Browsing by Subject "vector autoregression"
Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item Economic Analysis of Voluntary Carbon Offset Market and Bioenergy Policies(2014-08-27) Shiva, LaylaThis work studies the economic implications of some United States greenhouse gas mitigation related policies. The main items focused on in this work are: 1) possible agricultural entry into a voluntary carbon offset market, 2) use of marginal land for switchgrass production and 3) agriculture and energy market effects of renewable fuel standards and the integration between these two markets. The first element of the study addressed participation in a voluntary carbon offset market under alternative baseline specifications. We find that a per unit baseline augmented with a low initial level hybrid baseline for biofuel provides effectiveness in terms of additionality, leakage and program cost. We also find that voluntary offset markets promote large scale mitigation which decreases traditional agricultural production and so decreases consumers' surplus and increase producer?s surplus. The second study component examines the economic implications of growing switchgrass on marginal land. We simulate production patterns and market conditions when using or not using marginal land with and without a carbon offset program. We find using marginal land contributes heavily in satisfying RFS mandates and takes the pressure off of conventional land use. However with a simultaneous offset program we find that most of the switchgrass goes to electricity generation and that the pressure on conventional land use is unabated. The third study component examines the energy?agriculture linkage using a structural vector autoregression model. The results of directed acyclic graph presents at contemporaneous time corn price fluctuations cause changes in soybean and ethanol prices. We perform conditional forecasting, taking into account the renewable fuel standards policies, and compare the forecasted path of prices with and without the renewable fuels mandates. Results of prices forecasts conditional on RFS requirements present an increase in all prices in the model by 2022 except for the crack ratio.Item Three Essays on Economic Development in Africa(2012-10-19) Musumba, MarkTo achieve economic development, regional authorities have to address issues that relate to climate change, efficient information flow in the market place, and health care. This dissertation presents three essays on current issues of concern to economic development in Africa. Climate change is examined in terms of its effects on the Egyptian agricultural sector; transmission of world price to small scale growers is examined in Uganda; and the benefits of insecticide-treated bed nets use is examined in Africa. In essay I, to address the impact of climate change on the Egyptian agricultural sector under alternative population growth rates, water use and crop yield assumption; the Egyptian Agricultural Sector Model (EASM) is updated and expanded to improve hydrological modeling and used to portray agricultural activity and hydrological flow. The results indicate that climate change will cause damages (costs) to the Egyptian agricultural sector and these will increase over time. Egypt may reduce these future damages by controlling its population growth rate and using water conservation strategies. In essay II, I use vector autoregressive analysis to examine the transmissions of price information to Uganda coffee growers; using monthly coffee price data on retail, futures, farmgate and world prices from 1994 to 2010. Improved transmission of world prices to farmers may increase their decision making to obtain a better market price. Directed acyclic graphs reveal that there is a causal flow of information from the indicator price to the London futures price to the Uganda grower?s price in contemporaneous time. Forecast error variance decomposition indicates that at moving ahead 12 months, the uncertainty in Uganda grower price is attributable to the indicator price (world spot price), own price (farmgate), London future and Spain retail price in rank order. In essay III, the cost of malaria in children under five years and the use of insecticide treated bed nets is examined in the context of 18 countries in Africa. I examine the direct and indirect cost of malaria in children under five years and the benefit of investing in insecticide treated mosquito nets as a preventative strategy in 18 African countries. The results indicate that the use of mosquito treated nets reduces the number of malaria cases in children; and this can induce 0.5% reduction in outpatient treatment costs, 11% reduction in inpatient treatment costs, 11% reduction in productivity loss, and 15% reduction in disability adjusted life years (DALY) annually.