Browsing by Author "Suter, Jordan, committee member"
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Item Open Access An analysis of housing values and national flood insurance reform under the Biggert-Waters Act of 2012(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2015) Villar, Daniel Clark, author; Goemans, Christopher, advisor; Suter, Jordan, committee member; Zahran, Sammy, committee memberPrevious research has shown that both flood risk and insurance premiums are capitalized in housing values. This paper examines the effect of National Flood Insurance Program reform implemented by the Biggert Waters Act of 2012 and the Homeowners Flood Insurance Affordability Act of 2014 on housing values over a three-and-a-half year time period. It is hypothesized that the effects of increasing flood insurance rates through the elimination of established subsidies was capitalized in home values resulting in a loss of value in areas where subsidies are maintained. The paper presents a hedonic price difference-in-difference OLS model which is then tested for flexibility to the policy period and robustness to the treatment group. The evidence indicates that (1) housing values trend differently for areas with subsidies than areas without and (2) that this effect is correlated with flood insurance reform periods and robust to the definition of the treatment group. I conclude that the Biggert-Waters Act had a negative impact on median home values for areas with subsidized policies.Item Open Access Assessing long-term conservation of groundwater resources in the Ogallala Aquifer Region using hydro-agronomic modeling(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Xiang, Zaichen, author; Bailey, Ryan T., advisor; Niemann, Jeffrey, committee member; Bhaskar, Aditi, committee member; Suter, Jordan, committee memberGroundwater is vital for domestic use, municipalities, agricultural irrigation, industrial processes, etc. Over the past century, excessive groundwater depletion has occurred globally and regionally, notably in arid and semi-arid regions, often due to providing irrigation water for crop cultivation. The High Plains Aquifer (HPA) is the largest freshwater aquifer in the United States and has experienced severe depletion in the past few decades due to excessive pumping for agricultural irrigation. There is a need to determine management strategies that conserve groundwater, thereby allowing irrigation for coming decades, while maintaining current levels of crop yield within the context of a changing climate. Numerical models can be useful tools in this effort. Hydrologic models can be used to assess current and future storage of groundwater and how this storage depends on system inputs and outputs, whereas agronomic models can be used to assess the impact of water availability on crop production. Linking these models to jointly assess groundwater storage and crop production can be helpful in exploring management practices that conserve groundwater and maintain crop yield under future possible climate conditions. The objectives of this dissertation are: i) to develop a linked modeling system between DSSAT, an agronomic model, and MODFLOW, a groundwater flow model to be used for evaluating long-term impacts of climate and management strategies on water use efficiency and farm profitability of agricultural systems while managing groundwater sustainably; ii) to use the DSSAT-MODFLOW modeling system in a global sensitivity analysis framework to determine the system factors (climate, soil, management, aquifer) that control crop yield and groundwater storage in a groundwater-stressed irrigated region, thereby pointing to possibilities of efficient management; and iii) to quantify the effect of groundwater conservation strategies and climate on crop yield and groundwater storage to identify irrigation and planting practices that will maintain adequate crop yield while minimizing groundwater depletion. These three objectives are applied to the hydro-agronomic system of Finney County, Kansas, which lies within the HPA. Major findings include: 1) climate-related parameters significantly affect crop yields, especially for maize and sorghum, and soybean and winter wheat yields are sensitive to a combination of cultivar genetic parameters, soil-related parameters, and climate-related parameters; 2) Climatic parameters account for 44%, 29%, 40%, and 36% variation in yield of maize, soybean, winter wheat, and sorghum; 3) Hydrogeologic parameters (aquifer hydraulic conductivity, aquifer specific yield, and riverbed conductance) have a relatively low influence on crop yields; 4) water table elevation, recharge, and irrigation pumping are considerably sensitive to soil- and climate-related parameters, while ET, river leakage, and groundwater/aquifer discharge are highly influenced by hydrogeological parameters (e.g., riverbed conductance, and specific yield); 5) the best management practice is the combination of implementing drip irrigation and planting quarter plots under both dry and wet future climate conditions. Other irrigation systems (sprinkler) and planting decisions (half-plots) can also be implemented without severe groundwater depletion. If crop yield is to be maintained in this region of the HPA, groundwater depletion can be minimized but not completely prevented. Results highlight the need for implementing new irrigation technologies, and likely changing crop type decisions (e.g., limiting corn cultivation) in coming decades in this region of the HPA. Results from this dissertation can be used in other groundwater-irrigated regions facing depletion of groundwater.Item Open Access Climate shocks, adaptation policies, and