This dissertation examines three facets of U.S. energy use and policy. First, I examine the Gulf Coast petroleum refining industry to determine the structure of the industry. Using the duality between cost-minimization and production functions, I estimate the demand for labor to determine the underlying production function. The results indicate that refineries have become more capital intensive due to the relative price increase of labor. The industry has consolidated in response to higher labor costs and costs of environmental compliance. Next, I examine oil production in the United States. An empirical model based on the theoretical framework of Pindyck is used to estimate production. This model differs from previous research by using state level data rather than national level data. The results indicate that the production elasticity with respect to reserves and the price elasticity of supply are both inelastic in the long run. The implication of these findings is that policies designed to increase domestic production through subsidies, tax breaks, or royalty reductions will likely provide little additional oil. We simulate production under three scenarios. In the most extreme scenario, prices double between 2005 and 2030 while reserves increase by 50%. Under this scenario, oil production in 2030 is approximately the same as the 2005 level. The third essay estimates demand for fossil fuels in the U.S. and uses these estimates to forecast CO2 emissions. The results indicate that there is almost no substitution from one fossil fuel to another and that all three fossil fuels are inelastic in the long run. Additionally, all three fuels respond differently to changes in GDP. The result of the differing elasticities with respect to GDP is that the energy mix has changed over time. The implication for forecasting CO2 emissions is that models that cannot distinguish changes in the energy mix are not effective in forecasting CO2 emissions.

In this research, we consider production/inventory management decisions of a rmthat sells its product in two market segments during a nite planning horizon. In thebeginning of each period, the rm makes a decision on how much to produce basedon the production capacity and the current on-hand inventory available. After theproduction is made at the beginning of the period, the rm rst satises the stochasticdemand from customers in its primary market. Any primary market demand thatcannot be satised is lost. After satisfying the demand from the primary market, ifthere is still inventory on hand, all or part of the remaining products can be sold ina secondary market with ample demand at a lower price. Hence, the second decisionthat the rm makes in each period is how much to sell in the secondary market, orequivalently, how much inventory to carry to the next period.The objective is to maximize the expected net revenue during a nite planninghorizon by determining the optimal production quantity in each period, and theoptimal inventory amount to carry to the next period after the sales in primary andsecondary markets. We term the optimal inventory amount to be carried to the nextperiod as \economic retention quantity". We model this problem as a nite horizonstochastic dynamic program. Our focus is to characterize the structure of the optimalpolicy and to analyze the system under dierent parameter settings. Conditioning on given parameter set, we establish lower and upper bounds on the optimal policyparameters. Furthermore, we provide computational tools to determine the optimalpolicy parameters. Results of the numerical analysis are used to provide furtherinsights into the problem from a managerial perspective.

The colonias along the Texas-Mexico border are one of the most rapidly growing areas in Texas. Because of the relatively low income of the residents and an inadequate availability of transportation services, the need for basic social activities for the colonias cannot be properly met. The objectives of this study are to have a better comprehension of the status quo of these communities by examining the potential demand for an improved transportation service and evaluate the capacity and optimum service time interval of a new demand responsive transit "feeder" service within one representative colonia, El Cenizo. A comprehensive analysis of the results of a survey conducted through a questionnaire is presented to explain the existing travel patterns and potential demand for a feeder service. The results of this thesis and work from the subsequent simulation analysis showed that a single shuttle would be able to comfortably serve 150 passengers/day. It further showed that the optimal cycle length between consecutive departures from the terminal should be between 11-13 minutes for best service quality. This exploratory study should serve as a first step towards improving transportation services within these growing underprivileged communities especially those with demographics and geography similar to the target area of El Cenizo.

