abstract: Three demand systems were estimated to examine demand sensitivity and welfare changes for each commodity under study. In the first essay, a Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System (QUAIDS) was used to examine the effect of the Fukushima Daichi nuclear disaster on the demand for imported pelagic fish in the domestic Japanese market. The effect of the Fukushima Daichi nuclear disaster was measured using changes in demand after the disaster as well as measures of changes in social welfare changes caused by the disaster. A significant effect of the disaster on demand sensitivity measures was found, but no significant changes in welfare. In the second essay, a differential demand system examined the effect of exchange rate fluctuations on the demand for fresh tomatoes in the U.S. Market. It was found that the U.S. Dollar-Mexican Peso exchange rate had a significant positive effect on the demand for Mexican fresh tomatoes. In the third essay, a Hurdle Negative Binomial demand system was estimated for recreational trips to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. This model was estimated using Bayesian methods to obtain parameter estimates that could not be obtained by maximum likelihood. The parameters were used to calculate recreational welfare measures for trips to seventy-two entry points. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Business Administration 2017

Esta dissertação tem como objetivo analisar a eficiência técnica dos estabelecimentos agropecuários do Brasil e de suas regiões, utilizando como base os dados do Censo Agropecuário 2006. Mais especificamente, esta dissertação procura comparar as eficiências técnicas dos estabelecimentos rurais familiares em relação aos de caráter patronal, considerando-se as diferenças regionais no país. Para tanto, estimaram-se, sob diferentes hipóteses, fronteiras estocásticas de produção e, simultaneamente, modelos de efeitos de ineficiência. Com isso, foi possível mensurar as eficiências técnicas dos estabelecimentos rurais, bem como analisar as influências de fatores relacionados ao ambiente produtivo, permitindo a indicação de políticas públicas voltadas ao aperfeiçoamento do desempenho dos produtores. Nas estimações empíricas, observou-se menor eficiência técnica para os estabelecimentos familiares. Em termos regionais, destacou-se, no que concerne à eficiência técnica dos estabelecimentos patronais, a região Sul do país, a qual também apresentou, ao lado do Centro-Oeste, os índices mais elevados para os estabelecimentos familiares, em média. Quanto à influência do ambiente produtivo, obteve-se que a educação formal e o acesso a crédito sobressaem como importantes fatores para a eficiência técnica da agropecuária brasileira. / This dissertation aims to analyze the technical efficiency of farms in Brazil and its regions, based on the data from the 2006 Census of Agriculture. More specifically, this dissertation seeks to compare the technical efficiency of farm households in relation to business farms, considering the regional differences in the country. To do so, one simultaneously estimated, under different assumptions, stochastic production frontiers and inefficiency effects models. Thus, it was possible to measure the technical efficiency of farms, as well as analyze the influence of factors related to the production environment, allowing the indication of public policies aimed at improving the performance of producers. In the empirical estimation, it was observed, as expected, lower technical efficiency for farm households. In regional terms, with respect to the technical efficiency of business farms, the South region of Brazil stood out, also presenting, along with the Midwest region, the highest efficiency rates for farm household, on average. Regarding the influence of production environment, it was found that formal education and access to credit are noteworthy as important factors for the technical efficiency of Brazilian agriculture.

abstract: The lack of food safety in a grower's produce presents the grower with two risks; (1) that an item will need to be recalled from the market, incurring substantial costs and damaging brand equity and (2) that the entire market for the commodity becomes impaired as consumers associate all produce as being risky to eat. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in the leafy green industry, where recalls are relatively frequent and there has been one massive E. coli outbreak that rocked the industry in 2006. The purpose of this thesis is to examine insurance policies that protect growers from these risks. In doing this, a discussion of current recall insurance policies is presented. Further, actuarially fair premiums for catastrophic revenue insurance policies are priced through a contingent claims framework. The results suggest that spinach industry revenue can be insured for $0.02 per carton. Given the current costs of leafy green industry food safety initiatives, growers may be willing to pay for such an insurance policy. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Agribusiness 2013

