We assess the economic feasibility of a 10 MMGY biodiesel plant using a Monte Carlo Cash Flow model programmed in Excel using @Risk, a simulation and risk analysis software. The model incorporates stochastic components to capture uncertainty in the analysis. The stochastic components are mainly...

The relationship between trade and productivity has not been established theoretically. Some researchers have indeed found some, if not complete, support for the view that increasing openness has a positive impact on productivity. This study used a Cobb-Douglas production function as in Miller...

This paper examines the effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement on agricultural commodity trade using extensive data. The data cover agricultural exports and imports between the U.S. and NAFTA partners over the extended period of 1989-2010. The commodities covered in our analyses...

China was admitted into the WTO in December 2001 and this raised the hopes of the US that China will open up to agricultural trade with the US. However, this potential has not been realized. The goal of this study is to determine the impacts of trade impediments and barriers of the market access...

The United States is remarkably safe, when it comes to food supply. Nevertheless, food can become contaminated with a variety of germs. According to reports by a food safety group of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, food-borne illness caused by bacteria such as E. coli and...

The need to decrease the United States’ dependency on oil has pushed ethanol to the forefront of energy sources. In the U.S., corn is used to make ethanol. Corn-based ethanol production has been profitable over the past few years, but there has been a near doubling of corn prices in late 2006...

The United States engagement in nonreciprocal preferential trade arrangements has been proliferating with several developing countries throughout the past couple of decades. One of the oldest and more successful of these arrangements has been the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI).The CBI is a...

Agriculture is a vulnerable sector of the U.S economy, accounting for 13% of Gross Domestic Product and 15% of employment. It produces quality cheap food for domestic consumption and accounts for more than $65 billion in export revenues. Contagious animal diseases like Foot and Mouth Disease...

The potential impact of a BSE outbreak on the US economy is modeled in input-output setting using 2002 US IMPLAN data. An outbreak of BSE would hurt the US beef industry, other agriculturally-related industry, and the rest of the economy as a whole. The worse effects occur in the beef cattle and...

Gravity models were developed to estimate the potential bilateral exports of cocoa under trade liberalization by the sixteen major cocoa producing countries to the US using panel data from 1989 to 2003. The results indicate that differences between resource endowment, relative size of economies,...