This dissertation has four interrelated studies, namely (1) the characterization of milk purchase choices which included the purchase of organic milk, both organic and conventional milk and conventional milk only; (2) the estimation of a single-equation household demand function for organic and conventional milk; (3) the assessment of binary choice models for organic milk using the Brier Probability score and Yates partition, and (4) the estimation of demand systems that addresses the censoring issue through the use of econometric techniques. In the first paper, the study utilized the estimation of both multinomial logit and probit models in examining a set of causal socio-demographic variables in explaining the purchase of three outcome milk choices namely organic milk, organic and conventional milk and conventional milk only. These crucial variables include income, household size, education level and employment of household head, race, ethnicity and region. Using the 2004 Nielsen Homescan Panel, the second study used the Heckman two-step procedure in calculating the own-price, cross-price, and income elasticities by estimating the demand relationships for both organic and conventional milk. Results indicated that organic and conventional milk are substitutes. Also, an asymmetric pattern existed with regard to the substitution patterns of the respective milk types. Likewise, the third study showed that predictive outcomes from binary choice models associated with organic milk can be enhanced with the use of the Brier score method. In this case, specifications omitting important socio-demographic variables reduced the variability of predicted probabilities and therefore limited its sorting ability. The last study estimated both censored Almost Ideal Demand Systems (AIDS) and Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System (QUAIDS) specifications in modeling nonalcoholic beverages. In this research, five estimation techniques were used which included the usage of Iterated Seemingly Unrelated Regression (ITSUR), two stage methods such as the Heien and Wessells (1990) and the Shonkwiler and Yen (1999) approaches, Generalized Maximum Entropy and the Dong, Gould and Kaiser (2004a) methods. The findings of the study showed that at various censoring techniques, price elasticity estimates were observed to have greater variability in highly censored nonalcoholic beverage items such as tea, coffee and bottled water.

To resolve the inflation caused by overheated economy in 1992, China executed Macroscopic Control Policy to stabilize the fluctuation of price standard in 1993. It seemed to achieve the effort of controlling inflation. However, because of longtime Macroscopic Control Policy after Asian Financial Crisis, it resulted in negative impacts. CPI in China has been minus quantity for 39 months from October in 1997 to December in 2000. And CPI turned plus into minus from April in 1998 to January in 2000. And CPI turned plus into minus from April in 1998 to January in 2000. The growth rate of RPI is -2.6% and that of CPI is -0.8% in 1998. It declined to -3.0%(RPI) and -1.4%(CPI) in 1999. The growth rate of GDP has fallen down since 1992. The main purpose of this paper is to explore the reason of the deflation late in 1990 in China. I want to find out why deflation was happened in china? What is the main cause of deflation in china? What are the impacts and shocks to china economic growth by these causes? How are the impacts and shocks to china economic growth by these causes? The whole supply and demand and money contraction resulted in the downfall of GDP and CPI. To prevent the phenomena of overheated economy since 1993, most of investment moved away China because of Macroscopic Control Policy. Under this kind of situation, we couldn¡¦t say that the investments were excess. Therefore, the main reason isn¡¦t prices dropping caused by too much supply. China continued Deflation Policy after Asian Financial Crisis in 1997, so the speed of economy development decreased slowly. It also reduced the whole consumption, public spending, investment export, and money supply and demand. The effect of negative development resulted in the deflation of economy development.

