THE DEMAND FOR BEEF PRODUCTS: CROSS-SECTION ESTIMATION OF DEMOGRAPHIC AND ECONOMIC EFFECTS

This paper presents estimates of the economic and demographic effects on the demand for steak, roast, and ground beef. Using an almost ideal demand system, the results indicate that demand is inelastic for steak and ground beef, elastic for roast, cross-price effects are significant, and all goods are Hicks-Allen substitutes. The impact of certain demographic effects, such as household size, region, tenancy, and ethnic origin, was generally quite significant. Other demographic variables, such as employment status, shopper, and occupation, were generally not significant.Demand and Price Analysis, Livestock Production/Industries,

Correlated Resource Models of Internet End Hosts

Understanding and modelling resources of Internet end hosts is essential for the design of desktop software and Internet-distributed applications. In this paper we develop a correlated resource model of Internet end hosts based on real trace data taken from the SETI@home project. This data covers a 5-year period with statistics for 2.7 million hosts. The resource model is based on statistical analysis of host computational power, memory, and storage as well as how these resources change over time and the correlations between them. We find that resources with few discrete values (core count, memory) are well modeled by exponential laws governing the change of relative resource quantities over time. Resources with a continuous range of values are well modeled with either correlated normal distributions (processor speed for integer operations and floating point operations) or log-normal distributions (available disk space). We validate and show the utility of the models by applying them to a resource allocation problem for Internet-distributed applications, and demonstrate their value over other models. We also make our trace data and tool for automatically generating realistic Internet end hosts publicly available

A Continuation of the Women In Construction Club’s Industry Mentorship Program and a Measure of Its Effectiveness

The Women in Construction Club’s Industry Mentorship program at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly) is nearly a year old, yet the only data collected on the program was taken directly after it was created. The creation of the Industry Mentorship program, and subsequent data collection, were a previous senior project. But there were no measurements on how effective the mentorship program was, or if there was a benefit for the students involved. Because this program has the potential of creating long-lasting relationships and connecting women in a men-dominated field, knowing if the mentorship program needs to be evolved is vital. This paper delves into how beneficial the Industry Mentorship program is and what current students would do to improve the program to make it more effective. Once those responses were analyzed and implemented to improve the program

Hvorfor var boligkrakket fra august 2007 til desember 2008 av begrenset omfang i Norge? : en empirisk analyse av det norske boligmarkedet, sett i et internasjonalt og historisk perspektiv

The main purpose of this master thesis is to investigate the current Norwegian housing market in an international and historical perspective. In particular we investigate the housing market crash that occurred in the Norwegian housing market during the period August 2007 to December 2008, and attempt to uncover important factors that explain why the housing market crash was of so little extent. In addition, we examine whether there is a housing bubble in the Norwegian housing market today. The most important factors that explain why the housing market crash was of so little extent in Norway are: * The financial crisis was not as deep and long lasting as many feared. The use of financial rescue packages had an instant positive impact. * Interest rate reductions combined with a low share of fixed-rate loans. * Norwegian banks’ relatively strict lending policy. * The tax subsidy attached to the purchase of houses. * High general standard of living. * Norwegian households’ positive future expectations (especially related to future wage inflation). In the analysis we find that various factors suggest there is a housing bubble in the Norwegian housing market today. Both developments in real house prices and estimated P/R coefficients support this suggestion. But we cannot find any significant evidence to suggest an imminent bubble crack

Methods to Measure Importance of Data Attributes to Consumers of Information Products

Errors in data sources of information product (IP) manufacturing systems can degrade overall IP quality as perceived by consumers. Data defects from inputs propagate throughout the IP manufacturing process. Information Quality (IQ) research has focused on improving the quality of inputs to mitigate error propagation and ensure an IP will be fit for use by consumers. However, the feedback loop from IP consumers to IP producers is often incomplete since the overall quality of the IP is not based solely on quality of inputs but rather by the IP’s fitness for use as a whole. It remains uncertain that high quality inputs directly correlate to a high quality IP. The methods proposed in this paper investigate the effects of intentionally decreasing, or disrupting, quality of inputs, measuring the consumers\u27 evaluations as compared to an undisrupted IP, and proposes scenarios illustrating the advantage of these methods over traditional survey methods. Fitness for use may then be increased using those attributes deemed “important” by consumers in future IP revisions

Willingness-to-pay for Crime Control Programs in Norway: Preferences and Attitudes towards Crime and Crime Reduction.

Master's thesis in Economic analysisIn this pilot study, we use the contingent valuation (CV) method to investigate Norwegians willingness to pay (WTP) for crime control programs. The CV method is well known in the environmental economics literature, and has later also been used to estimate the intangible costs of crime. There is a lack of knowledge about the costs of crime in Norway, and especially about the intangible costs which can be argued to constitute the biggest part of the costs and be the most damaging for the victims. We explore Norwegians attitudes, preferences and knowledge about crime as well as the willingness to pay to reduce the risk of being a victim of crime. This is done by conducting a survey of 394 respondents. To be more precise, the willingness to pay for crime control programs reducing 30 % of rape- and sexual offences, theft and white-collar crime. In this thesis, we find that the average Norwegian is willing to pay 1142 NOK to reduce rape, 647 NOK to reduce theft and 614 NOK to reduce white-collar crime each year. This yields an aggregate WTP of 1.373 million NOK per rape, 13588 NOK per theft and 61222 NOK per white-collar crime. WTP in general increases with income, consistent with economic theory. Furthermore, 66.49 % of the respondents believe that the general penalty level in Norway is too low and that people in general consider crime policy as an important priority in national budgets

Inferences in Log-Rate Models

Log-Rate models are used in analyzing rates of individuals who are exposed to a risk of having a certain characteristic. The explanatory variables could be categorical or in a continuous scale. In finding a Log-Rate Model, parameters are estimated and goodness-of-fit are studied to carefully extract the best model to fit our data. Here we revisit three aspects of Log-Rate Models using the data set give at the end of the paper. The three aspects are parameter estimation, goodness-of-fit of the model, and marginal effect of the factors