Fulginiti, Lilyan E.

January, 2023

An Expected Value of Sample Information (EVSI) Approach for Estimating the Payoff from a Variable Rate Technology

By: Queiroz, Pedro W. V.; Perrin, Richard K.; Fulginiti, Lilyan E.; Bullock, David S.
This paper examines the expected payoff to variable rate technology for fertilizer application in terms of a Bayesian expectation of the value of sample information (EVSI). The optimal variable rate for each cell in a field is conditioned on a signal in the form of the electrical conductivity of soil at that cell. Using corn response to nitrogen data from ten on-farm field-level experiments, we calculate the expected payoff from variable rate technology versus a uniform rate applied to all cells to be about $1.81/acre.
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September, 2019

The Cost of Forest Preservation in the Brazilian Amazon: The “Arc of Deforestation”

By: Silva, Felipe de Figueiredo; Fulginiti, Lilyan E.; Perrin, Richard K.
We estimate the trade-off between agricultural production and forest preservation for the municipalities in Brazil's agricultural frontier, the so-called 'arc of deforestation,' using census and deforestation data for 2006. We use a nonparametric directional output distance function that allows us to identify the gradients of the production possibility frontier, which are the trade-offs of interest. We found that, on average, $979 is forgone in annual livestock, timber, and grain revenues to conserve 1 hectare of forest. This translates, ceteris paribus, to an average present value of costs to permanently sequester CO2 of $16.36/t, higher than most previous estimates.
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December, 1994

INTERVENTIONS AND PRODUCTION SECTOR WASTE IN LDC AGRICULTURE

By: Fulginiti, Lilyan E.; Perrin, Richard K.
Recent studies have revealed that less developed countries (LDCs) have been taxing their agricultural sectors at rates of 40-50%. This study uses quantity-based general equilibrium measures of deadweight loss to evaluate the cost of these distortions in 18 of these countries. The Allais-Debreu loss measures indicate that from 7-16% of either output or of the agricultural resource base has been wasted due to the associated misallocation of agricultural inputs across these countries.
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July, 1994

PRICE-CONDITIONAL TECHNOLOGY

By: Fulginiti, Lilyan E.
Economics theorists for years have considered the possibility that the direction of technical change is altered by changes in relative prices. Prices also have been identified as one of the determinants of technical change through innovation. This article extends the theory of the firm to cover situations in which the firms' technology set is conditional on expected prices. The basic idea is to distinguish between "market prices," or the prices that guide the firm's choices subject to the technology that is in place, and "normal prices," the prices conditioning the choice of technology. A "generalized" price effect is obtained that included the traditional price effect as well as the technical change effect of price changes, and an example is presented.
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