Master of Science / Department of Agricultural Economics / Hikaru Hanawa Peterson / The purpose of this study was to examine the economic contribution of rural grocery stores to the communities they serve. In addition, this study looked at the community characteristics that influence the level of economic contribution of a rural grocery store. The analysis was conducted for 163 Kansas rural grocery stores that were selected from cities with populations of fewer than 2,500 people. Regarding the first objective, household income changes and loss of business activity associated with each grocery store were estimated using the IMPLAN economic modeling system. To do so, changes in employment at each grocery store and household income in the community were measured assuming the loss of income that affected households in a city would face if they had to travel a greater distance to buy groceries. The economic contribution of rural grocery stores in Kansas averaged $644,413, ranging from $38,441 and $3,921,027. The results showed that population and location within the state had direct effects on the economic impact of a grocery store. With more complex economies in the eastern and south central parts of Kansas, these stores had a greater economic contribution than stores in the Southwest and Northwest. Communities in the western parts of Kansas would be the worst off from losing their grocery store because of increased travel costs they would incur by traveling the next alternative store. For the second objective, city and county characteristics that were thought to influence the level of the economic contribution of a store were tested. Two regression models were considered specifying the natural log of the economic contribution of the grocery store and the percentage of total value added the grocery store contributed to the county economy as the respective dependent variables. It was observed that population was one of the biggest drivers of the economic contribution of a grocery store. Other variables that were statistically significant in both models were the number of city households that had children, relative remoteness of the county, the number of convenience stores per 1,000 people, and the county wealth. In conclusion, this study showed that grocery stores have a significant impact on the communities that they serve. Both employment and travel costs had direct implications on the economic impact of a store. Additionally, demographic factors and other community characteristics influenced the level of impact that these grocery stores can have on their communities.

Many aircraft owners in the general aviation industry do not possess maintenance and facility technicians of their own. They shop around to get the lowest possible price to maintain their aircraft. Mississippi has taxes on both labor and parts for aircraft maintenance at the rate of seven percent. The state government repealed these taxes in 2006, a question posted by local decision makers might be: what the economy would likely be after tax repeal? In response to this question, the study first developed an econometric model to estimate aircraft ownership. Then, the Impact Analysis for Planning model (IMPLAN model) was used to estimate the effect of repealing the aircraft maintenance labor and parts tax in Mississippi. The results showed the state output, employment, and labor income would increase substantially if the labor and parts taxes were repealed.

The timberlands in the South provide a large resource base for forest-based industry. This resource base is utilized to provide major contributions to the southern economy. Aruna et al. (1997) examined southern forest-based industry economic contributions from the early 1990?s. This study examined the change in economic contributions primarily using 2001 data. In 1992, southern forest-based industries provided 633,367 (full- and part-time) jobs and this increased to 718,176 in 2001, accounting for only 1.3% of the total employment in the South versus 1.5%. Forest-based earnings in the South experienced a real increase of $181 million (1990 dollars) from 1990 to 1998 and accounted for 1.7% of total southern U.S. earnings in both years. The value of shipments attributed to southern forest-based industries increased $22.8 billion in real 1991 dollars which translated into a real increase of $11.0 billion (1991 dollars) in valueded between 1991 and 2001. In 2001, value of shipments increased to 9.6% of the South?s total from 7.8% in 1991 and valueded increased from 8.0% in 1991 to 9.1% in 2001. Although there were increases in the economic contributions of southern forest-based industries, overall there was little in the way of relative change over this time period.

No description available.

