In recent years, the focus in the study of household behavior has shifted from the household as a homogeneous unit (unitary model) to the different individuals comprising the household (collective model). There are several issues (such as preferences heterogeneity among household members,...

ABSTRACTSTaxes on environmental externalities have long been recognized in the economics literature as a cost-effective mechanism for reducing the costs of environmental degradation. However, in recent years there has been substantial interest in other possible benefits from environmental taxes,...

My dissertation research is composed of three essays to investigate the role of procurement contracting, market structural features, and market participants¡¦ behavior as determinants of the implications of contracting for spot price determination, market segments, and welfare effects. A key...

Knowledge plays an important role in firm decision making as it involves the selection of technological systems and understanding and executing technologies that are implemented. Knowledge management therefore is a learning behavior which is undertaken to acquire additional knowledge and improve...

If the average real income of the an American citizen had grown at a rate of 2% over the last 30 years, rather than actual 1%, it would have increased current per capita income by roughly 34%. For the period of 1970 to 2000, the annual per capita income growth rates for the counties of the...

Commodity futures can supply fair investment return and unique diversification benefits to a portfolio manager. The relative performance between commodity futures and traditional financial assets is varied with business and market conditions. In general, commodity futures are negatively...

Traditionally, information collection for water quality management has been focused on biological data to describe environmental conditions, and stressor-condition-response relationships. While this kind of information is essential, other types of information e.g., economic information about the...

Many factors have led to an increased focus on the development of renewable energy sources. Anaerobic digesters, which convert methane into energy in the form of electricity, natural gas, or heat, are one such technology. Previous economic research has shown that subsidies are required for most...

The dissertation consists of two major components on the topic of environmental valuation using spatial hedonic pricing models.The first component deals with the specification of a spatial hedonic model. The focus is on how to include the spatial effects of observed house prices into a hedonic...

Mobility and air quality have emerged in recent years as major concerns in Bogota. Even though government authorities recognize that pollution control and congestion reduction are priorities in their policy agenda, there is little local understanding of the monetary benefits from improving urban...