This dissertation studies agricultural technology adoption, child labor and development. Although adoption of fertilizers has been high in South Asia, farmers may fail to use it efficiently. Besides higher costs incurred by households engaged in agriculture, inefficient use of fertilizers may also have negative consequences for the environment. The first chapter of this dissertation uses a field experiment in Bangladesh to study whether providing farmers access to a simple rule-of-thumb tool (leaf color chart) to manage the timing of fertilizer applications can improve efficiency of fertilizer use and lead to productivity gains. The second chapter explores whether characteristics of agricultural trainers, who introduced the leaf color charts to the farmers in the treatment group, play an important role in the adoption and use of leaf color charts by farmers. The final chapter of this dissertation studies the impact of a large public workfare program targeting rural households in India on children. In particular, we study the impact of time use by the youngest and oldest children in a household as adult time use changes in response to new work opportunities. / Public Policy

Many of the world's rural poor make a living from agriculture. Consequently, the productivity of agriculture and non-agricultural employment opportunities are important determinants of rural poverty and the subject matter of the three essays in this dissertation. The first chapter in this dissertation estimates the long-term causal effect of inheriting land in rural India. Using quasi-experimental methods, I find that inheriting land greatly influences occupational trajectories and can suppress consumption to an extent that may overwhelm its direct benefit. The second chapter uses a field experiment to understand whether barriers to information influence agricultural productivity. We find that the introduction of a mobile phone-based agricultural information service greatly influences reported sources of information, input adoption decisions and agricultural productivity. The final chapter studies the effect of the external provision of agricultural information on social interactions and agricultural outcomes in village India. Using a field experiment, I find that the introduction of a mobile phone-based agricultural extension service influences the structure and content of social interactions with peers both within and outside the original study population. Respondents receiving valuable agricultural information are more likely to interact with their peers and share information from the service. These changes in social interactions also influence the agricultural outcomes of peers. These results suggest that technological innovations may increase the returns to in-person exchange of information and, in so doing, influence agricultural outcomes. / Public Policy

This dissertation seeks to identify causes and consequences of some of the most complex social phenomena, such as civil conflict and climate change. In the first essay I draw on existing theories of labor coercion (Acemoglu & Wolitzky, 2011, Dippel, Greif and Trefler, 2015) to examine how poor labor market institutions, as those present in places where cocaine production takes place in Colombia, prevent low-income farmers to grasp the returns of positive productivity shocks generated by good weather, and instead, witness increasing coca-profiting group confrontations in high productivity areas. I employed an Instrumental Variables approach together with Fixed Effects estimators to calculate the effect of exogenous variation in productivity on the dynamics of the conflict, to find that citizens security improves in high-productivity period and worsens in low-yield months. The second essay is a research project with Alberto Abadie, Maurice Kugler and Juan Vargas, where we examine the causal effect of Plan Colombia, the largest US aid package ever received by a country in the western hemisphere, on citizens security (measured by civilians and military killings) and illegal crop acreages in Colombia. To infer the causal effect of the policy on the illegal crop and violence outcomes, we rely on GMM estimators and high-frequency variations in violence. We show that the marginal effect of spraying of one acre of coca reduces the cultivated area by about 11 percent of an acre. Since aerial spraying may shift coca crops to neighboring municipalities, this results should be interpreted as a local effect. In addition, since the same coca fields are often sprayed multiple times, this figure constitutes a lower bound of the mean eradicating effect of aerial spraying. Our results also suggest that guerrilla-led violence increases both in the short and the long term. We interpret this result as evidence that the guerrilla tries to hold on violently to the control of an asset that is of first order importance for their survival. In the third essay I seek to understand household adaptation and labor market impacts of extreme weather events in developing countries. This project focuses its attention on labor supply in the developing world – the primary source of household income throughout the world. Also, household allocation of adult and child labor in response to precipitation represents an avenue for exploring potential adaptations that may minimize or worsen the welfare effects from extreme weather events. My econometric results provide evidence of reductions in labor income mainly through an increase in adult unemployment. Individuals try to smooth the loss of labor income by restorting to “forced entrepreneurhip” or self-employment and by sending youth to work. The worst estimate of the loss in real wages per hour is 8% in the rainy season, but this coefficient is most likely an under-estimation of the effect of floods on real wages per hour, as individuals may have been adapting to ENSO and the unavailability of labor market data from the most affected municipalities during the floods of 2010. Finally, estimates of the causal effects of floods are non-linear. While an additional 95th percentile flood raises the probability of unemployment by 0.0026 percentage points, the effect doubles with one additional 99th percentile flood. / Public Policy

Abstract not available.