The steel industry is always considered as the traditional industry that unwilling to make an investment in new information technology, besides several annual sales volumes and more than 3 billion large scale steel maker, there are very few has implemented MIS, eERP, SCM, CRM,etc. that mean the Steel Industry Supply and Demand Chain to take electronization , still have long way go too, even so, the government , society , big factory , information industry person promote the mental and physical efforts of the bet in enterprise's electronization , the government offers favourable measure , society to make the standard , big factory of the industry and invest in the person who carries out the case and best instance , information industry of electronization and provide aid of technology etc., the effect carried on in big electronization specifically of factory is obvious to all, but the information drop of visiting a existence from upstream to downstream in the supply and demand chain is still quite great, the information hedge among enterprises, reduce the transparency of information , the unfairness of the trade, delay, the obstacle of linking up among enterprises fails to suppress effectively, to stepping the enterprise , transnational towing the Utopia in coordination with the commercial speech. This article is focus on ¡§What is the development trend of the Steel Industry¡¦s supply and demand chain systems?¡¨, and how the steel downstream and upstream complay with it , and in order to build and construct the information structure of the supply and demand chain of the steel industry in management tactic topic that the information transparency improves among enterprises (B2B), what happen in relevant enterprises in running the supply and demand chain implementation project? Especially,what need to be changed in existing systems? What is the driver of the changes? As to extant information system, is there any new or change requirements that revise in these decisions? The author has participated in practice going through and experience of every special project actually in the case company over the past over years by ten, extract with a case of chain electronization of supply and demand, make into the research paper of the case. The case company was established in 1973, the total capital is more than 3,200 million NT$, plate the surface steel factory Cold-Rolled, Galvanized Steel Coils, Printed Color Steel Coils for the representative and medium-and-large-sized consistent homework in Taiwan , Southeast Asian steel industry , there is cold-rolled , zinc-plated , roast intact consistent homework procedure of paint, total sales amount is NT$18,900 million in 2004, a customer-oriented, at the orientation builds and constructs one steel industry model as, " We are not biggest but will be the best " , " Investigate steel industry second by enterprise model popularity for eight years in succession international high to is it cold-rolled speciality have , plate surface steel factory march toward to make a profit. Give a new lease of life to and shorten and hand over a procedure, purchases to the procedure , guest and tells the procedure the procedure and system, good staff , shareholder , customer , social relationships that and is devoted to establishing at the same time ; Quality exceeding customers' expectation , Ethical business conduct, Safe and pleasant working environment , Personal development through challenging work, Fair reward to employees , set up the good mechanism of communication with supplier and customer, it is satisfied with the environment to create the staff , feedback the social home town. With the quality policy that ¡§Correctly grasp each customer's expectation¡¨, the market coming to get up because should be new developing, new customer develop and set up with the new stronghold , set up dynamic fast reaction system , react fast , make policy fast , hand in one quickly , serve fast. The case company always offers better quality products to meet customer's demand , maintain better equipment stability and efficiency. In the tactics of expanding of the market , pay attention to the technological innovation and study development , develop the high additional value products , research and develop the new technology , new application, it set up SCM , CRM , BI ,etc. information infrastructure, give play to ' pursue to the good and not only on to the good ' spirit, cooperate in coordination, set up international and specialized dull and stereotyped steel product group. This thesis carries on the process as follows. To study and present having it about the steel industry and supply and demand chain and the article of the relevant field of transparency of information first . And then state taking action and describing reason of special project designed to solve above-mentioned problems. Then, important incidents happened during taking action of discussion, and explain the case company during special project in order to implement the topic produced of information systems which constructs the supply and demand chain of the steel industry , will to address considering the key factor and key performance and assessment model of the e-SCM and information transparancy implementation, and to provide as a consultation and good application example to the relevant enterprises of steel in the electronic tactics of the supply and demand chain finally.

In the system of Taiwan, if the demand function is given, then the Central Bank can improve economic growth and steady price by controlling the money supply. In fact, true money demand is unknown, so focal point of my paper is to estimate trading money demand function of Taiwan. First, I get that real income, real M1B, and nominal rate are integrated of order 1 processes by using Augmented Dickey-Fuller test (ADF test) , Phillips-Perron test (PP test) , and Ng-Perron (NP test) . In the conventional model of Engle and Granger (1987) , I use Johansen¡¦s (1988, 1991) maximun likelihood method to estimate co-integrating vector. The result is the same with Ching-Nun Lee (1996) . In the conventional model of Engle and Granger, a linear combination of individually I(1) series becomes I(0). Series have cointegration, but their linear combination is not I(0). Therefore the conventional model of Engle and Granger does not encompass all non-stational economic models. Harris, McCabe, and Leybourne (2002) provided the stochastic cointegration. The stochastic cointegration allows that a linear combination of individually I(1) series is not I(0). Therefore, my paper also uses stochastic cointegration to test trading money demand of Taiwan. The result is real M1B, real income, and one month rate have stochastic cointegration.

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In this thesis, we study the broadcast scheduling algorithms in a dynamic environment with set-typed data requests. We sketch the dimensions of broadcasting paradigms and build a family of Wp