Biofuels have been promoted to achieve energy security and as a solution to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the transportation sector. This dissertation presents a framework to examine the extent to which biofuel policies reduce gasoline consumption and GHG emissions and their...

The study measures farm credit risk by using farm records collected by Farm Business Farm Management (FBFM) during the period 1995-2004. The study addresses the following questions: 1) whether farm’s financial position is fully described by the structure model, 2) what are the determinants of...

The agriculture sector of East Java, which is a major food production center in Indonesia, played a major role in the economic development of Indonesia in the past twenty five years. Several forms of agricultural policies have been designed and implemented to continue this contributing role....

The objective of this dissertation is to investigate the patronage refunds decision in the Farm Credit System (FCS) lending associations, and simulate the capital structure change of a representative association dynamically. Patronage refunds distribution is a unique feature of financial...

This study demonstrates that Pigouvian taxes derived from the socially optimum shadow prices of shared resources may result in serious deviations between users' response and the socially optimal resource use when the users' profit motive is not shared by the social planner and the resultant...

In 2005 the highest global surface temperature ever was recorded. A virtual consensus exists today among scientists that global warming is underway and that human greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are a significant cause. Possible mitigation of climate change through reduction of net GHG emissions...

Animal disease outbreaks either through deliberate terroristic act or accidental introductions present a serious economic problem. This work concentrates on the economics of choosing strategies to mitigate possible agricultural terrorism and accidental introduction events largely in the animal...

A recent outbreak of bird flu or avian influenza (AI), an especially highly pathogenicstrain (HPAI) of H5N1, started in Hong Kong in January 2003 and caused 159 humandeaths in Asia, Africa and Europe through early 2007. In addition, this outbreak resultedin millions of slaughtered birds and...

In this dissertation, several essays in the field of bio-security are presented.The estimation of the probability of an FMD outbreak by type and location ofpremises is important for decision making. In Essay I, we estimate and predict theprobability/risk of an FMD outbreak spreading to the...

In this dissertation three essays were presented. In the first two essays we measure theconsumer welfare changes caused by U.S. meat price changes. In the third essay thedynamic structure of international gasoline prices using the time series methodology isinvestigated.In chapter II, we...