One of the major criticisms of past environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) studies is that the spatiotemporal aspects within the data have largely been ignored. By ignoring the spatial aspect of pollution emissions past estimates of the EKC implicitly assume that a region’s emissions are unaffected...

Agricultural production is highly dependent on inorganic substances including fertilizers. High-yielding crop varieties, such as corn, require large amounts of primary nutrients including nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Farmers often add a surplus of nutrients to crops to maximize yields....

In early 1999, Brazil devalued its currency, increasing its competitiveness in the poultry industry and capturing world market share. This paper discusses the devaluation and its effects on Brazil's trade, evaluates preliminary statistics on the impact of the devaluation on world poultry...

A stochastic frontier model is used to explain the performance evaluation of U.S. university extension providers by organic producers. The model makes explicit the nonmanagerial factors that influence both performance ratings and performance efficiency, defined as achieving a rating as close to...

A computerized survey instrument was developed to estimate the economic value of riparian restoration along the Little Tennessee River in western North Carolina. Restoration benefits were described in terms of five indicators of ecosystem services: abundance of game fish, water clarity, wildlife...

The purpose of this paper is to construct a Human Development Index (HDI) for each of Georgia's 159 counties. The index includes education, employment, and housing variables. Data are from the 2000 Census collected by the State of Georgia Office of Planning and Budget. Patterned after the work...

We evaluate agricultural bank management performance, focusing on the impacts of interstate banking laws on productivity change. The generalized Malmquist productivity index decomposes productivity change into technological change, technical efficiency change, and change in scale economies....

Conflicts between persons engaged in animal husbandry and their neighbors have given legislative bodies many challenges in responding to competing equities. One set of rules has concerned the enclosure of domestic livestock, and legislative bodies have adopted assorted fence rules to resolve...