Download or read book ESSAYS ON AGRICULTURAL RISK MANAGEMENT AND WATER USE; AND RECREATIONAL FISHING PARTICIPATION AFTER ECOLOGICAL DISRUPTION BY AN INVASIVE SPECIES. written by Truong Nhut Chau and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation contains three essays. The first two essays pertain to the relationship between crop insurance and irrigation management decisions in U.S. agriculture. Irrigation is used as a tool to mitigate the risks of insufficient rainfall and accounts for the majority of water consumption among all water uses. Given growing concerns of future water resource reliability in many areas of the U.S., it is important to understand the relationship between other agricultural risk management strategies and irrigation. The first essay examines how changes in crop insurance coverage affect irrigated land use. This essay takes advantage of major changes in federal crop insurance policy in the mid-1990s. It utilizes an instrumental variable approach to identify the effects of coverage on irrigated land use decisions. The results indicate that increases in coverage, measured as premium per acre, increase the area of irrigated cropland by Western irrigators. In the East, increased coverage is found to decrease the number of irrigated acres.To better understand the relationship between crop insurance and agricultural water demand, the second essay uses producer-level data from 2003-2013 to estimate coverage effects on water use. The results indicate that an increase in coverage decreases the water application rate, reducing total water use for Western producers. For Eastern producers, the relationship between coverage and irrigation is positive but insignificant. This study provides further evidence to suggest that ignoring regional differences can mask the true relationship between coverage and irrigation decisions. The third essay examines the relationship between invasive Asian carp and recreational fishing participation. Bighead (Hypophthalmichthys nobilis) and Silver (Hypophthalmichthys molitrix) carp, commonly known as Asian carp, are aquatic invasive species that have spread throughout the Mississippi River System. Asian carp have the potential to alter local aquatic ecosystems with negative implications on recreational activities. This study examines the impact that Asian carp has had on recreational fishing participation in states where the carp have become established. After controlling for state-specific linear trends, generalized Difference-in-Difference estimates indicate that the presence of Asian carp has not had any causal effect on recreational angling activity, either as measured by fishing license sales or by days spent fishing. Both wild cluster and moving block bootstraps are implemented to correct for potentially biased variance estimates under finite cluster properties.