EMPIRICISM AND THE ART OF TEACHING

Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

THE SOUTHERN AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS ASSOCIATION AND RESIDENT INSTRUCTION

Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

ENERGY EFFICIENCY IN FOOD PROCESSING IN THE SOUTHERN REGION

Agribusiness,

CHARACTERISTICS OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS UNDERGRADUATE ADVISING IN THE WESTERN REGION

The quality of faculty advising has been a source of concern among students and faculty. As an initial attempt at addressing these concerns this paper summarizes the results of a faculty advising study in undergraduate agricultural economics programs. Various advising program characteristics among western schools are discussed and contrasted to schools in other regions. Interregional and interdepartmental variation was found in advisor resource allocation, advising program implementation, rewards and priorities, and evaluations of advising quality. Despite larger enrollments, smaller advising budgets, less support and lower rewards for advising, schools in the West reported advising quality comparable if not superior to that in other regions.Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

TEACHING CONSUMER ECONOMICS USING TASTE PANELS

Consumer/Household Economics,

RESEARCH PRODUCTIVITY AND SELECTED CHARACTERISTICS OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS RESEARCH AND TEACHING FACULTY IN THE SOUTHERN REGION

Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

ASSESSMENT OF JOURNALS USED BY AGRICULTURAL ECONOMISTS AT LAND-GRANT UNIVERSITIES

Agricultural economists at land-grant universities were surveyed to evaluate the use and assessment of professional journals. Faculty rankings of journals are reported along with faculty perceptions of changes in the quality of selected journals. Of 25 journals used by agricultural economics faculties, the Southern Journal of Agricultural Economics ranked first among regional agricultural economics journals in personal usefulness, subscriptions held, papers submitted, papers published, and participation in the editorial and review processes. The SJAE was also ranked as the second most improved journal among all journals evaluated.Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

QUASI-EXPERIMENTAL DESIGNS FOR MEASURING IMPACTS OF DEVELOPMENTAL HIGHWAYS IN RURAL AREAS

Quasi-experimental techniques were developed to provide decision-making tools for documenting the impacts of developmental highways in rural areas. Regression discontinuity analysis (RDA) with limited observations was used to compare economic changes in highway counties to those in adjacent and non-adjacent control counties. The RDA models found statistically significant changes in population, per capita income, and taxable sales related to highway development. The study found that some counties benefited from developmental highways, some were unchanged, while some experienced economic decline. RDA models with adjacent controls had better explanatory powers while those with non-adjacent controls were more sensitive to highway-related changes in economic activity. When significant non-highway activities were present, adjacent control models may have understated highway-related impacts, while non-adjacent control models may have overstated these impacts. Arguments for using adjacent and non-adjacent experimental designs are discussed.Community/Rural/Urban Development,

MARKET FAILURE IN MULTIPHASE ELECTRIC POWER DEVELOPMENT FOR AGRICULTURAL IRRIGATION

The adoption of multiphase electric power for electric irrigation has been limited in an area characterized by extremely rapid expansion of irrigated acreage despite production cost advantages. Theoretical and empirical evidence of failure in the existing market for multiphase power development are presented. Alternative development mechanisms are presented and discussed.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,