Data for this study were derived from videotapes of 26 father-infant dyads, specifically from a five minute period of free-play. The first step was the creation of a literal transcription of the father-infant dyads interaction. Subsequently, nine variables of fathers' language characteristics and one infant characteristic were coded employing the literal transcriptions and observing the videotapes. The fathers' language variables were number of : (1) father utterances, (2) father words, (3) father contingent responses, (4) father teaching utterances, (5) father descriptive teaching utterances, (6) father directive teaching utterances - making commands, (7) father directive teaching utterance - asking questions, (8) percentage of father teaching utterances, and (9) mean length of father utterances (MLU). The infant variable was number of vocalizations. Eight out of the nine variables were positively correlated to infant vocalizations, indicating the importance of fathers input in child language development. The only negative correlation in the present study was between Mean Length of Utterance (MLU) and infant vocalizations and the possible reasons are discussed. The findings support the idea that there are positive relationships between fathers' language characteristics and infant vocalizations. Recommendations are made that fathers should be involved in early intervention programs.

Bottomland hardwood forests and pine forests in the southern United States provide valuable ecosystem services such as timber, recreation, wildlife habitat, carbon sequestration, floodwater storage, and sediment and nutrient retention. However, these forest ecosystems are threatened because of intensive forest management, forest land conversion, and urbanization. As private landownership dominates in this region, landowner participation is crucial for success of conservation programs facilitating ecosystem services. This research focused on three different aspects of private land conservation programs. First, it estimated the impact of environmental contextual factors, private land attributes and sociodemographic characteristics on landowner concern about environmental issues. Second, it determined the influence of private land attributes, environmental concerns, frequency of contacts with federal agencies and socioeconomic characteristics on landowner satisfaction with available conservation programs. Third, it estimated the monetary compensation required by landowners to implement conservation practices focused on increasing provision of ecosystem services. Data were collected using a mail survey and from online sources. Data were analyzed using seemingly unrelated regression and logistic regression models. Results indicated that private land attributes, particularly size of agricultural land owned, and landownership goals such as providing ecosystem services and profitability, had a greater magnitude of positive association with landowner concerns about environmental issues than other factors. Similarly, size of agricultural land owned, landownership goals such as profitability and personal recreation, concerns about wildlife habitat losses and frequent contacts with federal agencies were positively related to landowner satisfaction with conservation programs. Landowner willingness to participate in a conservation program was positively related to payment amount, concerns about wildlife habitat losses, frequency of contact with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), and education level. Similarly, provision of clean water as landownership objective, concerns about hurricanes and tornadoes, and landowner age were negatively associated with landowner interests to participate in conservation programs. This research also quantified landowner median willingness to accept (WTA) compensation which was $229.98 ha-1 yr-1 for participation in a conservation program related to bottomland hardwood or pine forests. The findings help identify likely participants or landowners for conservation programs facilitating ecosystem services and determine actual conservation costs at a regional level.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

This dissertation consists of two topics. Chapter 1 examines the relationship between contingent commission use and underwriting performance as well as underwriting risk using data from 2005 to 2016. Top brokers were banned from receiving contingent commissions following the inquiry in 2004 led by Eliot Spitzer, former New York Attorney-General. But the ban raised concerns about whether it created a level playing field across the industry, as smaller brokers continued taking them. In addition, despite the possible conflicts of interest, contingent commissions have also been recognized as a way to better align agent and insurer incentives. Regulators agreed to relax the terms for the leading brokers in 2010, resulting in a less onerous compliance regime for contingent commission use. It is important to study the effectiveness of contingent commission use on improving underwriting performance. This study finds strong evidence supporting the hypothesis that contingent commissions’ usage is associated with better underwriting performance as well as lower underwriting risk. This study also finds a curvilinear relationship between underwriting performance and the level of contingent commission use. Chapter 2 investigates the impact of executive overconfidence on capital structure decisions and reinsurance purchases using a sample of 37 publicly-traded property-liability insurance groups for the period 2002 to 2016. This study finds that insurance firms with overconfident executives have significantly higher leverage ratios than those without overconfident executives. This study also finds evidence that insurance firms with overconfident executives cede more reinsurance, and this evidence is stronger for insurers with more limited business capacity than those with ample business capacity. The results of this study also indicate that overconfident executives prefer internal reinsurance to external reinsurance. This research provides evidence that personality traits of executive impact capital structure decisions and reinsurance purchases for insurance firms, which should be of interest to policyholders and regulators. / Business Administration/Risk Management and Insurance

The dissertation examines advancements in the methods and techniques used in the field of econometrics. These advancements include: (i) a re-examination of the underlying statistical foundations of statistical models with binary dependent variables. (ii) using feed-forward backpropagation artificial neural networks for modeling dichotomous choice processes, and (iii) the estimation of unconditional demand elasticities using the flexible multistage demand system with asymmetric partitions and fixed effects across time. The first paper re-examines the underlying statistical foundations of statistical models with binary dependent variables using the probabilistic reduction approach. This re-examination leads to the development of the Bernoulli Regression Model, a family of statistical models arising from conditional Bernoulli distributions. The paper provides guidelines for specifying and estimating a Bernoulli Regression Model, as well as, methods for generating and simulating conditional binary choice processes. Finally, the Multinomial Regression Model is presented as a direct extension. The second paper empirically compares the out-of-sample predictive capabilities of artificial neural networks to binary logit and probit models. To facilitate this comparison, the statistical foundations of dichotomous choice models and feed-forward backpropagation artificial neural networks (FFBANNs) are re-evaluated. Using contingent valuation survey data, the paper shows that FFBANNs provide an alternative to the binary logit and probit models with linear index functions. Direct comparisons between the models showed that the FFBANNs performed marginally better than the logit and probit models for a number of within-sample and out-of-sample performance measures, but in the majority of cases these differences were not statistically significant. In addition, guidelines for modeling contingent valuation survey data and techniques for estimating median WTP measures using FFBANNs are examined. The third paper estimates a set of unconditional price and expenditure elasticities for 49 different processed food categories using scanner data and the flexible and symmetric translog (FAST) multistage demand system. Due to the use of panel data and the presence of heterogeneity across time, temporal fixed effects were incorporated into the model. Overall, estimated price elasticities are larger, in absolute terms, than previous estimates. The use of disaggregated product groupings, scanner data, and the estimation of unconditional elasticities likely accounts for these differences. / Ph. D.