Applications of Applied Econometrics in the Food and Health Economic and Agribusiness Topics

This dissertation consists of three essays in Applied Econometrics that seek a better understanding of different aspects of risk and risk management tools. The first essay is about mortality risk in Virginia coal regions. With a focus on the mortality of non-malignant respiratory diseases (NMRD), I estimate the impact of living in a coal county and find that coal-mining county residency significantly increases the probability of dying from NMRD. This statistical association is accentuated by surface coal mining, high smoking rates, lower health insurance coverage, and a shortage of doctors. The second essay evaluates the cost of a price risk management tool called futures hedging. A variety of measures illustrate considerable changes in hedging costs over time. Quantile regression results show that substantial price volatility and high margin requirements are the main factors driving high hedging costs from 2007 to 2013. The third paper investigates a health risk management tool, a public health insurance program in China called New Cooperative Medical Scheme (NCMS). I apply contract theory to characterize local governments' selective incentives in NCMS benefit designs. Empirical analysis of China Health and Nutrition Survey data indicate challenges of financial sustainability of this scheme in poor regions. The NCMS plan tends to under-cover the services that are moderately predictable and negatively correlated with plan profits, such as outpatient treatments. Preventive services are generally over-provided, perhaps due to the incentive to attract healthy participants.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Economics, Agriculture and Life Sciences

Department dc:contributor.department

Economics

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2019

Author dc:creator

• Shi, Ruoding

Chairs dc:contributor.committeechair

• You, Wen
• Davis, George C.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Morgan, Kimberly L.
• Meacham, Susan Louise
• Isengildina Massa, Olga

• Health disparity
• Hedging Cost
• Health Insurance

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language.iso

en

Dc Identifier Other

vt_gsexam:22819

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/103197