The US government has been actively involved in the production and trade of agricultural products in the world market. Corn as an agricultural product has not been spared. The minimum price for corn has been set above the domestic and world market prices. Such pricing policies have naturally generated surpluses that have been traded in the world market at subsidized prices. At times, the US has used acreage control policy to help reduce the level of excess supply. Price and income subsidies also have been used to complement acreage control policy when surpluses are immense. The empirical results have shown that these interventions have impacted on the world price of corn and subsequently on the foreign exchange earnings of the competing exporting countries. However, the issue of how significant these instabilities have been still remains and is more of a normative issue. The measure of the opportunity costs of these policies has provided an idea of the size of compensation to the competing countries of Argentina and Thailand. The last part of the dissertation investigates on the possible effects of the US policies on the behavior of Argentina and Thailand. The results obtained cannot confirm nor reject the premisses of US policies' harmful impacts. Such inconclusive outcome may be tied back to the inconsistency of the trading policy setting in Argentina and Thailand. Based on economic theory, suggestions have been made regarding the establishment of international stabilization and compensatory schemes to help move the world corn economy toward a Pareto optimal production level.

This thesis investigates whether developments associated with globalization and regional integration have caused the levels of government support provided to agricultural producers in Canada and the United States to converge in a downward direction. The literature is sharply divided as to whether governments retain the ability to pursue an independent agricultural policy course. To shed light on this debate, the levels of government assistance payments made to farmers in six contiguous Canadian provinces and American states (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana) are compared over the 1990-2001 period. This time-frame allows for sufficient periods both before and after the establishment of NAFTA and the WTO to study the effects of these developments on the relevant policy outcomes. After outlining the programs and policy changes that drove the shifts in levels of government support provided to farmers, the paper argues that although the levels of government payments made to farmers in the six sub-units converged in the mid-1990s, they diverged thereafter. The evidence drawn from this examination supports the contention that governments do possess considerable room to manoeuvre in the agricultural policy making arena and significant ability to chart an independent policy course.

The dissertation discusses the application of “Agreement on Subsidy and Countervailing Measures (ASCM)” of WTO to non-market economies (NMEs).  The difficulties of application of ASCM to NMEs mainly lie in two basic questions.  The first is how to separate the subsidy and government involvement in a NME.  The second is how perfect the market has to be in order to qualify as a benchmark to calculate subsidy margins. By focusing on WTO rules and substantial WTO cases, this dissertation analyzes the difficulties in application of ASCM to NMEs from seven perspectives in legal practice.  They are: (1) whether subsidies in public utility enterprises in China are actionable, because such subsidies as upstream subsidies pass benefits to export-oriented enterprises? (2) whether subsidies may continue after privatisation of state-owned companies? (3) whether the loans provided by state-owned banks in China are subsidies? (4) whether it is fair to evaluate the subsidies margins of the land use rights in China by using out-of-country benchmark? (5) tax-incentive subsidies in China; (6) the calculation of a subsidy margin in NMEs; and (7) whether currency manipulation constitutes a subsidy? The dissertation finds that the difficulties of application of ASCM to NMEs are due to a number of reasons.  First, the deficiencies of ASCM cannot explain the application of ASCM to NMEs; second, if applicable to NMEs, there are difficulties in defining a subsidy in NMEs and in calculating a subsidy margin in NMEs; third, the non-unification of assessment of a NME results in unfairness to China which faces different standards of evaluating a NME.  Even though China has been a market economy in some countries’ view, it is difficult to be recognised as a market economy by all countries.

Food supply has been suggested as the main determinant of reproductive success in birds. Riparian species can take advantage of seasonal pulses of both terrestrial and aquatic prey, though aquatic resources are often overlooked in studies of diet and reproductive ecology. This study investigates the flux of both aquatic (mayfly) and terrestrial (caterpillar) prey resources and nestling diet of the Prothonotary Warbler throughout the breeding season in two eastern Virginia sites. One site had significantly higher aquatic prey (mayfly) availability. Nestling diet was generally reflective of prey availability, and nestlings grew faster at the site with high aquatic prey availability. At the site with low aquatic prey availability, nestling growth rates and condition were positively correlated with the amount of aquatic prey in the diet. Our results provide evidence that aquatic subsidies are an important resource for nestlings, and are crucial to understanding the breeding ecology of riparian species.

The objective of this thesis is to perform a cost benefits analysis of the wind power sector in Germany, with the horizon of 2030. Various costs and benefits stemming from the expansion of wind power are inferred from literature review and studying the peculiarities of the German case. The magnitude of governmental support is calculated by applying the Weibull distribution of wind at different zones across Germany and power curves of 5 modern wind turbines, as specified by the law. A number of sensitivity analyses is performed on the main inputs for onshore installations. Under the baseline assumptions, the onshore sector is found as non-beneficial to the society, without a visible improving trend for the future. While the offshore sector does not reach a point where the benefits would start overweighing the cost until 2030, the overall trend look much more promising. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

This dissertation examines the bread subsidy in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. It scrutinizes the socio-political conflicts that surround this policy, the spatial practices that subsume it and the ways in which it is understood and given meaning. Despite repeated attempts by international financial institutions to eliminate them, authoritarian regimes throughout the region have gone to great lengths to maintain this and similar welfare programs, even extending them during the tumult of the so-called ‘Arab Spring.’ This dissertation seeks to answer why. Through the lens of bread, I suggest a new approach to understanding state power, not as the straightforward product of a monolithic entity but as the unstable product of social practices that make the state appear to exist. Building on the work of Judith Butler and Alex Jeffrey, I call these routine actions “performing the state.” The empirical chapters, based on extensive fieldwork in Jordan, attend to how welfare provision not only reflects the state—its capacities, historical development or cultural proclivities—but performs it into being. The analysis centers on how certain institutions and actors, through their imbrication in the social, spatial and political patterns of welfare provision, work to entrench the state—as an idea, a material force and a locus of affective investment—in the lives of citizens. In attending to how the Jordanian state is constituted and reproduced through discourses, spatial practices of reach, moral economies and political rationalities, this study seeks to illuminate the iterative processes of reference that create the appearance of an autonomous structure that both citizens and scholars call the state. By understanding the state as the contingent product of routine performances, we can better examine the disproportionate importance of particular welfare programs to assembling state power and fostering authoritarian outcomes, as well as their links to key political processes and policy outcomes.

Thesis (M.Arch.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1980. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH. / Includes bibliographical references. / by Shepperson A. Wilbun, Jr. / M.Arch.

This thesis is aiming on the use of public transport in Europe. Objective of this work is by using correlation analysis determine whether the amount of subsidies to public transport and the ownership structure as the decisive criterion for the number of passengers, as an additional variable to assess the impact of fleet composition. Secondary data obtained from study of the University of Dublin has served to analyze. Calculation of the dependence didn't confirm or disclaim it. This gives space for further exploration. After analyzing the more comprehensive data set should be followed by analyzing the nature of subsidies, the choice of carriers, contractual conditions and other factors affecting the use of public transport.

The results generated by this research argue that, in the future, communities should take into account crime and other social costs as they analyze the merits of investing in new sports complexes and that a failure to consider these factors could constitute a serious dereliction on the parts of the public officials who are ultimately responsible for new facility investment decision making. Moreover, both this research and previous studies of the economic effects of new sports facilities, strongly indicate that public entities considering funding new facilities do a more in depth independent study of the likely economic consequences of their prospective investments before moving forward.

"This work was supported by the Center for Energy Policy Research of the M.I.T. Energy Laboratory".