Does monetary policy affect the real economy? If so, what is the transmission mechanism or channel through which these effects occur? These two questions are among the most important and controversial in macroeconomics. This dissertation presents some new empirical evidence that addresses each...

This dissertation investigates three issues on business failure causality and prediction. First, a nonlinear model for mathematical programming based discriminant analysis is studied. This study proposes a nonlinear model that builds on the existing linear and quadratic models and allows for a...

Pro forma financial performance evaluation of agricultural producers is an important issue for lenders, internal management and policy makers. Lenders strive to improve their credit risk management. Internal management is interested in understanding the financial impacts of alternative strategic...

It is widely accepted that net farmincome reported on an accrual-adjustedincome statement is a moreappropriate profitability measurethan net farm income reported onSchedule F of the federal tax return,which is prepared using cash basisaccounting. However, a commonpractice among agricultural...

Using repeated cross section data, this study identifies how changes in income (defined over different ranges of income change) affect changes of farm household consumption. OLS regression confirms that the number of members within a farm household positively affects changes of consumption at...

In this dissertation, three related issues of building empirical time series models forfinancial markets are investigated with respect to contemporaneous causality, dynamics,and structural change. In the first essay, nation-wide industry information transmissionamong stock returns of ten sectors...

Financial market and its various components are currently in turmoil. Many largecorporations are devising new ways to overcome the current market instability.Consequently, any study fostering the understanding of financial markets and thedependencies of various market components would greatly...

Models of strategic behavior are usually too complex to conduct large scale analyses, and frequently rely on accurate descriptions of the strategic environment, or unrealistic assumptions which render empirical studies very sensitive to misspecification. This dissertation relates game-theoretic...

Agricultural producers face uncertain agricultural production and marketconditions. Much of the uncertainty faced by agricultural producers cannot be controlledby the producer, but can be managed. Several risk management programs are availablein the U.S. to help manage uncertainties in...

This study determines the entry and exit thresholds of table grape farming with irreversible investment under uncertainty. Real option approach is adopted to consider the investment and management flexibility. Also revenue insurance is introduced to consider the effect of the risk management...