abstract: Consumers search before making virtually any purchase. The notion that consumers engage in costly search is well-understood to have deep implications for market performance. However to date, no theoretical model allows for the observation that consumers often purchase more than a single product in an individual shopping occasion. Clothing, food, books, and music are but four important examples of goods that are purchased many items at a time. I develop a modeling approach that accounts for multi-purchase occasions in a structural way. My model shows that as preference for variety increases, so does the size of the consideration set. Search models that ignore preference for variety are, therefore, likely to under-predict the number of products searched. It is generally thought that lower search costs increase retail competition which pushes prices and assortments down. However, I show that there is an optimal number of products to offer depending on the intensity of consumer search costs. Consumers with high search costs prefer to shop at a store with a large assortment of goods and purchase multiple products, even if the prices that firm charges is higher than competing firms' prices. On the other hand, consumers with low search costs tend to purchase fewer goods and shop at the stores that have lower prices, as long as the store has a reasonable assortment offering. The implications for market performance are dramatic and pervasive. In particular, the misspecification of demand model in which search is important and/or multiple discreteness is observed will produce biased parameter estimates leading to erroneous managerial conclusions. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Business Administration 2013

abstract: Unrestricted Mexican exports of sugar into the U.S. is considered the most pressing issue facing the U.S. sugar industry. The goal of this dissertation is to analyze the trade of sugar between Mexico and the U.S. as well as analyze additional primary issues confronting the U.S. sugar industry. Chapters 1 and 2 provide an introduction to the U.S. sugar industry. Chapters 3 through 6 develop trade models which analyze sugar trade between Mexico and the U.S. The trade models estimate how NAFTA, USDA sugar forecast errors and Mexican ownership of twenty percent of the Mexican sugar industry each impact U.S. producer surplus and Mexican welfare. Results validate that U.S. producer surplus and in some instances Mexican welfare were decreased by full implementation of NAFTA. U.S. producer surplus and Mexican welfare were decreased due to USDA sugar production forecasting errors. U.S. producer surplus would be increased if the Mexican government did not own twenty percent of Mexican sugar production. Using an online choice experiment, Chapter 7 assesses U.S. consumers' preferences and willingness to pay (WTP) for imported and genetically modified (GM) labeled sugar and sugar in soft drinks. Results indicate that consumers prefer bags of sugar and soft drinks labeled as "Not GM". Furthermore, consumers prefer sugar from Canada and the U.S. over sugar from Mexico, Brazil and the Philippines. Evidence is also provided that participants are more likely to choose actual products in the choice set rather than the "none of these" options when controlling for hypothetical bias by using consequentiality techniques. A non-hypothetical experimental auction was used in Chapter 8 to determine consumers' WTP for soft drinks labeled with sweetener and calorie information and analyzed the role of taste panels in an experimental auction. Results indicate that sugar is consumers' most preferred sweetener and calorie labeling is ineffective at influencing consumers to choose healthier soft drinks. Including taste in an experimental auction caused significant reductions in consumers' WTP for all soft drinks. Chapter 9 concludes by summarizing the results of this dissertation and discussing the future challenges facing the U.S. sugar industry. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Business Administration 2014

abstract: This is a study of the plight of smallholder agriculture in Northwest Costa Rica. More specifically, this is the story of 689 rice farms, of an average size of 7.2 hectares and totaling just less than 5,300 hectares within the largest agricultural irrigation system in Central America. I was able to define the physical bounds of this study quite clearly, but one would be mistaken to think that this simplicity transfers to a search for rural development solutions in this case. Those solutions lie in the national and international politics that appear to have allowed a select few to pick winners and losers in Costa Rican agriculture in the face of global changes. In this research, I found that water scarcity among smallholder farms between 2006 and 2013 was the product of the adaptations of other, more powerful actors in 2002 to threats of Costa Rica's ratification of the Central American Free Trade Agreement. I demonstrate how the adaptations of these more powerful actors produced new risks for others, and how this ultimately prevented the rural development program from meeting its development goals. I reflect on my case study to draw conclusions about the different ways risks may emerge in rural development programs of this type. Then, I focus on the household level and show that determinants of successful adaptation to one type of global change risk may make farmers more vulnerable to other types, creating a "catch-22" among vulnerable farmers adapting to multiple global change risks. Finally, I define adaptation limits in smallholder rice farming in Northwest Costa Rica. I show that the abandonment of livelihood security and well-being, and of the unique "parcelaro" identities of rice farmers in this region define adaptation limits in this context. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Sustainability 2014

