Theses and Dissertations at Montana State University (MSU)
Permanent URI for this communityhttps://scholarworks.montana.edu/handle/1/732
Browse
12 results
Search Results
Item The effects of trade restrictions on basis(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 2021) Anderson, Laina Dee; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Joseph AtwoodAfter accusing China of stealing intellectual property and engaging in unfair trade practices, the United States announced a $46.2 billion tariff on Chinese imports in April 2018. Immediately, China announced a retaliatory 25 percent tariff on soybean imports from the United States. Both tariffs went into effect on July 6, 2018. Due to China historically buying 60 percent of total U.S. soybean exports the tariff had a major effect on the soybean market as 2018 exports dropped by 74 percent compared to 2017 exports (Ward, 2018; Adjemian et al., 2019). While the soybean futures contract price dropped nearly two dollars, research has not studied the consequences on prices in local markets where almost all marketing transactions occur. Using a difference-in-differences model with corn basis as a counterfactual, I measure the relative change in soybean basis between the announcement period and after the tariff went into effect across 3,222 cash markets. The results suggest that basis for soybeans weakened five cents per bushel relative to its expected relationship with corn basis during the intermediate period, and after the tariff went into effect in July, soybean basis weakened an additional 14 cents per bushel and remained relatively weaker throughout the rest of 2018. The tariff caused basis to weaken in every state, Minnesota and Oklahoma soybean farmers faced the largest effects, with soybean basis weakening 25 cents and 23 cents per bushel relative to corn, respectively. Missouri and Nebraska faced the lowest impact, with soybean basis weakening 12 and 15 cents per bushel relative to corn basis, respectively.Item The role of the Governor's Ad-Hoc Committee on Agriculture in determining agriculture policy in Montana(Montana State University - Bozeman, 1980) Smith, Douglas George; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Max L. AmbersonItem The Federal Reserve System : its role in political economy(Montana State University - Bozeman, 1983) Goehrung, James LeRoyItem A programming model for evaluating changes in resource use in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 1972) Hash, Charles T.Item Montana wheat and barley acreage supply functions : the effects of Federal farm commodity programs(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 1977) Aukes, Robert GeneItem Accounting for federal dairy program expenditures : a macroeconomic approach(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 1988) Suydam, Stacey Lynn; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Ann L. Adair.Dairy products account for 13 percent of the total cash receipts from all farm commodities. In addition, fluid milk and dairy products represent about 15 percent of consumer expenditures for food. The U.S. dairy industry is subjected to more federal government regulation than any other agricultural industry and therefore, is highly affected by farm policy decisions. Although many studies have evaluated the effects of government intervention in the dairy sector, none have done so in a fully simultaneous, general equilibrium context. The objective of this study is to specify equations which capture the interaction between the government sector and the dairy sector. The equations needed to account for the direct and indirect linkages between the U.S. dairy sector and the federal government sector were specified according to economic theory and then estimated using the ordinary least squares estimation procedure. The estimated equations were then validated by simulating outside of the sample period and examining the root-mean-square percent error. In order to simulate the dairy sector model in a general equilibriun context, the equations were endogenized into an existing macroeconometric model (COMGEM). This provides a framework which allows the analysis of the impacts of changes in various policy variables on the dairy and government sectors, as well as the general economy. The study examines the effects of specifying the price support for milk an additional 25 cents per cwt lower than the levels established in the 1985 farm bill for 1988 and 1989. The analysis implies .that additional reductions in the price support for milk are needed in order to bring the current production/consumption imbalance back into line. The small reduction in this component of the farm program did not significantly affect macroeconomic level variables, but did reduce federal expenditures on the dairy program without significantly reducing net farm income. Alternative policy scenarios can be evaluated using this framework to assess the potential impacts of proposed policy changes on the farm sector and the cost to taxpayers of implementing the changes.Item Which came first, laws or lobbyists? : an empirical investigation of environmental regulation and interest group formation(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 2012) Leonard, Bryan James; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Dominic Parker.Nonprofit organizations and interest groups play a substantial role in the United States; there were over 260,000 nonprofits and nearly 5,000 political action committees at work in 2010. Conventional wisdom suggests that many of these groups have formed with the goal of influencing the passage of new legislation that is favorable to their interests. This thesis contributes to our understanding of interest groups by providing evidence of the opposite direction of causation within the context of environmental legislation. I develop a theory for why new environmental regulations cause new environmental interest groups to form, rather than vice versa. I test the theory with a novel panel data set of federal and state environmental laws and of the formation dates of wildlife, pollution, and conservation oriented interest groups since 1950. My empirical tests combine differences-in-differences (and differences-in-differences-in differences) estimators with event study methods. The results at the national level show that more groups formed during a window of time before and after the passage of the Clean Air and Endangered Species Act. The results at the state level, which are in many ways more credible estimates, show that state-level interests