This study was done by administering household surveys to 50% of the families in the three communities. Families were selected through stratified random sampling. This allowed us to determine how much families are exploiting species that have a significant level of production as well as whether they use them for a commercial activity or subsistence. With regard to cows, 60.40 ± 4.72% of families use them. Each family has an average of 1.68 ± 0.21 cows. Productive cows make up 36.9% of the above percentage, which is a majority. The measured rate of production was 6.48 ± 0.25 L/cow/day. Overall, 40.16 ± 3.17% of production was used for household consumption while the rest was sold. These parameters as well as the sale of live animals helped San Nicolas have an annual income of 735 US dollars, which shows that this community relies more on commercial activity. On the other hand, San Clemente and San Francisco had annual incomes of 367 and 279 US dollars respectively. This shows that these communities focus more on familial subsistence. Of the major species, sheep are the least exploited with 54.80 ± 8.74% of families using them. The first lambing occurs at 17.79 ± 0.48 months. Newborns are weaned at 5.57 ± 0.11 months by only 27.27 ± 4.47% of families. Of the weaned newborns, 60.69 ± 5.13% are kept and the rest are sold. Every 10.46 ± 0.47 months, 77.96% of the wool produced is sold. Generally, the sheep are sol d at 22.84 ± 1.75 months of age. This generates an average annual income of 40.85 ± 19.26 US dollars, which indicates that this activity is focused on familial subsistence. Swine production is the most common form of animal production. Pigs are exploited by 81.86 ± 7.17% of families with each family having an average of 2.11 ± 0.16 animals. A sow’s first delivery occurs at 16.48 ± 0.48 months and their productive life comes after reproducing 1.98 ± 0.15 times. Each litter has 5.72 ± 0.19 offspring with a post-weaning mortality rate of 28.99 ± 4.82%. Offspring are weaned at 2.90 ± 0.12 months. Overall, 65.13% of the weaned offspring are kept and the rest are sold. Annual revenue from pig production is 63.2 ± 22.46 US dollars which indicates it is used for familial subsistence, acting as a safeguard against economic emergencies at times. Of the minor species, the guinea pig is the most exploited. It is used by 86.11 ± 3.65% of families with each family having an average of 12.04 ± 1.31 guinea pigs. The mothers have an average of 2.44 ± 0.06 offspring per litter with a weaning rate of 75.81 ± 4.33%. Overall, 86.91% of production is used for family consumption and the rest is sold. The annual income generated by this activity is 6.24 ± 0.51 US dollars which indicates that this is an activity dedicated to providing food for the family. Rabbits are used by 49.42 ± 5.23% of families, each having an average of 4.03 ± 0.64 animals. There is an average of 6.57 ± 0.29 newborns per litter with a weaning rate of 41.16 ± 5.20%. Overall, 80.18 ± 4.16% of production is used for family consumption. This activity is similar to guinea pig production seeing as the annual income it generates is only 12.80 ± 1.10 US dollars. Chickens are exploited by 77.33 ± 4.39% of families with each family having an average of 5.88 ± 0.60 animals. Broiler chickens make up 48.22% of the poultry population with the rest being made up of native and field hens. Overall, 68.96% of broiler chickens are used for family consumption while 89.31 ± 3.27% of hens are used for family consumption. The annual income from this activity is 40.13 ± 19.24 US dollars. This makes it appear to have a slight tendency toward commercial use. We conclude that the three communities have different levels of animal exploitation. San Nicolas was the most successful of the three, partially using their livestock production for commercial purposes. San Clemente used part of theirs for commercial purposes as well, but on a lower scale. San Francisco, on the other hand, focuses their livestock production solely on familial subsistence. We recommend that a study be conducted regarding all points involved in the feasibility of production projects in these communities, especially in regard to the organization in each community. This will help improve production levels and make way for a change from a subsistence based economy to a more commercially based economy, ultimately improving the social and nutritional levels of these families.

