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Browsing by Author "Capps, Oral Jr."

Now showing 1 - 9 of 9
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    An analysis of the effects of institutional, biological and economic forces on the Virginia oyster fishery
    March, Richard Alan (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1986)
    The Virginia oyster industry changed markedly in the period between 1950 and the present. This change has been the result of a variety of forces which can be conveniently classified as economic, biological and institutional. In general, biological forces initiated a series of changes in the fishery which have had economic impacts and impacts on the institutional structure of the fishery. The biological forces have had a much more severe impact on the seed-planting, or private grounds, sector than on the public grounds sector. The dependence of the seed planting sector on public seed beds and the different regulatory regimes applicable to the public and private grounds makes it difficult to draw firm conclusions on the relative merits of alternative tenure structures. The magnitudes of economic, biological and public policy forces as contributing factors to the decline of the oyster fishery are estimated and it is concluded that the biological forces have played the dominant role in the decline of the Virginia oyster fishery. It is suggested that attention be focused on the physical and management inputs to the production of oysters and on methods for bringing forth an appropriate resource mix. It is argued that either a predominantly private grounds fishery, a predominantly public grounds ‘' fishery, with appropriate institutional modifications to allow efficient harvest technologies to be used without threatening the viability of the resource base, or a mixed tenure system could be used and with appropriate management could result in substantial revitalization of the Virginia oyster industry. However, because of the biological changes which have occurred, management, whether public or private, takes on a much more important role in determining the future of the Virginia oyster fishery.
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    Demand for selected classes of convenience food in the United States
    Hull, David B. (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1982)
    The focus of this research was the problem of identifying the economic and demographic factors that determine household expenditure for convenience food in the United States. A major objective was to measure, for various classes of convenience food, the response of expenditures to changes in demand determinants so that food expenditure profiles can be simulated for households with different characteristics and constraints. Another major objective was to determine the effect of the meal preparer's value of time on household use of convenience food. The work of others on similar models of food demand has been extended to include analysis of the effects of the sex and employment status (market-orientation) of the meal preparer, the value of the meal preparer's time, household size, income and age-sex composition. Other factors in the models include region, race, urban setting and season. The functions were specified from a theoretical model developed from the theory of the household production function. Foods used by households as reported in the 1977-78 Nationwide Food Consumption Survey were divided into classes of nonconvenience, basic convenience, complex convenience and manufactured convenience food. Nonconvenience foods are raw, unprocessed foods or ingredient foods. Basic convenience foods are single ingredient foods with limited culinary expertise embodied, usually providing a type of preservation convenience. Complex convenience foods are multiple ingredients, highly prepared foods. Manufactured convenience foods include products which have no home prepared counterpart. For the three convenience classes, nonincome-earning female meal preparers all had positive elasticities of the value of time. Except for the basic convenience food model, the income-earning female meal preparers had positive value of time elasticities. The nonmarketoriented female meal preparers had negative elasticities of value of time in the nonconvenience class. The income elasticity for all food classes ranged from 0. 03in the nonconvenience food expenditure model to 0.08 in the complex convenience food model. The significance of statistical tests on the range of income elasticities verifies that the food categories investigated are neither inferior nor luxury goods, and that demand models for all food at home that ignore the effects of the value of time would overestimate the elasticity of expenditure with respect to income.
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    Differential information, expectations, and the small firm effect
    Neustel, Arthur D. (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1984)
    An empirical study of the effects of differential information and the expectations of investors is undertaken to test the differential information theory of Barry and Brown (1983). The theory is tested using the small firm effect. The excess returns found using ex post data are regressed against proxies for differential information and expectations. The residuals from these regressions are then tested to determine if the small firm effect is still observed. The results of this study are: 1. The tests provided empirical evidence that is consistent with the theory of Barry and Brown (1983) when a suitable proxy for differential information is used. 2. For the sample studied, the differential information effect on perceived risk by investors largely explained the small firm effect, when a suitable proxy was used. 3. Evidence was found that the small firm effect is composed of two parts supporting the findings of Keim (1983). One is a January effect, and the other during the remainder of the year, with the January effect still observed. 4. The proxy chosen to represent heterogeneous expectations must be selected with care. In this study the one selected did not prove suitable. Reasons are provided which indicate that the proxy chosen was the principal cause of the failure of these tests to support the theory.
