Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Agricultural Economics / Tian Xia / This dissertation examines several different issues regarding pricing and contracting decisions as well as risk management practices affecting the Unites States livestock industry. The resulting policy and market implications are applicable to industry stakeholders in the beef cattle industry. Each topic is presented in the following chapters. Chapter 1 uses time series techniques to identify movements in regional fed cattle prices under a mandatory price reporting system. Mandatory price reporting altered the structure of livestock markets by requiring supply and demand conditions to be reported twice daily thereby affecting the price discovery process. Results suggest the level of information flow and the transparency of prices increased, markets respond to new information quicker, and larger volume markets behave as a price leader to smaller markets with less volume. Chapter 2 uses closeout data to measure the variability of profits in fed cattle production. A mean-variance approach was used to model yield risk factors relevant to and known at the time cattle are placed on feed. Results indicate yield factors were influenced by several preconditioning variables such as gender, placement weight, feedlot location, placement season, and overall animal health and vitality. Estimates from the yield equations were then used to simulate the overall ex-ante distribution of expected profits for the cattle feeder and the results provide information regarding the effect of production risk and price risk on cattle feeding profits.

This study develops an empirical model based on the utility maximizing theory of the firm, which is put into a formal analysis by Williamson (1964). Its purpose is to test the hypothesis that the manager in a privately owned utility firm has an objective to maximize his own utility function instead of the profit of the firm. This utility function is assumed to depend on the profit, administrative expense, and labor and staff of the firm. Results of the test indicate that the manager maximizes his utility function in operating a public utility firm. This utility function is nonhomothetic. It is also found that the marginal utility of profit is much higher than that of administrative expense whereas the marginal utility of labor is zero and, in many cases, is negative. Since the manager is in the range of diminishing marginal utility, this result is consistent with a strict control on public utility profits by the regulatory commission. It implies that a utility firm does not expand its rate base to the full extent in order to earn all of the excess profit. Instead, some operating expenses are also increased to absorb part of it. This study also shows that organizational slack exists in public utilities, which is a necessary condition for such a managerial discretion / acase@tulane.edu

In spite of the descriptive merit of traditional von Thunen model for agricultural land use patterns, the model's sole emphasis on the production side of the economy has not provided a realistic picture of land use and agricultural markets. By reexamining the production-oriented model, it can be shown that parameters in the model are not independent of each other. In order to incorporate the economic mechanism of agricultural markets, a closed version of the von Thunen model is proposed for a three-activity, two-dimensional economy, and equilibrium solutions are generated for prices, land areas, and outputs. The comparison of the two versions of the von Thunen model illustrates an over prediction of land use change in the production-oriented model. The closed model further includes environmental factors for an integrative perspective in agricultural location theory. This approach is extended to consider farmers' decision-making under environmental uncertainty. Farmers' decision-making, reflecting contrasting attitudes towards environmental uncertainty, is developed in three different models, both on the production side and in a closed economy. These are the maximum-expected return model, the guaranteed return model, and the behavioral model. With respect to the production side of the economy, land use is highly subject to climatic variability and crop competition, whereas price variability and stable land use result from the closed economy.

The primary objective of this study was to evaluate the economic feasibility of introducing fish culture into irrigated cotton production on farms in central Arizona. The representative farm adopted in this study is a cotton farm described in Arizona Field Crop Budgets, 1994-95. The only adjustment necessary for the farmer to make is to keep water in the ditches at all times. Water as a production variable for fish production was thus calculated only for the additional quantity required. Analysis of these production systems was accomplished by budgeting procedures as well as statistical analysis. The economic-engineering (synthetic firm technique) was employed to develop the input-output coefficients necessary for analysis. Five fish densities and eight ditch capacities were tested. The production function was estimated using input and yield data. Three functional forms (linear, quadratic and Cobb-Douglas) were examined to determine how well they estimated the production system. Using budget analysis, a fish stocking density of six fish per cubic meter and a ditch capacity of 2,925 m3 appear to provide the optimal production scenario, if the percentage of fish reaching harvestable size is improved from 66 percent to at least 80 percent. This density has been proven to require minimum production costs and to provide the most efficient use of resources. However, production functions estimated in this study indicate that profits can be increased through additional use of feed. At any ditch capacity, a density of six fish per cubic meter, provides the optimal economic results, MVP = PX2 Finally, the implication of the findings of this study are that raising tilapia in irrigation ditch systems on cotton farms in central Arizona is feasible at a stocking density of six fish per cubic meter. Studies to improve the percentage of fish reaching marketable size at this density is very critical. Increasing the initial size of the fingerlings could be a consideration in improving the percentage of fish reaching marketable size and eventually increasing optimum economic returns.

