Browsing by Author "Davies, Stephen, advisor"
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Item Open Access A computable general equilibrium analysis of aggregates materials recycling and waste disposal policy alternatives(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2009) Miller, Michael D., author; Davies, Stephen, advisor; Cutler, Harvey, advisorThe work presented in this dissertation is intended to provide community leaders insights into possible aggregates material disposal and recycling policy alternatives. In this work four main policy alternatives are examined-a tax on landfill deposits, a subsidy for the purchase of recycled aggregates materials, a requirement that all industries in the community increase their consumption of recycled aggregates, and a requirement that the top five producers of aggregates waste supply greater amounts of materials to recycling facilities. The scenarios reported include "base case" situations and sensitivity analysis. For the sensitivity analysis, there are changes in the levels of taxation, subsidy, required use of the recycled materials, and required supply waste to be recycled. Additionally, the percentage of materials being sent to landfill and the percentage of materials being recycled is adjusted in order to measure the impacts of the tax and subsidy on communities with differing levels of recycling already in place. Two other policy alternatives are also analyzed and briefly discussed: (1) The model is allowed to respond to changes in the prices of intermediate goods; and (2) Tax and subsidy rates are changed simultaneously. This dissertation finds that, as a result of the limited economic impact of the aggregates materials industry (compared to the local economy in total), landfill deposit taxes and materials purchase subsidies have little impact on the community's economic well being. However, due to the rather "painless" nature of these policies, implementation of these policies do not preclude their use in laying the groundwork for other, more impactful solid waste material disposal approaches. The implementation of the two regulatory policy alternatives has significant positive impacts throughout the economy, but carries with them greater unknown liabilities that are beyond the scope of this dissertation.Item Open Access Challenges in the sustainability of Libyan agriculture: opportunities for the Libyan seed system(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2015) Lariel, Neama, author; Graff, Gregory D., advisor; Davies, Stephen, advisor; Stanelle, James, committee member; Ojima, Dennis, committee memberGlobally, agriculture has met the needs of a growing population remarkably well (Agriculture and Natural Resources Team of the UK DFID, 2004). However, this success has been at the expense of our natural resources. A sustainable approach must lead future agricultural decision-making processes. According to Tilman, Cassman, Matson, and Polasky (2002), the global population is expected to increase by 50% in 2050; this increase in production will affect the environment adversely. There are numerous global challenges associated with creating a sustainable agriculture model. As one of the most arid countries on Earth and one that is just emerging from decades of authoritarian rule, Libya faces several big challenges in order for its agriculture to meet demand in a sustainable manner. Specifically, improvements in Libya’s seed system may be needed to help close the yield gap, reduce negative externalities associated with agricultural production, and facilitate the adaptation of Libyan agriculture to climate change. While there are many factors that contribute to Libya’s apparent current yield gap in wheat and barley, one of its most important agricultural sectors, the lack of availability of appropriate genotypes for each environment serves as the primary factor focused on in this study. The objectives to this research are to understand what varieties farmers currently grow, why they grow those varieties, and how they access the seed for those varieties as well as understanding what constrains farmers’ adoption of new varieties in order to recommend mechanisms of improvement to the seed system in Libya. To achieve sustainability in agriculture, higher yields must be maintained while minimizing environmental impacts, making it increasingly important to understand the Libyan seed system and its users and their access. This research has two primary hypotheses in regards to closing the yield gap: One focuses on the demand side and why farmers are not adopting improved varieties. The other concerns the supply side and questions of who provides wheat and barley seed to farmers, under what arrangements, and where the genetic varieties originate. The preliminary assumption is that Libyan wheat and barley farmers are more likely to use imported seeds than domestic seeds due to the lack of availability of improved local varieties due to the lack of breeding programs in Libya.Item Open Access Spatial dimensions of natural resource decisions: private responses to public resource decisions(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2012) Goldbach, Rebecca, author; Davies, Stephen, advisor; Thilmany, Dawn, advisor; Goemans, Christopher, committee member; Weiler, Stephan, committee memberThis dissertation illustrates how the use of spatial economics, as opposed to non-spatial methods, can enrich economic research related to natural resources decision-making. This research encompasses three distinct, but complementary, papers, based on two datasets that vary in richness and scale, and one data-driven model that will detail how data will need to be collected to inform natural resource infrastructure projects in a developing economy. The first essay uses cutting-edge spatial econometric techniques to evaluate the location decisions of private outdoor recreation providers. Here, I find clustering of outdoor recreation opportunities and that private providers are attracted to areas with existing public outdoor recreation opportunities when making their own location decisions. The second essay focuses on a specific form of privately provided outdoor recreation, agritourism, and again finds that the more existing outdoor recreation, the more agritourism trips will be taken. The second essay uses a hurdle travel cost model and focuses on the demanders, as opposed to the suppliers, of private outdoor recreation. The findings reveal that agritourists gain substantial consumer surplus (with averages ranging from $93 to $465) from their trip, and that the model treatment of multi-destination agritourists impacts the estimated consumer surplus. The first two papers use author-created outdoor recreation measures that are introduced in this dissertation. These measures were created to complement the USDA-Economic Research Service Natural Amenities Index, with input from the creators of the Natural Amenities Index, and have potential to be used in many natural resource and economic development studies as the Natural Amenities Index has been. In contrast to the other essays, the third essay recognizes that spatial relationships can be important in evaluating an economic question, even when dense spatial datasets are not available. The study uses an Equilibrium Displacement Model to evaluate water management and storage policies for a canal system in Afghanistan, a country where war and poverty have damaged infrastructure and made it difficult to collect accurate data. Producers' spatial location on the canal is of key importance to understanding their decisions and the failure to account for these spatial relationships could lead to misinformed policy decisions. The Equilibrium Displacement Model results show that water management and storage policies have different impacts on producers based on their spatial location on the canal. Through the use of three very different models, this dissertation illustrates the importance of incorporating spatial impacts when evaluating policies related to natural resources.