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The 2015 mandate of Europay MasterCard and Visa (EMV) “chip card” technology in the U.S. left the payments market primed for the adoption of alternative technologies. The goal of this study is to determine the factors that contribute to the adoption of new, alternative payment technologies by integrating the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Switching Cost Theory and operationalizing both theories in a consumer context. Through a survey of 210 chip card and mobile payment users, this study finds the TAM dimensions of self-efficacy, perceived usefulness, and social influence are key determinants of a user’s propensity to use a new technology in a mandated consumer context and introduces switching costs as an important antecedent to a consumer’s likelihood to use an alternative payment technology. More generally, this work integrates those theories to gain insight into how industry mandates influence user behavior with regards to consumer acceptance of alternative technologies. / Business Administration/Interdisciplinary

Master of Arts / Department of Economics / William F. Blankenau / The financial crisis that began in the summer of 2007 has greatly tested the abilities of central banks to counter financial instability and economic slowdown through traditional monetary policy. This paper will examine in detail the monetary response of both the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States (Fed) and the Bank of England to the turmoil in the financial markets. The Bank of England, which adopted inflation targeting after the Black Wednesday crisis in 1992, and the Fed, which has no such stated policy, allows us to compare two different monetary regimes in the aftermath of a crisis. To counter the financial crisis the Bank of England resorted to unconventional monetary policies that included expansion of liquidity easing operations and a policy of quantitative easing through purchase of debt securities. The Fed also made use of both traditional tools as well as more innovative measures to combat liquidity concerns in the financial market. A multitude of new programs was initiated by the Fed to supply liquidity to susceptible lending institutions and lower the spreads on commercial loans and securities. Overall, we find that the actions of the Bank of England and the Fed were effective in restoring stability to financial markets and preventing a prolonged economic depression. Further, the Bank of England's inflation targeting framework did not hinder its ability to respond to the crisis and there was no major divergence in the policy actions of the two central banks.

Master of Agribusiness / Department of Agricultural Economics / Vincent R. Amanor-Boadu / The intent of this thesis is to conduct a case study on the optimization of blending soft red winter wheat, prior to processing into flour, in order to meet specific solvent retention capacity, SRC, specifications, based on predetermined customer specifications. The thesis will provide the company with a greater understanding of how to effectively manage the customer’s demands, and the costs associated with these activities in order to create greater customer value. If optimizing wheat blends is successful, the company will be able to provide similar SRC information to other customers as a value added service. (Solvent retention capacity) is a test that provides analytical data that measures three specific physical components within soft wheat flour. Traditionally, wheat flour is sold according to moisture, ash, protein content, and basic dough characteristic data; though this information is important, SRC provides specific flour functionality information that will aid customers. SRC examines the: glutenin characteristics of the flour, pentosan content and gliadin characteristics, and the starch damage from the milling process. These values describe the functionality of the flour and provide information regarding the flour’s ability to absorb water during the mixing process and the flour’s ability to release that water during the baking process. SRC quality endpoints include: reduced mixing and baking times, reduced levels of breakage after baking, and greater overall ingredient consistency throughout all the customer’s commercial bakeries. This thesis develops a process that the company may use to meet SRC quality specifications determined by the customer. The company gains customer loyalty by supply a consistent product to the customer. This product in turn yields savings for the customer in the areas of lower water use, shorter baking time and consequently lower energy use.

Master of Agribusiness / Department of Agricultural Economics / Daniel M. O'Brien / The Chicago wheat futures contract has received attention in recent years regarding non-convergence with SRW wheat cash prices. In 2009 the CME Group announced their decision to implement a market based mechanism to set daily storage rates at registered delivery locations for the Chicago wheat contract. The new market based mechanism is a variable storage rate (VSR) that monitors Chicago wheat futures spreads relative to financial full carry. The running average of the futures spread at the end of the contract observation period determines future changes to existing storage rates. The objective of this study is to determine whether or not the adoption of VSR mechanisms has had an impact on SRW wheat basis convergence in the Toledo, OH switching district. The Chicago wheat contract months that were studied using OLS regression models include July 2010, September 2010, December 2010, and March 2011. A final OLS regression model examining the cumulative data collected from these four contract months concludes the research. The explanatory variables used to study SRW wheat basis convergence in Toledo includes days to delivery, all wheat ending stocks as a percentage of use for the United States, and VSR. In two of the regression models for the contract months studied VSR found to have a statistically significant impact, i.e., the December 2010 and March 2011 models. In the cumulative regression model covering all four wheat contract months VSR was also found to have a statistically significant impact on SRW wheat basis convergence. The regression models in this analysis appear to contain some degree of multicollinearity, a statistical condition in which the explanatory variables tend to move collinearly or “together” with each other. Multicollinearity oftentimes can result in deceptively high and inconsistent statistical results in econometric models.