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    A dynamic analysis of the crop productivity impacts of soil erosion: an application to the Piedmont area of Virginia
    Segarra, Eduardo (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1986)
    This study was born out of the desire to analyze the complex soil management problem faced by individual economic agents as well as society. The focus of this study, however, was on the theoretical formulation and estimation of partial equilibrium dynamic economic models directed toward optimizing the private use of the soil resource. In particular, four empirical representative farm models were formulated. Solutions to the four representative farm models showed that sizable reductions in topsoil loss, which contributes to non-point source pollution, and aggravates the crop productivity impacts of soil erosion, can be accomplished by adopting alternative support practices. Because of the change in support practices, reductions in the present value of net returns are expected, but this decrease in return was found to be minimal when compared to reductions in topsoil loss. Policy implications as well as several policy recommendations stemming from those results, with respect to soil conservation, are outlined and analyzed.
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    Economic implications of a computerized trading system for grains
    Turner, Steven C. (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1986)
    A comparison was made between the current telephone trading system (TTS) used to trade cash grain and a computerized trading system (CTS). Three steps were necessary to accomplish this task. First, the past and present TTS were explored through a historical case study and a survey of grain traders, respectively. Second, a theoretical framework based on the principle that the price discovery process is a communication process was developed to guide the comparison. Finally, a CTS for grains was conceptualized and a demonstration computer program was written to model such a system. Using communication and functional performance criteria, the two systems were compared. It appears that a CTS is a more effective price discovery mechanism due to the explicit data bases and software inherent to it. In addition, a CTS is a global and centralized trading system as opposed to a TTS which is dyadic and decentralized. The main implications of a CTS to the grain industry was hypothesized to be an increase in pricing and technical efficiency in the price discovery process. The result of this increased efficiency is to increase competition and affect market structure. Continued pressure toward an oligopolistic structure could be countered by the symmetric information available over a CTS.
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    Empirical Bayes procedures in time series regression models
    Wu, Ying-keh (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1986)
    In this dissertation empirical Bayes estimators for the coefficients in time series regression models are presented. Due to the uncontrollability of time series observations, explanatory variables in each stage do not remain unchanged. A generalization of the results of O'Bryan and Susarla is established and shown to be an extension of the results of Martz and Krutchkoff. Alternatively, as the distribution function of sample observations is hard to obtain except asymptotically, the results of Griffin and Krutchkoff on empirical linear Bayes estimation are extended and then applied to estimating the coefficients in time series regression models. Comparisons between the performance of these two approaches are also made. Finally, predictions in time series regression models using empirical Bayes estimators and empirical linear Bayes estimators are discussed.
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    Food aid and economic development: impact of food for work on labor allocation, production and consumption behavior of small family-farms in a semi-arid area of Kenya
    Bezuneh, Mesfin (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1985)
    Food-for-Work (FFW) was conceived as both a short-run assistance program for meeting basic food needs of low income households, and as a long-run developmental tool for building infrastructure and for providing income to ease capital constraints on farm production. However, it was feared that FFW might divert labor from own-farm production and reduce the level of locally produced food crops. The purpose of this dissertation was to empirically examine these hypotheses in the Ewalel and Marigat locations of Baringo District, Rift Valley Province, Kenya. A househoId-firm model that integrated both production and consumption concerns of FFW was developed. The model was block recursive. First, production decisions were made by maximizing net returns (net income) subject to production constraints. This output (income) was then substituted into the budget constraint, and household utility was maximized subject to this budget constraint and to a total time constraint. The data used in the study was drawn from a representative sample of 300 households were randomly selected in Marigat-Ewalel locations. Of these, 100 were found to be participants in the FFW Project supported by the UN/FAO World Food Program. Food items provided to the program in the study area are maize, beans, and vegetable oil. A two-year linear programming model was developed for the production segment of the model. ln this model, three crops under two technologies and two types of livestock were used. The household consumption component of the model was specified econometrically using systems of demand equations, the Almost ldeal Demand System. Seven commodities including FFW items, five foods, non-food and leisure, were used in the system. The analysis was conducted for both participant and non-participant households to compare levels of