Browsing by Author "Atwood, Joseph"

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The Influence of Genetic Modification Technologies on U.S. and EU Crop Yields
(2019-01) Brester, Gary W.; Atwood, Joseph; Watts, Myles J.; Kawalski, Anita
Over 90% of U.S. corn and soybeans are planted with genetically modified (GM) seed varieties. We use a flexible, nonlinear functional form to investigate yield differences for corn, soybeans, and wheat between the United States and the European Union (which bans the use of GM technologies). U.S. corn and soybean yields increased relative to EU yields since the introduction of GM technologies. EU wheat yields (for which GM technologies are not commercially available in either region) continue to increase relative to the United States. Thus, the EU ban on GM technologies has likely increased the difference between corn and soybean yields between the two regions.
Measuring Fishing Capacity Using Quantile Data Envelopment Analysis
(University of Chicago Press, 2023-07) Walden, John B.; Atwood, Joseph
Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is an extensively used method to estimate capacity and technical and economic efficiency of fishing vessels. However, DEA is often criticized because of the influence that outliers, or noisy data, can have on the DEA estimates. Recently, quantile data envelopment analysis (QDEA) was introduced to identify and address issues caused by influential data outliers. QDEA endogenously identifies potential outliers and eliminates them from a given observation’s DEA reference set. In this study, we utilize QDEA to estimate fishing fleet capacity for vessels operating in the northwest Atlantic Ocean during 2019. We present methods for implementing the QDEA model that we think are practical and can be adapted for fishing fleets worldwide. Results show lower capacity estimates using the QDEA model than what the standard capacity model would yield. Our results are quite encouraging in terms of utilizing the QDEA model in future work.