abstract: It is well understood that decisions made under uncertainty differ from those made without risk in important and significant ways. Yet, there is very little research into how uncertainty manifests itself in the most ubiquitous of decision-making environments: Consumers' day-to-day decisions over where to shop, and what to buy for their daily grocery needs. Facing a choice between stores that either offer relatively stable "everyday low prices" (EDLP) or variable prices that reflect aggressive promotion strategies (HILO), consumers have to choose stores under price-uncertainty. I find that consumers' attitudes toward risk are critically important in determining store-choice, and that heterogeneity in risk attitudes explains the co-existence of EDLP and HILO stores - an equilibrium that was previously explained in somewhat unsatisfying ways. After choosing a store, consumers face another source of risk. While knowing the quality or taste of established brands, consumers have very little information about new products. Consequently, consumers tend to choose smaller package sizes for new products, which limits their exposure to the risk that the product does not meet their prior expectations. While the observation that consumers purchase small amounts of new products is not new, I show how this practice is fully consistent with optimal purchase decision-making by utility-maximizing consumers. I then use this insight to explain how manufacturers of consumer packaged goods (CPGs) respond to higher production costs. Because consumers base their purchase decisions in part on package size, manufacturers can use package size as a competitive tool in order to raise margins in the face of higher production costs. While others have argued that manufacturers reduce package sizes as a means of raising unit-prices (prices per unit of volume) in a hidden way, I show that the more important effect is a competitive one: Changes in package size can soften price competition, so manufacturers need not rely on fooling consumers in order to pass-through cost increases through changes in package size. The broader implications of consumer behavior under risk are dramatic. First, risk perceptions affect consumers' store choice and product choice patterns in ways that can be exploited by both retailers and manufacturers. Second, strategic considerations prevent manufacturers from manipulating package size in ways that seem designed to trick consumers. Third, many services are also offered as packages, and also involve uncertainty, so the effects identified here are likely to be pervasive throughout the consumer economy. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Business Administration 2014

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abstract: Private labels command a growing share of food retailers' shelf space. In this dissertation, I explain this phenomenon as resulting from "umbrella branding," or the ability of a single brand to reach across categories. Conceptually, I define umbrella branding as a behavioral attribute that describes a shopper's tendency to ascribe a performance bond to a brand, or to associate certain performance characteristics to a private label brand, across multiple categories. In the second chapter, I describe the performance bond theory in detail, and then test this theory using scanner data in the chapter that follows. Because secondary data has limitations for testing behavioral theories, however, I test the performance bond theory of umbrella branding using a laboratory experiment in the fourth chapter. In this chapter, I find that households tend to transfer their perception of private label performance across categories, or that a manifestation of umbrella branding behavior can indeed explain private labels' success. In the fifth chapter, I extend this theory to compare umbrella branding in international markets, and find that performance transference takes its roots in consumers' cultural backgrounds. Taken together, my results suggest that umbrella branding is an important behavioral mechanism, and one that can be further exploited by retailers across any consumer good category with strong credence attributes. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Agribusiness 2014

abstract: This study explores the processes of designing strategies. The context of this research is scoped to the direct-marketing activities of small farm operators in eastern Iowa. The research intent is to explore and articulate trends in decision-making processes that assist small farm operators in eastern Iowa with direct marketing farm-to-table products, to explore and articulate how the design process creates differentiated value, and to explore and articulate the relationship between the design process and the way that small farm operators in eastern Iowa conceptualize their direct-marketing strategies. The research design takes a post-positivist approach and uses a grounded theory methodology. The study does not have a starting hypothesis but instead starts with the research intent described previously. Convergent mixed methods and a flexible plan are used for data collection including semi-structured interviews and surveys with key concepts operationalized into Likert scales. The participants are selected from eastern Iowa farmers’ markets and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) directories. For the qualitative data analysis, a grounded theory method is used to code interview response data, categorize the codes into related groups, and let the themes and sub-themes emerge from the data. For the quantitative data analysis, descriptive and inferential statistics are calculated on the aggregate data set. The study finds that small farm operators are making strategic decisions about marketing mix variables such as product quality and relationship building, there are statistically significant correlations between design concepts and direct-marketing strategies, and that farmers designed their strategies by using the design process. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Design 2019