The literature on the impacts of biofuels on food prices is characterized by contradictory findings and a wide range of estimates. To bring more clarity to this issue, we review studies on U.S. corn ethanol expansion released between 2008 and 2013. Normalizing corn price impacts by the increase...

This paper investigates the nonparametric analysis of technology under non-convexity. The analysis extends two approaches now commonly used in efficiency and productivity analysis: Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) where convexity is imposed; and Free Disposal Hull (FDH) models. We argue that, while...

The Gulf of Mexico (GOM) is the primary producer of shrimp in the United States and annual production from this region has remained relatively constant over the past several decades. By comparison, U.S. shrimp imports have increased from about 400 million pounds annually during the early 1990s...

Previous studies that analyzed multiple imputation using survey data did not take into account the survey sampling design. The objective of the current study is to analyze the impact of survey sampling design missing data imputation, using multivariate multiple imputation method. The results of...

If relative prices of goods within a commodity group are constant, Hicksian separability lets the price of a single good represent the group price level. This is relied on by designers of price questionnaires used in household surveys and by methods of estimating demand systems from household...

Many previous studies provide pricing models of options on futures spreads. However, none of them fully reflect the economic reality that spreads can stay near full carry for long periods of time. We suggest a new option pricing model that assumes that convenience yield follows arithmetic...

Secular trends in health outcomes related to dietary quality have changed substantially over the past three decades. The objective of this study is to decompose changes in dietary quality over 1977-2008 into the biological effects of age, contemporaneous effects of time period and group...

A growing body of research supports the \economic insecurity" theory of obesity, which posits that uncertainty with respect to one's material well- being may be an important root cause of the modern obesity epidemic. This literature has been limited in the past by a lack of reliable measures of...