Most energy sources are derived from the sun, directly or indirectly. Stopping the increase of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will likely require more reliance on current rather than ancient terrestrial solar input. Yet which forms of renewable energy are most appropriately used is a significant question for the twenty-first century. This dissertation concerns the potential supply of biomass energy crops as a renewable energy source in Massachusetts. Biomass represents a low-efficiency solar collector, and supplying society with an important portion of its energy from biomass would require a great deal of land. The cellulosic biomass crop evaluated in this research is switchgrass, among the most studied of possible biomass crops. The study looks at biomass energy crop potential from three perspectives. First, a biomass crop supply function is developed for switchgrass by (1) using a GIS model to estimate land availability by current land use and soil type; (2) using a crop-growth simulation model to estimate potential switchgrass yields; (3) estimating marginal production cost by land parcel; and (4) calculating a supply function from marginal production costs. Total technical potential is estimated to be about 1.3 million dry metric tons of switchgrass per year, though financial constraints would likely limit production to some portion of the estimated 125,000 metric tons per year that could be produced on existing grasslands. Next, the study examines circumstances under which landowners might opt to make land available for biomass crop production. The social challenge of minimizing biomass energy cost is described. Potential biomass crop landowner decisions are characterized in a theoretical utility maximization model, with results suggesting that non-price attributes of crop production are likely important to landowners. Finally, an empirical study using a landowner survey assesses interest in growing biomass crops, and uses contingent valuation (CV) to estimate landowner willingness to accept (WTA) land rent for biomass crops. The median estimate is $321/ha/yr, with a much-higher mean estimate of $658/ha/yr (based on a parametric estimator). While the realistic potential for biomass crops is some fraction of technically feasible potential, there are other potentially important roles for biomass crops in Massachusetts, for example in preserving unused farmland that would otherwise revert to forest.

This dissertation studies the role of the collective action sector for rural development. A combination of formal modeling, historical and institutional analysis, and econometric methods is used in this research. I develop microeconomic models to analyze the determinants of peasants' decisions to join cooperative institutions, and the corresponding equilibrium fraction of organized peasants. The models suggest multiple organizational equilibria at both local and wider levels. Multiple cooperative equilibria is explained in general by the interplay of two increasing functions: (i) the proportion of cooperators as a function of the expected gains from cooperation, and (ii) the expected gains from cooperation as a function of the proportion of cooperators. The models also study the mechanisms through which cooperation beyond the local level can be achieved. Empirically, I analyze the motivations behind peasants' decisions to organize themselves, and once organized, the ways inequality, gender differences, social capital, and external assistance affect local cooperation. The empirical component of this dissertation is based on fieldwork with peasant organizations in the Paraguayan departments of Concepcion, San Pedro, and Caaguazu carried out between 1995-1996. The results of the fieldwork include two surveys: one of the leadership of 104 peasant committees and the other of 374 peasant households. The most important results of the econometric analysis are that the likelihood of a peasant household joining a peasant organization is an inverse function of higher outside options, the security of her/his landholdings, and the subjective costs of cooperation, and is a positive function of the performance of the cooperative. Cooperative performance is not monotonically related to either the degree of inequality within the community or the level of external assistance; rather, it is of an inverted U-shape form. Cooperative performance increases as the level of women's participation and social capital increases. This dissertation also explores the relationship between democracy and economic development by analyzing the agrarian political economy of Paraguay for the 1954-1996 period. It argues that (i) peasants' organizations play a significant role in rural development and (ii) there is scope for positive synergy between peasants' organizations and the level of political democracy in an agrarian country.