This paper discusses the promotion of car ecotourism and its impact on Glacier National Park. Coinciding with the creation of the park's flagship Going-to-the-Sun Road from 1921 to 1932, both the state and the private sector presented the image of the newly commodified automobile as a vehicle to explore nature with. Historically, national parks have served the interests of the middle and upper classes, by suppressing marginalized communities, primarily through forced relocation in order to clear the lands for creation of the parks. The public's conception of the “wilderness” drastically changed during the time the car was commodified, as nature itself was repainted as a place of solitude and contemplation as opposed to savagery, through promotions which emphasized the pleasure of a scenic drive. This new conception of the landscape contrasted with the preexisting idea that nature is for the “uncivilized.” In the following decades, the car's status as a means by which to connect with nature and “escape civilization” only increased, directly as a result of public roads such as Going-to-the-Sun and their marketing. This study analyzes the themes prominent in promotional materials distributed by both the automobile industry and the state, which promote the status of the car as a central way to experience the wilderness, through a case study of Glacier National Park.

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Thesis advisor: Geoffrey Sanzenbacher / Despite growing importance in the global economy, many of the countriees with large natural resource economies are among the poorest. In this paper, I first construct a theoretical model that provides a framework for the harm of natural resources on corruption levels and governance. Then, I construct what I call the Resource Volatility Index. This measures both a country's level of dependence on a category of resources and the price volatility of these resources themselves. Finally, I use Correlated Random Effects models to show that both average and year-varying levels of this index can explain the level of corruption and the quality of governance in a given country. The nagative impacts I find on both variables confirms previous economic theory on governments funded by natural resources. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2024. / Submitted to: Boston College. Morrissey School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics. / Discipline: Scholar of the College.

This study assessed the feasibility and suitability of a Water Quality Trading (WQT) program within the Kentucky River Basin (KRB). The study’s focal point was based on five success factors of a WQT program: environmental suitability, geospatial orientation, participant availability, regulatory incentive, and economic incentive. The study utilized these five success factors, geographical characteristics, and Discharge Monitoring Reports (DMR) to assess the feasibility of a WQT program. The assessment divided the KRB into five eight digit Hydrologic Unit Codes (HUC), North, Middle, and South Fork, Middle Basin, and Lower Basin, to determine regional impacts caused by the nutrient PSs. Individual nutrient profiles were generated to show the number of point sources (PS) operating in the KRB, their geospatial orientation to one another, and their permitted nutrient limits and nutrient discharges in form of total phosphorus (TP), total nitrogen (TN), and total nitrogen (as ammonia) (TA). Findings suggest trading is highly unlikely for TP and TN PSs due to the lack of regulatory standards, limited number of TN and TP PSs, and an inadequate demand for offset credits. Trading is also unlikely in all the HUC 8 watersheds except for the Lower Basin due to the lack of nutrient impaired waters. Key Words: Point Source, Non-Point Source, Water Quality Trading, TMDL, Impaired Waters

This dissertation focuses on topics in areas of agricultural and food policy, international trade, agricultural markets and marketing. The dissertation is structured as three papers. The first paper, Chapter 1, evaluates the impact of agricultural trade policies. Imported shrimp, which comprises nearly ninety percent of all United States shrimp consumption, have become the subject of antidumping and countervailing duty investigations in the past decade. I estimate the import demand for shrimp in the United States from 1999-2014, using the Barten’s synthetic model. I test the hypothesis of possible structural breaks in the import demand introduced by various trade policies: antidumping/countervailing duty investigations and impositions, and import refusals due to safety and environmental issues. Results show that these import-restricting policies have significant effects on the import shrimp demand, indicating that the omission of them would lead to biased estimates. Chapter 2, the second paper, examines how the burden of state cigarette tax is divided between producers/retailers and consumers, by using the Nielsen store-level scanner data on cigarette prices from convenience stores over the period 2011–2012. Cigarette taxes were found more than fully passed through to retail prices on average, suggesting consumers pay excess burden and market power exists in the cigarette industry. Utilizing information on the attributes of cigarette products, we demonstrated that tax incidence varied by brand and package size: pass-through rates for premium brands and carton-packaged cigarettes are higher than those for discount brands and cigarettes in packs, respectively, indicating possibilities of different demand elasticities across product tiers. Chapter 3, the third paper, focuses on identifying the demographic characteristics of households buying organic coffee, by examining the factors that influence the probability that a consumer will buy organic coffee, and which factors affect the amount organic coffee purchased. Using nationally representative household level data from 55,470 households over the period of 2011 to 2013 (Nielsen Homescan), and a censored demand model, we find that economic and demographic factors play a crucial role in the household choice of purchasing organic coffee. Furthermore, households are less sensitive to own-price changes in the case of organic coffee versus conventional coffee.