human health in developing countries: an application to India(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Kishore, Siddharth, author; Manning, Dale, advisor; Suter, Jordan, committee member; Hill, Alexandra, committee member; Pena, Anita, committee memberMy dissertation is on climate change, policy adaptation, and human health in a low-income nation. Specifically, I focus on the impact of climate change on maternal and child health in India using secondary and spatial climate data. I use an advanced econometric approach to estimate causal effects. Rural economies in developing countries revolve mainly around agriculture, and many agricultural production operations depend on monsoon rains. Food shortages due to weather-induced crop failure, and the resulting nutritional deprivation can have a negatively impact on maternal and child health. Two of my dissertation chapters are dedicated to understanding the impact of climate change on maternal and infant health. Then there are the drought-relief programs. One is a workfare program, which is very important to the developing world. One of my dissertation chapters explores how the work program may influence the use of contraceptives. My results suggest that: (1) workfare programs have an effect on the use of family planning methods for rural Indian women; (2) higher soil organic carbon moderates the adverse effect of rain shock on children's health; (3) an early childhood exposure to drought is linked to the prevalence of disability later in life. These results help us understand the impact of climate change on human health in developing countries.Item Open Access Closing the growth gap: regional entrepreneurship growth in different regions of Vietnam(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2016) Pham, Chi L., author; Weiler, Stephan, advisor; Mushinski, David, committee member; Suter, Jordan, committee memberThis paper examines the effect of provincial growth factors on regional entrepreneurship growth in Vietnam by combining theoretical and empirical models. Separate regressions are run for 63 provinces of Vietnam across the time period of 2005 to 2013. The key findings are that the growth gap between the rich and the poor regions still exists, and the strongest growth factor affecting provincial entrepreneurship growth is the market growth. There is evidence of spillover effects which implies that new firms and/or the development of a province's factors may generate new entrepreneurial opportunities not only for the province itself but also for the neighboring regions.Item Open Access Essays on local economic development and social capital(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2024) Poerbonegoro, Anna Farina, author; Weiler, Stephan, advisor; Alves Pena, Anita, advisor; Zahran, Sammy, committee member; Suter, Jordan, committee memberCreative Sector activities and social capital are interconnected in the same spectrum of local economic development, even though is not always immediately apparent. The two are related in that social capital is a product of, and simultaneously a determinant for, the Creative Sector. The three essays in this dissertation address each component separately. The first two essays examine the Creative Sector, and the third focuses on social capital. Motivated by the increasing role of the role of Creative Sector as growth driver and the economic base approach, in Chapter 1 titled Role of Creative Initiatives in Economic Performance: Case Study on Colorado's Creative Districts and Main Street Communities I examine the influence of Colorado's place-based initiative / policy on economic performance. Two dependent variables are chosen to represent performance, namely Business Establishments and Net Job Creation. In addition, sectoral employment (the Creative Sector and NAICS sector 71 (Arts, Entertainment and Recreation) and employment in sectors outside of the two) are examined as a supplement; for the placed-based policy, Creative District Certification program and the Main Street Communities program are selected, along with a set of control variables and a set of interaction terms that signify co-existence of the two policies in any particular county. The data used in estimation is a panel dataset for Colorado's 64 counties in a ten-year period (2010 – 2019). Results indicate that both place-based initiatives affect business establishments but not their birth rates, but each influence is opposite direction; co-location of the two is also playing a role, which is positive in Urban areas but negative in Rural areas. Job creation is positively influenced by the MS Communities program in the Rural region but not by Creative District certification program. Creative Sector employment is slightly negatively influenced by the initiatives; in contrast, they do not influence employment in either Sector 71 or Other Sectors. The results suggest that the two initiatives are beneficial, but each for different types of counties. Chapter 2, titled Sectoral Employment Spillover in Colorado, focuses on spatial spillover effects of employment in two leading industrial sectors – namely the Arts, Recreation and Entertainment (NAICS 71 or Sector 71) and the Creative Sectors – on employment in Other Sectors in Colorado, based on the Economic Base Theory. The analysis is performed using county-level Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) data. The study aims at answering the question of whether sectoral employment in one county affects that in a neighboring county (in other words, whether spatial correlation exists). Moreover, the analysis also examines how sectoral employment (Creative Sector and Sector 71) in one county