This study addresses the complex relationship between energy and agricultural markets—represented by corn, ethanol, and gasoline prices—particularly in light of the growth in biofuel production. Contemporaneous price response and transmission of market shocks are investigated in a...

Recent increases in the price of crude oil have led to a rise in the prominence of corn-based ethanol as an alternative source of energy. As a result linkages have been established between commodity and energy prices. The aim of this study is to determine if soybeans, corn, wheat, oil, and...

This study investigates the optimal switching boundary to a renewable fuel when oil prices exhibit continuous random fluctuations along with occasional discontinuous jumps. In this paper, oil prices are modeled to follow jump diffusion processes. A completeness result is derived. Given that the...

This paper assesses the effect of the U.S. Job Corps (JC), the nation's largest and most comprehensive job training program targeting disadvantaged youths, on wages. We employ partial identification techniques and construct informative nonparametric bounds for the causal effect of interest under...

This study explores occupational and earnings dynamics of rural non-farm economy (RNFE) in Thailand. Using occupational transition matrices, we finds significant occupational transitions in rural Thailand, mainly involving moving to non-farm employment, rather than starting businesses. Moreover,...

Using a unique dataset of 703,287 farm operators from the Taiwanese Census of Agriculture merged to administrative records from the National Farmers' Health Insurance (FHI) program, we examine the effects of the enrollment in the FHI program on farmers’ on- and off-farm labor supply and the...

Replaced with revised version of paper 06/22/11.

Replaced with revised version of paper 07/07/11.

The objective of this paper is to examine whether noncognitive skills explain differences in employment status and hourly wages even after controlling for age, experience, schooling and cognitive skills. Of particular interest is to examine the relative magnitudes of the impacts of the cognitive...