production activities, employment, income, and consumption patterns with and without the FFW program. The production component of the analysis revealed that the following results were associated with FFW in the study area: (a) augments own-farm output by contributing to the minimum nutrient 1 requirement, (b) eases the capital-constraint by the second year of participation, (c) increases the marketable surplus from both own-crop and livestock production, (d) increases hired labor in farm production, (e) causes a shift from maize to millet production, and (f) increases savings. As a result, the net income for the representative farm households with FFW is 52% higher than those without FFW; and participation in the FFW program declines by 11% from year 1 to year 2. Thus, disincentive effects on own-farm employment and output were not found in this study. In fact, according to the model used, the FFW Program could be expanded by either increasing the monthly participation hours or the number of participants without resulting in any production disincentive. The results of the entire household-firm model, which reveals the changes in consumption resulting from participation in FFW and changes in income, were derived in elasticity form. Most of the benefits to the representative participant households, as compared to non-participants, take the form of increased consumption of food items. Thus, the primary effects of FFW are to insure participants increased consumption and saving without creating disincentives to either own-farming or to local agricultural production.
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    A theoretical model for education production and an empirical test of the relative importance of school and nonschool inputs
    McNamara, Kevin T. (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1986)
    The importance of public education in rural development has received increasing attention by local and state policy makers as competition for new industry has intensified throughout rural America. Uncertainty about the relationships of public and private inputs to education output, however, presents problems to state and local officials and parents interested in improving the quality and quantity of the public education system. This research examines the education process in a production function framework to identify the relationships of education inputs to education output. A theoretical model that combines public l and household decision making into an education production process is used as the basis for the empirical model that is developed. The estimated model includes input measures for school, family, volunteer and student inputs to education production and is estimated with cross·sectional data for Virginia counties. The expenditure measure used in the model is specified as a polynomial lag. The model also is specified as a joint-product production process. The results of the analysis provide evidence of the importance of expenditures in education production and indicate that the impact of changes in expenditures occurs over time. The number of and educational levels of teachers also is associated with education output. Household and student inputs also are associated with education output. Volunteer input measures are not statistically significant in the estimated equations, a reflection of the difficulty of specifying and measuring specific volunteer inputs into the education production process. The empirical results do not support a joint production hypothesis between outputs as measured by achievement test scores and the school continuation rate.
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    The underpricing of unseasoned new issues of common stock
    Wolfe, Glenn A. (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1984)
    The study is primarily concerned with the verification, and subsequent explanation, of the existence of the phenomenon of new issue underpricing. The primary purposes of the research conducted in this study were to: (1) determine if investors may earn excess returns on new issues by purchasing at the prevailing market price in the immediate after-market rather than at the offer price, (2) develop a simultaneous equation model to explain underpricing, percentage cash spread, and the relationship between the two using various firm, issue, and market characteristics, and ( 3) analyze the effects of institutional constraints concerning percentage cash spread on the relationship between underpricing and percentage cash spread. The examination of excess returns indicates that efficiency prevails in the new issues market beginning with the second trading day. Therefore, investors purchasing new issues in the immediate after-market may expect to not earn excess returns. The results of the estimation of the econometric model using the entire sample of new issues does not indicate a simultaneous relationship between underpricing and cash spread. However, in order to analyze the effects of the institutional constraint on percentage cash spread, it is hypothesized that the most severely underpriced issues are most seriously affected by constraint. The sample is divided into quartiles on the basis of magnitude of underpricing and the econometric model is estimated separately for each quartile. The upper quartile exhibits a recursive relationship suggesting that percentage cash spread is first set and underpricing is adjusted accordingly to lessen risk of distribution and thereby compensate for the lower level of percentage cash spread. A simultaneous relationship does occur in the middle quartiles, but the relationship is positive indicating that higher percentage cash spread offerings also experienced greater underpricing. These results furnish evidence that new issues are affected by institutional constraints on percentage cash spread and the guidelines could be the cause of a portion of the underpricing occurring in the new issues market.