The San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area was designated by Congress in 1988 to preserve and enhance riparian resources of the perennial reach of the San Pedro River. The perennial flow is due to geological restrictions forcing groundwater to discharge to the stream. The Sierra Vista area lies above this perennial reach and fully depends on groundwater for its water needs. Consequent excessive pumping has resulted in a regional cone of depression and capture of streamflow water by groundwater wells. As a result, the streamflow has diminished by 50 to 66 percent, compared to pre-development conditions. In addition, the groundwater table within the floodplain alluvium has declined below the root zones of native species and is affecting the health of the riparian ecosystem. Studies have confirmed that continued groundwater overdraft in the area constitutes a long-term threat to the maintenance of the perennial flow and its riparian ecosystem. The effects now being felt by the river are the consequences of pumping years ago, because transit times in the regional aquifer are slow, averaging 23 feet per year. This study uses an institutional analysis and design framework to identify water and natural resources problems in the area, analyze the existing institutions and attribute problems to institutional deficiencies, and design three institutional alternatives to resolve these problems. The four problems identified in the area are depletion, externality, underinvestment, and maldistribution. The first alternative, which requires the least institutional change, is modeled after a newly-proposed Watershed Management Initiative and includes designating the area as Irrigation Non-expansion Area. The second alternative is a regulatory approach based upon establishing an Active Management Area similar to the Santa Cruz AMA. The third is a market approach based on sweeping statutory changes to recognize the hydraulic connection between ground and surface water to and enable the adoption of a conjunctive management strategy to protect the perennial flow and the sustained groundwater yield in the area. Only the conjunctive management strategy offers a long term solution to the area's problems. It is consistent with protecting public values in water and produces the maximum net benefits to all concerned.

<p> This dissertation is an ethnography of human-soil relations that examines the cultural, scientific, political-economic, and ethical stakes of alternative agricultural practices and life processes that resist military-led, growth-oriented development. Moving across laboratories, greenhouses, forests and farms, it weaves together a symmetrical analysis of two kinds of local-practitioners&mdash;soil scientists in the capital city of Bogot&aacute; and small farmers in the southwestern frontier department of Putumayo&mdash;to track how soils emerge with political importance in the construction of what I call agro-life proposals for peace in the Colombian Amazon. Theoretically, it interrogates concepts of "sustainability" emerging among scientists and farmers, suggesting they imply a complex reframing of liberal notions of property, health, wellbeing, labor and autonomy. These observations reimagine the interface between political economy and ecology and science and technology studies that can account for new ecological notions of territoriality linked to practices of economic 'degrowth', and the alternative agricultural life-worlds I encountered in southwestern Colombia.</p>

<p> Freshwater resources are under increasing pressure from human and environmental constraints. Population growth and socio-economic development have intensified water withdrawals globally, in particular for irrigated agriculture, accounting for 70-80% of global water use. Furthermore, climate change is expected to strengthen water scarcity in some regions. Trade of water-intensive products, corresponding to a transfer of water resources, can reduce the spatial heterogeneity of water availability. As such, domestic or international trade may improve water-use efficiency at a global or national scale, by providing more efficiently produced goods to all consumers. This thesis quantifies, analyzes and models these virtual transfers of water, between the world's nations and among provinces of China. The impacts of future climate, socio-economic and policy changes on these systems are also estimated. </p><p> Chapter 1 describes the evolution of international food trade and associated water resources transfers, and provides an assessment of key impacts of policy, economic and biophysical factors on this global system. Chapter 2 develops a fitness model that determines which variables control the global virtual water trade network's structure and temporal evolution, and estimates changes in the network under future scenarios. Chapter 3 presents the construction and analysis of China's inter-provincial and foreign virtual water trade. The connectivity and flow structure of this network, as well as the efficiency of the system in terms of water resources, are quantified and analyzed. In addition, we identify provinces and commodities that could be targeted for improved efficiency. In Chapter 4, specific agricultural policy scenarios in China are considered, and their impacts on domestic and foreign virtual water trade are analyzed.</p>

