Market Strategies for a Tobacco Bio-Pharming Application: The Case of Gaucher's Disease Treatment

Small firms developing biotechnology applications often focus on establishing intellectual property rights, which can then be sold to more established firms with existing market chains. This paper explores the expected 'Buyout' price and economic surplus changes for an emerging bio-pharming application with transgenic tobacco. The results suggest a 'Buyout' price of about $1.75 billion. Yet despite this potentially large payout to the innovating firm, consumers also see significant surplus gains.Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Tractors on eBay and Farmers and Consumers Market Bulletin: An Analysis on the Determinants of Price and Price Differences

We investigate the determinants of price for tractor auctions on eBay and tractors that are listed in the Farmers and Consumers Market Bulletin (FCMB) in Georgia. Surprisingly, seller reputation is not an important factor while engine hours and the presence of air conditioning appear to influence price on eBay auctions. On average prices for tractors that sold on eBay are not different than those on FCMB. The analysis also suggests that farmers may benefit from the use of online venues.Internet auctions, farm machinery, local listings., Agribusiness, Industrial Organization, D82, L14,

Human Capital Formation in Rural America: Differences between Rural and Urban High School Dropouts

Community/Rural/Urban Development, Labor and Human Capital,

Do Rural Community Colleges Supply Unique Educational Benefits?

Community colleges likely draw to college individuals who would otherwise not attend due to their low costs and open admission requirements. This is labeled as the democratization effect. They may also divert individuals away from 4-year to terminal 2-year college degrees (the diversion effect). This study estimates democratization and diversion effects separately for nonmetropolitan and metropolitan youth using nationally representative data and models that account for endogenous institution selection. We find the democratization effect to exceed the diversion effect of community colleges for both metro and nonmetro youth. The democratization-diversion ratio is slightly higher for urban youth.rural, colleges, education, diversion, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession, I21, R0,

On Rural-Urban Differences in Human Capital Formation: Finding the ‘Bottlenecks’

Studies have found lower levels of educational achievement for students in rural areas focusing mostly on cross-sectional data. Using the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, we follow the same youth cohort to examine whether there are metro-nonmetro gaps in high cognitive achievement, high school graduation, college readiness, degree attainment, and earnings. We find that gaps emerge early in life and they remain constant through high school.In addition,results suggest that rural students graduate from high school at the same rate as their urban counterparts, but they fall behind when it comes to college graduation rates. Growing up in a rural area does not seem to impose a wage penalty beyond the lower earnings operating through cognitive test performance and college degree attainment