The transition from communism to capitalism at the end of the last century was one of the most significant events in the world economy since industrialization. During the latter part of the 1980s, people the Central and Eastern European countries and former Soviet Republics opted for a change from highly distorted command economic system to a market driven economic system. Privatization and liberalization policies led to major changes in the commodity mix and volume of agricultural production, consumption and trade. However, the changes and the impacts varied among countries as they followed different transition strategies. This study investigated the impact of market liberalization on the agricultural sector, as well as how the inter-sectoral linkages among the agricultural, industrial and service sectors responded in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary using time-series analysis. The study estimated an econometric model that incorporates the linkages among the sectors using a Vector Error Correction Model. The procedure identified long-run and short-run relationships for each country. The results showed that a sector can have a negative linkage to other sectors in the short-run; however, that does not mean that the linkage will be negative in the long-run. Impulse response functions were constructed to determine how a system reacts to a shock in one of the endogenous variable in a model. The study explored how a shock in the agricultural sector was absorbed by the other sectors in the economy, and how a shock in the other sectors was absorbed by the agricultural sector, in all four countries. The responses reflected how the variables are interrelated within a country, and how the shocks are transferred through different linkages over a long period of time. Such dynamic analysis was used to identify the total impacts of different policy alternatives.

Nanotechnology is one of the key innovative technologies in the present century. The food industry has applied this technology in each of its sectors. Nanotechnology has tremendous potential in food and agriculture, including advancing agricultural cultivation and food production, enhancing food nutrition and flavor, and improving food packaging and preservation. However, the novel properties of nanoscale materials that allow beneficial applications are also accompanied with uncertainties, even unknown risks. A number of studies have examined public understanding as well as acceptance of nanotechnology via surveys in both the US and Europe. However, most of these studies concentrated on public attitudes in general. Few works focused on specific products, let alone food or food related products. This project will contribute to the literature by calculating monetary valuations (i.e., willingness-to-pay) for canola oil where new techniques are utilized. Using choice experiment survey data, consumers’ valuations for nano attributes were estimated with choice models. As implied, consumers were willing to pay $0.95 less for a typical bottle (48 fl. oz.) of canola oil if it was produced from nanoscale-modified seed; $0.51 less if the final products were packed with nanotechnology-enhanced packaging technique; and no significant difference was found for oil that was designed with health enhancing nano-engineered oil drops, which would require interaction with the human digestive system. Additionally, the results revealed unobserved heterogeneities among respondents in their willingness-to-pay for canola oil attributes. Aligned with descriptive results, 46.7% of the respondents reported that they were optimistic about new technology applied to food products. While a significant portion of the respondents (42.8%) indicated that they might gain benefits at the same level as risks, there were a slightly larger proportion of the respondents who feared they might be exposed to more risks than benefits through nanofoods. Further analysis included respondents’ attitudes and opinions as well as their demographic and socioeconomic characteristics toward the goal of understanding the underlying behavior difference. Findings from this study will help bridge the gap between scientific innovation and public policy and social-economic concerns. Implications for government policy that can be efficiently used to monitor and regulate these technologies were also investigated.

This dissertation explores the implications of natural disaster risk for access to financial services, especially credit. Its results show that disasters can dramatically undermine the ability of financial intermediaries (FIs) to lend after an event, increasing the cost of the disaster and delaying recovery. Moreover, the risk of natural disasters discourages investment in vulnerable regions and economic sectors and so slows economic development. Financial risk transfer mechanisms such as insurance can help maintain lending following an event. While many international development projects have targeted disaster insurance markets to households, managing disaster-related credit risk may be done more effectively through insurance products for FIs. Additionally, prudential supervision and the credit risk rating methods of investors in developing and emerging economies are dominated by developed country standards that overlook natural disaster risks. Public and private interests align in the need to tailor such standards and so enhance the effectiveness with which vulnerable FIs manage disaster risk.