This dissertation examines the consolidation and erosion of the economic and political institutions governing the economic growth process in a small, predominantly agrarian, open economy. In particular, it explains the economic crisis in Paraguay in the 1980s under the military regime (1954-1989). The dissertation asserts that the end of the boom and the later long stagnation was a result of the shift in not only external but also in the internal conditions affecting profitability and investment. The fiscal crisis of the state and the increase of both the Ricardian effect in agriculture and the product wage (as well as the fall of the world market prices of primary commodities and the slowdown of foreign direct investment), undermined the profitability and accumulation. These claims are substantiated by an institutional history, a simple two sectoral model, and econometric estimations.

Master of Agribusiness / Department of Agricultural Economics / Ted C. Schroeder / The CNH Wichita Product Center has had a chronic leak problem with the Skid Steer Loaders. The objective of this project was to analyze the manufacturing plant leak data and make improvements to correct the issue. The objective is twofold: 1) to make process or design improvements on current products produced in the plant and 2) to make recommendations for future designs to prevent such leak issues from reoccurring. The manufacturing data had to be transformed into usable form and then it was analyzed mostly by utilizing Pareto Charts. The highest six problem leak points were chosen from the manufacturing data. Process changes were implemented on these particular leak joints and the results were analyzed using two proportions hypothesis tests. The process changes reduced the leak rate by an average percent reduction of 86 percent. The process changes implemented will also be applied to other similar joints, and results documented in the future. The future design recommendations made from the analyzed data included the increased use of o-ring face seal connections at certain locations and where possible, reducing the number of joints per machine.

Master of Science / Department of Agricultural Economics / Ted C. Schroeder / Risk management decision makers face significant price risk when purchasing or selling wholesale beef. Previous research has identified cross-hedging wholesale beef in Live Cattle futures as a plausible means of reducing this risk. Changes in the way beef is marketed have led to poor performance of cross-hedging programs. Unlike earlier research, more recent studies have shown that Live Cattle futures are a poor venue for effective cross-hedging. This study replicates previous research to evaluate the current state of traditional cross-hedging performance. Focus then shifts to improving cross-hedging methods. Hedge ratios derived from a traditional cross-hedging methodology exhibit a great deal of sensitivity to season, estimation technique, and quality grade. Basis risk is abundant for this type of cross-hedging. To reduce the basis risk inherent with cross-hedging wholesale beef, bundling is proposed. This involves combining two or more cuts together in a single unit to be cross-hedged. Firms merchandising meat from a whole carcass would be able to provide a valuable risk management service if the basis risk faced when hedging a bundled product is less than the basis risk faced when cross-hedging the corresponding products independently. This research found that bundling has neither a positive or negative effect on basis risk. Therefore bundling is a plausible practice, but will not offer reduced basis risk to decision makers.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Agricultural Economics / Hikaru H. Peterson / The prevalence of obesity and overweight has heightened over the last 40 years. Over two thirds of the US adult population is overweight or obese. Further, 18% of adolescents, ages 12 to 19, are obese, which is an increase of over 13% since the late 1970’s. Food environment and peer influence have been emerging areas of study and are thought to be catalysts to unhealthy eating choices. College students present a unique opportunity to look at the impact of a changing food environment, including changes in peer groups. This study is concerned with how students’ peers impact their food consumption and ultimately weight. College freshmen were recruited during their first month on campus at Kansas State University. The students participated in a year-long, three-part study to track their eating habits, weight and height. The students’ parents were also asked to participate by filling out a survey on eating habits. The students also asked one friend they ate with at least once a week to fill out a food record with them. The collected information was transformed into daily average calories for each of six food groups and for macronutrients. A peer ratio was created from the parents and friends calorie intakes to determine the similarity in consumption by each food group or macronutrient. A system of equations was specified and estimated for both food groups and macronutrients. For the food group model, beverages were the only food group with a statistically significant peer ratio term. The coefficient on the ratio was positive, indicating that students would consume more calories from beverages, as their college friends consumed more calories from beverages relative to the students’ parents at home. In the macronutrient model, protein had a statistically significant and positive peer ratio. An examination of the impacts of predicted calories consumed from food groups, along with other individual characteristics, on student’s BMI in the spring term, indicated that increasing snack consumption led to an increase in BMI while increasing bread consumption caused a decrease. Eating more meals at the university dining center also increased BMI. An analysis for the predicted macronutrient values revealed a similar relationship with eating more meals at the dining center, but the predicted macronutrients did not have statistically significant impacts on BMI.