable disease and injuries. Countries were grouped into four income groups according to the standard issued by World Bank in 2012. Result This study suggested general government expenditure on health, as a percentage of total government expenditure, was inversely associated with the three cause-specific mortalities, especially in high income group. Conclusion: This study showed an inverse association between healthcare expenditure and cause-specific mortalities. The Law of Health Transition has been once again evidenced. In developed countries, non-communicable diseases contributed to more deaths compared with mortality from communicable, maternal, perinatal and nutritional conditions (CMPN). While in less-developed countries, they were facing higher mortalities; CMPN was still a major cause of death, especially among children. / published_or_final_version / Public Health / Master / Master of Public Health

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During the past decade, advances in information technology have profoundly impacted the business sector. In this dissertation, we focus on three aspects of the changes that influence firms' strategic and operational decisions. For the first research problem, we attempt to understand the competition between an online store and a traditional brick-and-mortar retailer. We incorporate multi-channel customers in our model, and investigate the implications of existence of multichannel customers on the effectiveness of profit-enhancing strategies for the retailer and online store. For the second problem, we study how manufacturers may incorporate information on anticipated demand and supply into its pricing and inventory allocation decisions. Our pricing policy highlights the interaction among the demands for multiple substitutable products as well as limited resource availability shared by the products. For the third problem, we study the complex tradeoffs that network planners face between minimizing the total cost of the network configuration while meeting end-to-end service requirements such as limits on traversal time or reliability. We propose a service network design model formulation for finding a minimum-cost network design in which the selected routes satisfy service requirements.