Three Essays on Price Analysis of Summer Flounder and China's Soybean Imports

dc.contributor.authorChen, Weien
dc.contributor.committeecochairKauffman, Daniel E.en
dc.contributor.committeecochairTaylor, Daniel B.en
dc.contributor.committeememberMuhammad, Andrewen
dc.contributor.committeememberPeterson, Everett B.en
dc.contributor.committeememberMarchant, Mary A.en
dc.contributor.departmentAgricultural and Applied Economicsen
dc.date.accessioned2014-03-14T20:14:13Zen
dc.date.adate2009-08-07en
dc.date.available2014-03-14T20:14:13Zen
dc.date.issued2009-07-09en
dc.date.rdate2013-05-20en
dc.date.sdate2009-07-23en
dc.description.abstractThis dissertation contains three papers from two projects. The first two papers (Chapter Two and Chapter Three) are from a project entitled “Managing Flounder Openings for Maximum Revenue.” The objective of this project is to (1) estimate the monthly dockside price of summer flounder and identify seasonality in this price; and (2) set up a mathematical programming model to maximize the landing revenue by allocating the federal government quota on summer flounder across twelve months. In the first paper (Chapter Two), various forms of inverse demand equations are used to estimate the dockside price of summer flounder. These models are evaluated based on their out-of-sample forecasting performance. A structural functional form is selected. In the second paper (Chapter Three), the selected price equation for summer flounder is applied into a revenue maximization model with both the federal government quota constraint and biological constraints from twelve months. The model is solved using CONPOT Solver of GAMS 21.5. The results of the scenarios indicate that the industry should move the landing effort from the period of October – February to the period of March – August. Comparing with historical data, this method can increase $44.73 million for the industry of landing summer flounder from 1991 to 2005. The third paper (Chapter Four) investigates how China's soybean import prices and domestic prices of soybeans and soybean products affect China's soybean imports. Since 2000, soybeans have been the U.S. leading agricultural exports for bulk commodities. China is the largest importer of U.S. soybean exports. For China's soybean crushing industry, imported soybeans are inputs rather than final products and used to produce soybean meal and oil. A differential production model, which is derived from a two-stage profit maximization model in producer theory, is adopted in this research. Estimates are used to calculate conditional and unconditional price elasticities for China's soybean imports from its major source countries – the United States, Argentina, and Brazil. In addition, the Divisia index and unconditional output price elasticities are obtained for China's soybean imports. Estimation results support the hypothesis that China's soybean imports are determined by its domestic demand for soybean meal, rather than soybean oil. This implies that U.S. agribusinesses should pay attention to the dominant role of China's demand for soybean meal and animal feed. U.S. agribusinesses can also use results in this research to evaluate how China's soybean imports from different source countries will change when either international market prices or China's domestic market prices change.en
dc.description.degreePh. D.en
dc.identifier.otheretd-07232009-085435en
dc.identifier.sourceurlhttp://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-07232009-085435/en
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10919/28370en
dc.publisherVirginia Techen
dc.relation.haspartWeiChenFinal2.pdfen
dc.rightsIn Copyrighten
dc.rights.urihttp://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/en
dc.subjectrevenue maximizationen
dc.subjectinverse demanden
dc.subjectsummer flounderen
dc.subjectdifferential production modelen
dc.subjectChina's soybean importsen
dc.titleThree Essays on Price Analysis of Summer Flounder and China's Soybean Importsen
dc.typeDissertationen
thesis.degree.disciplineAgricultural and Applied Economicsen
thesis.degree.grantorVirginia Polytechnic Institute and State Universityen
thesis.degree.leveldoctoralen
thesis.degree.namePh. D.en

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