groups were more likely to form during a window after new legislation was passed than before. Overall, the results suggest laws that leave a large portion of decision making to a bureaucracy create new lobbyists. This is a result that has been suggested by some environmentalists and economists but never empirically tested before this thesis.Item The common agricultural policy and wheat and barley acreage response in the UK under the CAP(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 1996) Vavra, Pavel; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Vincent Smith.In the early 1960's the European Union adopted the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP). This study explains the objectives, principles and developments of the CAP. Wheat and barley acreage response under the CAP is examined for eight production regions in the UK using time series-cross section data for period 1975-1995. This is the first study to examine the individual effects of prices and yields on cereals acreage in the UK separately. Attention is focused on alternative models of price and yield expectations. The performance of the resulting alternative price and yield forecast variables in estimation models are then compared. The study also examines the impacts of revenue uncertainty and recent changes in the CAP, including the set aside programs of 1988 and 1992, on wheat and barley planted acreage. Models in which expected prices were forecasted using ARIMA models and expected yields were forecasted by nonlinear time trend models provided most satisfactory results. The empirical findings indicate that wheat and barley acreage response is mainly explained by changes in the ratio of expected wheat yields to expected barley yields, by changes in relative prices and by variables that account for the set aside programs. The increasing gap between the wheat intervention price and threshold price together with developments in bread-making and wheat-washing industry also have had a significant positive impact on acreage planted to wheat and a significant negative impact on acreage planted to barley. The results further indicate that the CAP set aside programs have had a larger negative impact on barley acreage than on wheat acreage. Barley acreage planting decisions have been also more sensitive to changes in expected prices and revenue uncertainty than wheat acreage planting decisions.Item Agricultural price protection and productivity in high and low income countries(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 1992) Hu, Fan; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: John Antle.It is argued that agricultural pricing policies can have an effect on agricultural productivity through the effects that price expectations can have on the choice of technique by producers, on the incentives for discovering new knowledge and on investment in agriculture. It is hypothesized that there is a positive (negative) relationship between subsidy (tax), but this relationship depends on the degree of the subsidy or tax. The Nominal Protection Coefficient (NPC) is used as a proxy for agricultural policy, and is included as an explanatory variable in production function. Policy is also hypothesized to be an endogenous variable in the process of economic growth, so a simultaneous equations model is estimated consisting of an aggregate production function and a policy equation. Agricultural policy is found to have a positive and significant impact on agricultural productivity and this productivity effect is not the same for all countries. In particular, in the countries that subsidize or tax agriculture moderately, the response of productivity to the NPC is large with an elasticity greater than 2. The results imply that if the price interventions were to be eliminated, agricultural productivity would increase on average by more than 68% in developing countries and would on average by about 30% in developed countries. The results also suggest that it would be possible to reduce the adverse environmental impacts of agriculture caused by subsidies without significantly lowering agricultural productivity in developed countries.Item The effects of domestic and trade policy variables on the U.S. beef wholesale and slaughter markets(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 1990) Jeong, Kyeong-Soo; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: John M. Marsh.Trading in beef products has been increasing during the 1980's and its impact on the U.S. beef industry has become an important issue for various interest groups. Particularly, U.S. by-product exports have become a large value item in U.S. beef product exports and contribute greatly to meat packer returns and Japanese beef import quotas have become less stringent. The main objective of this study is to develop a dynamic structural model of the U.S. wholesale carcass and slaughter cattle industry. The model incorporated pertinent domestic variables and foreign trade variables such as imports and exports of beef and veal, live cattle imports, and by-product exports. The econometric model explicitly includes U.S. carcass demand and supply, U.S. slaughter demand and supply, beef and veal import demand and supply, beef and veal export demand and supply, live cattle import demand and supply, and foreign trade in farm level by-products. The empirical model was estimated within a rational distributed lag framework, using instrumental variables with either the maximum likelihood or ordinary least squares procedure depending upon the nature of the stochastic error terms. The short-run and long-run impacts of the exogenous variables on the dependent variables are calculated using sequential partial derivatives involving the difference equation coefficients and slope parameters. The distributed lag impacts of trade shocks on the U.S. beef prices are calculated using reduced form coefficients specific to selected exogenous and predetermined variables combined with price transmission effects between market levels. The empirical results show that most of the foreign trade variables were statistically significant and demonstrated theoretically correct signs. The long-run impacts of foreign trade in beef products were generally small but were large enough to suggest that incorporating foreign market arguments in the framework of dynamic analysis is important in a U.S. beef market analysis. However, the use of monthly or quarterly data and disaggregate price and quantity data for the trade variables would be more desirable in order to reduce aggregation bias.