Master of Agribusiness / Agricultural Economics / Vincent R. Amanor-Boadu / The United States was the world’s third largest producer of raspberries (by pounds) in 2013, behind Russia and Poland. Raspberries are the third most popular berry in the United States behind strawberries and blueberries. Most U.S. production of red raspberries occurs in the states of Washington and Oregon during July and August depending on variety. Harvest and production for industrial pack typically runs for five weeks. Sieved red raspberries or single strength red raspberry puree is one of many industrial packs produced in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Sieved red raspberries are produced by forcing fresh, cleaned and sorted red raspberries and red raspberry crumbles and pieces through a mesh screen, collected in drums or pails and stored for use in further processed products such as pies, confectioneries and other consumer food products. For this thesis, sieved berries are packed in 55-gallon steel drums lined with food grade plastic bags. They are shipped from the processing plant to a third party warehouse to be frozen and stored. The final processing plant draws on these stored frozen products for use in the production of the Company’s consumer food products. The purpose of this thesis is to review the Company’s current procurement practices of sieved red raspberries and determine how these practices may be improved to reduce its total delivered cost. We use an optimization modelling approach to assess the procurement process used by the Company. The results indicate that it is possible to reduce procurement costs and improve efficiencies by making changes to the current procurement strategy. By implementing the procurement strategy developed in this study, we show that the Company can save as much as $1.69 million per year, which is equivalent to about 20.3% of the current spend. This would suggest that adopting the optimization strategy could allow the Company to increase its total sieved raspberry utilization by as much as 0.9 million pounds per annum, all other things remaining unchanged.

Master of Agribusiness / Department of Agricultural Economics / Vincent Amanor-Boadu / The purpose of this thesis was to estimate the value accruing to Zambian bean supply chain participants with the view to showing that value at the different stages is a function of the value addition and risk incurred at those stages. The data used in the study came from two different surveys done under the Pulse Value Chain Initiative – Zambia focusing on producers and bean traders. The surveys used structured questionnaires for both producers and traders. The producers were sampled from three principal bean producing provinces in Zambia: Lundazi, Mbala and Kalomo. The traders were sampled from the largest consumer region in the country – Lusaka – and focused on traders operating in the three principal markets in the city: Soweto; Chilenje; and Mtendere. The analyses were conducted using STATA®, employing both statistical and econometric methods. Value was defined as a function of transaction costs and value addition as well as the risks borne. In the Zambian mixed bean trade environment, where traders travel to remote locations where producers live and produce, they are seen to incur higher levels of risk and undertake higher levels of value addition – assembling the grain, bagging them and moving them from the rural areas where production occurs to the cities where customers reside. As such, it is expected that value creation and distribution would increase away from the farm. The results confirmed this expectation. The total average value created at the farm level was ZMK3,391.06/kg. However, the average value accruing to traders who only undertook wholesaling was ZMK7,405.75/kg while that accruing to traders going further down the chain to retail was ZMK9,663.56/kg. Traders who engaged in institutional trade produced an average value of ZMK8,750.75/kg. The share of total value produced accruing to producers in the producer-wholesaler-retailer chain was about 16.6 percent because of the higher value addition and risk that occur further downstream in the chain. The share of total value produced accruing to producers in the producer-wholesaler-institutional buyer chain was about 17.3 percent. The study showed that female producers’ share was not different, statistically speaking, from male producers’ value. It also showed that the average value created in thin (smaller) markets was higher than the value created in larger markets, probably because of the level of competition that occurs in the latter markets. Interestingly, the results showed that the larger the land holdings of producers, the lower the value created. This is in line with the foregoing results of size, competition and value. The study suggests that producers’ share of total value created may be enhanced by helping producers undertake specific activities that increased the value they added and reduce the risks that traders bear in their search for grain. One of such activities could be the formation of horizontal strategic alliances among producers that allowed producers to aggregate grain at particular locations in significant lots and bag them. This service would allow them to extract higher value from the exchange with traders. Any attempt to address the perceived “unfair” distribution of value along the supply chain by administrative fiat could result in higher costs to the whole supply chain and crate adverse unintended consequences for producers and the treasury.