This paper investigates the role of energy on U.S. agricultural productivity using panel data at the state level for the period 1960–2004.We first provide a historical account of energy use in U.S. agriculture. To do this we rely on the Bennet cost indicator to study how the price and volume...
This study examines productivity change in the Mid-Atlantic surfclam and ocean quahog fishery, which has been managed since 1990 using Individual Transferable Ouotas (ITQ). Productivity change is estimated through a Malmquist index from 1981-2008, capturing change before and after implementation of the quota system. We then decompose the index to...
The cycloundecapeptide cyclosporin A (CsA) was first isolated from the insect-pathogenic fungus Tolypocladium inflatum for its antifungal activity and later developed as an immunosuppressant drug. However, the full biosynthetic mechanism of CsA remains unknown and has puzzled researchers for decades. In this study, the biosynthetic gene cluster is suggested to...
In this paper we focus on the specification of revenue functions in their dual price space. We consider two distance functions—the Shephard output distance function and the directional output distance function—and define both in price space. The former is multiplicative in nature and satisfies homogeneity, whereas the latter is additive...
We review nonparametric estimation of efficiency and productivity, by which we mainly mean activity analysis, or data envelopment analysis (DEA). The review covers topics that we hope will be of special interest to those doing research in the realm of agriculture. We also include a brief appendix addressing nonparametric estimation...
The following three essays explore the use of the directional output distance function (Chambers et al., 1996), an economic model originally developed to measure efficiency and productivity for multi-input and multi-output production processes, to assess performance for multi-attributed environmental processes.
The first essay illustrates the use of the directional output...
The three essays in this dissertation progressively answer the following questions: (a) How important are constraints? (b) Who benefits from removing constraints? (c) When does a constraint for a single market predominantly affect closely related markets? These questions are applied in the context of time, weather, and minimum wage constraints,...
Decision-making in environmental management is complex due to the multiplicity arid diversity of management objectives and technological choices. This suggests that modelers and experts could utilize (I) multiple-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approaches to assist stakeholder groups in integrating and synthesizing relevant data and information to address ecological and socio-economic concerns and...