An analysis of the green industry of Virginia was completed in the year 2002 using a mail survey sent to industry participants. The survey was conducted by the Virginia Agricultural Statistics Service (VASS). This data was used to run an economic impact analysis of the industry using IMPLAN Professional software. Additionally, the software was used to determine the approximate affects of drought and water restrictions on the green industry. VASS received a total of 1,146 surveys for a response rate of approximately 27%. Of these responses, 42 surveys indicated that they plan to have future green industry sales but were not presently involved in the business. Another 525 responses claimed to be no longer actively involved in the industry. Therefore, the actual response rate was much closer to 15%. This necessitated the use of numerous alternative data sources to create a more complete model representation of the green industry as a whole. Two separate model scenarios were created, the first using purely survey response data, the second including data from additional sources and factoring out for possible double-counting errors. Direct employment generated from the industry was predicted to be between 29 and 36 thousand jobs, depending on which model scenario is consulted. The total economic impacts predicted from the different models are $2.03 billion and $2.41 billion, respectively. The analysis of the affects of drought and water restrictions predicted a decrease in overall impacts by 33% and 23%, respectively. / Master of Science

Millions of dollars are collected through Mississippi’s timber severance tax every year which then funds the Forest Resource Development Program (FRDP). This study analyzed their contributions to Mississippi’s economy and found that the total possible contribution was estimated to be $6.0 million in industrial output and 222 full-time and part-time jobs in 2019. However, only about 70 percent of the FRDP funds were expended in that year, and the actual contribution was short by $1.80 million in output and 80 full-time and part-time jobs. This study also examined the impact of the severance tax and FRDP on forest investment, using Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines (MARS). Results suggest that participation in the program is the most important factor to increase the returns from forest investment and the incentives offered by the program are more important for some landowners than others.

This study has objectives that address current concerns about the possibility of a sudden, negative, shock in domestic consumption of tobacco products. A mostly rural, six-county region of south-central Virginia is the area selected for a focus on these concerns. The study conducts a regional descriptive analysis to introduce the study area and its economic base, and this includes a focus on the regional tobacco trade. Estimates of the economic contribution of tobacco to the study area are generated using input-output analysis and the IMPLAN model. Survey data, interviews and other published sources are employed to verify and change portions of the IMPLAN base model data and to supplement the results. Tobacco’s contribution to the regional economy is estimated for the tobacco production and tobacco stemming and redrying industries, and for other industries and groups. In total, tobacco contributes $756 million in total industry output, nearly $251 million to the value added portion of output and over 6800 jobs. This represents approximately 10.9 percent, 7.5 percent and 6.7 percent of the regional base economy, respectively. Some policy perspectives relating to tobacco production are also analyzed. Economic losses for this study area due to absentee tobacco quota ownership are found to be relatively insignificant when compared to the total regional contribution of tobacco. The regional economic impact of a ten percent decrease in tobacco marketing quota, a ten percent decrease in margin earned by tobacco producers, and two other policy considerations is also estimated. / Master of Science

Forests provide immense goods and services to both local and regional communities. The USDA Forest Service’s, State and Private Forestry program administer multiple landowner assistance programs aimed at helping private forest owners while supporting the continued supply of ecosystem services (e.g., timber harvesting, recreation, carbon sequestration and storage). The two landowner assistance programs assessed in this study are the Forest Legacy Program (FLP) and the Forest Stewardship Program (FSP). A majority of the nation’s forests are privately owned, many of which are facing deleterious impacts like wildfires, invasive species, development pressures, and other adverse effects from climate change. The goal of this project is to (1) quantify the economic contributions emanating from lands participating in FLP and FSP in the conterminous US and (2) quantify and value the carbon sequestration on lands participating in FLP and FSP in New England. IMPLAN is an input-output modeling system, used in Chapter 1, that estimates how money flows through a regional economy. The results from the IMPLAN analysis suggest that FLP lands in the conterminous US contribute an estimated 4,560 jobs and $306.8 million in value-added from timber harvesting and recreation. Further, FSP lands contribute an estimated 27,700 jobs and $1.8 billion in value added from timber harvesting and recreation. Using Forest Inventory and Analysis carbon sequestration data and the social cost of carbon, the results of chapter 2 suggest that, in New England, FLP lands sequester 147,000 metric tons of CO2, or $7.5 million in aboveground CO2, per year. FSP lands in New England are estimated to sequester 82,000 metric tons of CO2, or $4.1 million in CO2, per year. Quantifying and estimating the economic and ecosystem service contributions emanating from lands participating in FLP and FSP provide a framework for understanding the total benefits associated with these programs (e.g., supporting rural economies, impacting climate change and the global carbon network, etc.).

No description available.