influences employment in sectors outside the two, in different counties; this is the employment spillover question. Two variations of model specifications are tested, examined spatially and non-spatially, using lagged variables in one model and lagged log variables in another. The result suggests that overall, the two sectoral employments do influence Other Employment, but the spatial spillover is not detected. More specifically, the Creative Sector is negatively associated with the next period's employment in Other Sectors in both models. However, the significance of Sector 71 employment's relationship with employment in Other Sectors depends on how it is modeled. Social Capital is discussed in Chapter 3, County Level Social Capital in Colorado. While social capital is acknowledged as being a fuzzy concept, it embeds both demand and supply side within itself. While the demand side typically addresses how social capital affects other dimensions in economics, Chapter 3 here focuses on the supply side, by inquiring how social capital at county level in Colorado is affected by various socio-economic aspects. The discussion covers various standpoints of social capital contexts and definitions that are indicative of the fuzziness of the concept itself. Empirically, I employ a quantitative measure of social capital in the form of an index portraying civic participation (developed by Rupasingha et al. (2006)). A short panel regression was performed using a series of explanatory variables (physical infrastructure, poverty, unemployment, personal and regional incomes, education, and an economic recession). The results indicate that poverty and economic shock have the tendency to reduce social capital in Colorado in the form of civic engagement particularly in Urban regions, while larger pool of the unemployed in the society indicates a positive relationship with civic participation. Physical infrastructure, proxied by new housing permits, is negatively associated with civic participation in all three regions.Item Open Access Grazing management in Inner Mongolia, China(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2016) Byrne, Anne Teresa, author; Hadrich, Joleen, advisor; Suter, Jordan, committee member; Fernandez-Gimenez, Maria, committee memberThis thesis takes the form of two essays, both addressing issues of grazing management in Inner Mongolia, China. Inner Mongolia is home to numerous sheep and goat producers. Sheep and goat production has increased substantially in the past two decades as demand for meat in China has risen. This increase in production has placed pressure on the grasslands, leading to degradation and increased incidences of Mongolian locust outbreaks. The first essay addresses the question of economic vulnerability to grass loss. We use an equilibrium displacement model to model the livestock market in Inner Mongolia and simulate a market shock imposed by pasture grass loss. We find that herders are vulnerable to even small amounts of grass loss (~10%). The second essay addresses long term management strategies over the typical herder’s 30-year leasehold. We find that herders are better off changing their herd size from year to year in response to grass availability and that by using this strategy they can double their long-term profits.Item Embargo Long-term analysis of groundwater depletion in the High Plains Aquifer: historical, predictive, and solutions(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2024) Nozari, Soheil, author; Bailey, Ryan, advisor; Niemann, Jeffrey, committee member; Ronayne, Michael, committee member; Suter, Jordan, committee memberSemi-arid agricultural regions worldwide are heavily dependent on groundwater storage in a handful of large and over-exploited aquifers, such as the High Plains Aquifer (HPA) in the U.S. High Plains Region. The HPA, one of the world's largest freshwater aquifers, serves as the primary source of irrigation water in the High Plains Region. The socioeconomic development in the High Plains Region has come at the expense of significant groundwater depletion in the HPA. The ongoing depletion of the HPA poses risks to livelihoods of rural communities, local ecosystems, and national food security. Addressing this issue necessitates the formulation of groundwater management policies that aim to reduce groundwater extraction, while minimizing associated economic costs over a multi-generational timeframe, all in the context of climate change. To inform the formulation of effective policies, it is crucial to develop a suite of decision support tools that empower local managers and planners to assess the outcomes of various groundwater management policies amidst climate change. The primary goal of this dissertation is to enhance the capacity to project the future of groundwater systems in semi-arid agricultural areas, particularly within the High Plains Region, as a coupled human-natural system, under various groundwater management schemes in the face of climate change. To achieve this goal, a number of tools were developed that incorporate a spectrum of modeling approaches, from the increasingly popular data-driven models to the state-of-the-art hydro-economic models. First, a data-driven modeling framework was developed and tested that is fast to employ and yet provides reliable long-term groundwater level (GWL) forecasts as a function of climatic and anthropogenic factors. The modeling framework utilizes the random forests (RF) technique in combination with ordinary kriging and was tested for the HPA in Finney County, southwest Kansas. The introduction of groundwater withdrawal potential as a new surrogate for pumping intensity empowers the RF model to