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2006. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-02, Section: A, page: 0661. Adviser: Scott H. Irwin. Includes bibliographical references. Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1967. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

<p> This dissertation presents a three-part study in modern empirical environmental economics. In these three studies, I focus on five core economic issues&mdash;equity, incentives, environmental quality, consumer behavior, and causality&mdash;and ask what environmental economics can teach us about three common topics: energy consumption, cannabis legalization, and pesticide application. </p><p> The first chapter examines how residential natural gas consumers respond to changes in the price of natural gas. With 70 million consumers, residential natural gas has grown to a first-order policy issue. This first chapter provides the first causally identified, microdata-based estimates of residential natural-gas demand elasticities using a panel of 300 million bills in California. To overcome multiple sources of endogeneity, we employ a two-pronged strategy: we interact (1) a spatial discontinuity along the service areas of two major natural-gas utilities with (2) an instrumental-variables strategy using the utilities' differing rules/behaviors for internalizing upstream spot-market prices. We then demonstrate substantial seasonal and income-based heterogeneities underly this elasticity. These heterogeneities suggest unexplored policies that are potentially efficiency-enhancing and pro-poor. </p><p> The second chapter explores what may be unintended&mdash;or unconsidered&mdash;results of cannabis legalization. Cannabis legalization advocates often argue that cannabis legalization offers the potential to reduce the private and social costs related to criminalization and incarceration&mdash;particularly for marginalized populations. While this assertion is theoretically plausible, it boils down to an empirically testable hypothesis that remains untested: does legalizing a previously illegal substance (cannabis) reduce arrests, citations, and general law-enforcement contact? The second chapter of this dissertation provides the first causal evidence that cannabis legalization need not necessarily reduce criminalization&mdash;and under the right circumstances, may in fact increase police incidents/arrests for both cannabis products and non-cannabis drugs. First, I present a theoretical model of police effort and drug consumption that demonstrates the importance of substitution and incentives for this hypothesis. I then empirically show that before legalization, drug-incident trends in Denver, Colorado matched trends in many other US cities. However, following cannabis legalization in Colorado, drug incidents spike sharply in Denver, while trends in comparison cities (unaffected by Colorado's legalization) remain stable. This spike in drug-related police incidents occurs both for cannabis and non-cannabis drugs. Synthetic-control and difference-in-differences empirical designs corroborate the size and significance of this empirical observation, estimating that Colorado's legalization of recreational cannabis nearly doubled police-involved drug incidents in Denver. This chapter's results present important lessons for evaluating the effects and equity of policies ranging legalization to criminal prosecution to policing. </p><p> Finally, the third chapter investigates the roles pesticides play in local air quality. Many policymakers, public-health advocates, and citizen groups question whether current pesticide regulations properly equate the marginal social costs of pesticide applications to their marginal social benefits&mdash;with particular concern for negative health effects stemming from pesticide exposure. Additionally, recent research and policies in public health, epidemiology, and economics emphasize how fine particulate matter (PM2.5) concentrations harm humans through increased mortality, morbidity, mental health issues, and a host of socioeconomic outcomes. This chapter presents the first empirical evidence that aerially applied pesticides increase local PM2.5 concentrations. To causally estimate this effect, I combine the universe of aerial pesticide applications in the five southern counties of California's San Joaquin Valley (1.8M reports) with the U.S. EPA's PM2.5 monitoring network&mdash;exploiting spatiotemporal variation in aerial pesticide applications and variation in local wind patterns. I find significant evidence that (upwind) aerial pesticide applications within 1.5km increase local PM2.5 concentrations. The magnitudes of the point estimates suggest that the top decile of aerial applications may sufficiently increase local PM2.5 to warrant concern for human health. </p><p> Jointly, the three parts of this dissertation aim to carefully administer causally minded econometrics, in conjunction with environmental economic theory, to answer unresolved, policy-relevant questions.</p><p>