capture decline in groundwater depletion rate as the system progresses towards aquifer depletion and/or as a result of well retirement policies. The RF model was applied over the period from 2017 to 2099 using 20 downscaled global climate models (GCMs) for two representative concentration pathways (RCPs), RCP4.5 and RCP8.5. The findings indicate that, under status quo management and average climate conditions, the aquifer will no longer be able to sustain irrigated agriculture in most of the county by 2060. Additionally, the difference in climate scenarios will likely shift the aquifer's depletion time frame by up to 15 years in most of the study area. The long-term combined impact of well retirement plans and climate conditions on groundwater depletion trends imply well retirement policies do not lead to sustained groundwater savings. In the next step, an agent-based hydro-economic model (ABM-MODFLOW) was developed for a portion of the HPA in eastern Colorado and northwest Kansas, with the aim of addressing the current limitations of hydro-economic models. Through interdisciplinary collaboration, each component of the ABM-MODFLOW was particularly designed to meet specific research objectives. Planting and irrigation decisions were simulated in the ABM-MODFLOW using a detailed representation of real-world farmers. Additionally, well capacity was incorporated as a constraint on irrigation duration. A subsequent thorough validation of the ABM-MODFLOW was conducted to establish its credibility. The validation results indicate satisfactory performance in reproducing historical data and trends. They also reveal the ABM-MODFLOW's superiority over the standalone groundwater model in simulating the groundwater system. The historical simulation outcomes also underscore the impact of soil type on agents' profitability, especially for those with limited irrigation capacities. Overall, the highest profits are earned by agents with high irrigation capacities and fine soils, while the lowest are achieved by those with low irrigation capacities and coarse soils. Lastly, the ABM-MODFLOW was employed to project the coevolution of human activities, crops, and the groundwater system amidst climate change, both with and without policy interventions. The ABM-MODFLOW simulations involved 32 climate scenarios from 16 downscaled GCMs for two RCPs, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5. Additionally, three groundwater management policy instruments were explored: irrigated land retirement, irrigation well retirement, and authorized pump rate reduction. The simulation outcomes reveal that the groundwater depletion rate decreases over time, primarily due to rising summer temperatures from climate change that limit corn production, a water-intensive crop, in the region. Moreover, these rising temperatures hamper the economic benefits of policies, since the early conserved groundwater is predominantly used for winter wheat irrigation in the later years, a crop with substantially lower irrigation value than corn.Item Open Access Salt transport and loading in tile-drained watersheds: observations, modeling, and management(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Addab, Haider, author; Bailey, Ryan T., advisor; Grigg, Neil, committee member; Arabi, Mazdak, committee member; Suter, Jordan, committee memberTo view the abstract, please see the full text of the document.Item Open Access State correctional spending and the private prison industry(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) White, Weston, author; Pena, Anita Alves, advisor; Weiler, Stephan, committee member; Mushinski, David, committee member; Suter, Jordan, committee memberThe efficacy of using private contractors to house prisoners has been debated since the first private prison was built in the 1980's. Most of the previous research on private prison costs has focused on case study analysis and has failed to reach a conclusive decision on whether any savings accrue from contracting with private companies. This paper contributes to economic research by examining data over seventeen years across 50 states on their correctional expenditures and the percent of prisoners they have in private prisons to determine whether private prisons are actually cost saving for states to use. To do this, I make use of a fixed effects econometric model to examine if there are any savings associated with contracting out prison services. This paper also examines the effects of other factors have on correctional expenditures and with prison privatization. The results suggest that privatization has little effect on correctional expenditures and other factors impact correctional expenditures in a statistically significant degree such as poverty and the government ideology of a state.Item Open Access Three essays on institutional design for voluntary water conservation(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017) Sharp, Misti, author; Hoag, Dana, advisor; Manning, Dale, committee member; Suter, Jordan, committee member; Arabi, Mazdak, committee memberThis dissertation is a compilation of three essays on institutional issues inherent in water conservation decision making by agricultural producers. Chapter 1 includes summaries of the three papers I intend to defend and introduces some ideas and concepts visited throughout the dissertation. Chapter 2 presents the results of a multidisciplinary study on managing selenium pollution in the Lower Arkansas River Basin in Southeastern Colorado titled, "Institutional Constraints on Cost-Effective Water Management: Selenium Contamination in Colorado's Lower Arkansas River Valley." The study presents the cost-effectiveness of various management practices to mitigate selenium pollution flows simulated over twenty years using regional scale groundwater and reactive solute transport models. Social institutions, such as rules on water conservation, serve to influence decision making and alter the economic feasibility of conservation efforts. The third chapter, "Uncertainty and Technology Adoption: Lessons from the Arkansas River Valley," extends the property rights institutional concerns introduced in chapter 2 and looks specifically to how use-based property rights influence decision making for conservation irrigation technology. When an irreversible investment is made under uncertainty, there is often a delay in investment that would not be seen under the traditional Marshallian framework for investment. This study advances the literature by exploring how property rights further exacerbate this option value hurdle which serves to further delay investment under uncertain water supplies. An empirical section explores how property rights are being applied in the Arkansas River Basin and discusses the implications for future conservation efforts. Finally, the last chapter, "An Experimental Approach to Resolving Uncertainty in Water Quality Trading Markets," uses experimental economics to explore the impacts of resolving uncertainty in water quality trading market design. This paper looks at whether non-point sources would take an opportunity to resolve environmental uncertainty if there is a water quality trading market in place. Additionally, it explores the interactions between a pollution market and voluntary abatement with and without a voluntary-threat regulation.Item Open Access Three essays on invasive species management and risk(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2018) Chomphosy, William Haden, author; Weiler, Stephan, advisor; Shwiff, Stephanie, committee member; Anderson, Aaron, committee member; Iverson, Terry, committee member; Suter, Jordan, committee memberInvasive alien species (IAS) threaten global biodiversity, ecological services, and economic welfare. Over the past several decades, these growing consequences have seen broader analysis of the determinants and consequences of, as well as responses to, this environmental hazard. This dissertation employs theoretical and empirical tools, demonstrating the role of economics in the management of invasive species. The first and second chapters analyze the effect of research investment as a component of management strategy for IAS population reduction using a continuous time dynamic optimization model. Chapter 3 exploits the historical occurrence of World War I and its impact on international trade to study invasive species risk as a global externality of military conflict and geopolitical institutional shift.Item Open Access Three essays on water, pollution, and energy economics(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2021) Lurbé, Salvador, author; Manning, Dale, advisor; Burkhardt, Jesse, committee member; Suter, Jordan, committee member; Anderson, Jana, committee memberThis dissertation contains three chapters related to the economics of Water, Pollution, and Energy. In Chapter one we investigate how the demand for water responds to conservation efforts based on social comparisons, specifically if the message a household receives affects the way it responds. Using ex post power tests, we demonstrate the need for a significant increase in sample size to apply causal identification strategies to identify heterogeneous impacts using Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) that are not specifically designed to identify such effects. Alternatively, RCTs could be designed specifically to identify heterogeneous treatment effects. In Chapter 2 we quantitatively test how household electricity use in rural Rwanda responds to electricity reliability. We examine technology adoption, technology disadoption, and the quantity of electricity purchased. For each model, we focus on the association between the decisions being made and the reliability of the electricity service, which is either experienced or observed depending on whether the household has adopted the electricity technology. We find that poor electricity reliability is a barrier to initial technology adoption and is associated with short-term disadoption decisions, but does not lead to permanent disadoption. The data suggest that households are short-sighted and that households can learn from peers' experiences with the service. Our research suggests that poor electricity reliability can limit willingness to pay for electrification in rural areas of the developing world, where electricity access is lagging behind development goals. In Chapter 3 we study the effects of pollution on crime by looking at the association between pollution, specifically at Particulate Matter (PM) and Ozone (O3), and counts of aggregated crime types and Anti-social Behaviour (ASB) in the UK. We primarily focus our analysis on ASB, as the literature has identified costs associated with them in the UK, but has overlooked its association with pollution. Using a fixed effects model, we find an association between pollution and some crime types, especially those that are economically motivated. We find weaker evidence of an association between pollution and offenses associated with aggressive and violent behavior (including ASB), and we discuss potential mechanisms in the context of the rational choice crime model. We conclude that one potential mechanism could be a decrease in the utility of the non-punishable alternative activity, or a decrease of the offender's value of the future costs associated with being caught.