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The Korean agricultural sector faces increasing challenges such as an aging population, labor shortages, and the liberalization of agricultural markets. To overcome these challenges, the Korean government has striven to enhance the competitiveness of agriculture by introducing AI-based technologies to the agricultural sector, labeling this as smart farming. This study estimates farm-level benefits of adopting smart farming technologies, robotic milking systems, in Korean dairy farms. The benefits are estimated by comparing the productivity (i.e., the savings of labor input, increased calf production, and increased milk production) of adopting and non-adopting farms. Our study uses the propensity score matching method to address potential problems from confounding factors, sample selection bias, and the small number of adopters. Our results show that farms that adopted robotic milking systems produced 0.10 to 0.11 more calves per year than farms that did not adopt the system. The adopters also increased milk production by 2.44 kg to 2.88 kg per head/day, while reducing labor input by 0.15 to 0.30 per head/week. However, the reduced labor input was not statistically significant. When the analysis was extended to regard the farm characteristics, the labor input became significant from small and family-run farms. We also found that the increase in the number of calves produced per head was statically significant from small farms, family-run farms, and farms with successors. The increased milk production per head was statistically significant from large farms, farms employing hired workers, and farms with successors. Our findings suggest that the Korean government continue promoting smart farming technologies such as the robotic milking system to increase the adoption rate. The findings can also provide useful information about target markets of this technology, which can be used to increase the adoption rate and ultimately enhance the sustainability and competitiveness of the Korean dairy industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our study assesses the performance of a threshold vector error correction model (TVECM) for the analysis of spatial price transmission. We specifically determine how inference about price regimes and the process of price adjustment to the established long-run equilibrium is affected when the stochastic transaction cost is exogenously or endogenously determined in fixed and flexible threshold models. The study first generates non-stationary but cointegrated price series and transaction costs based on true price transmission parameters: percentage of violations of spatial equilibrium, speed of price adjustment, threshold and inaction band using Monte Carlo simulations. Then, the generated data are used to estimate TVECMs under various assumptions on transaction cost variation and threshold specification. Finally, estimates of price transmission parameters are compared with the true parameters to evaluate the performance of model specifications. Our results indicate that the flexible TVECM accounting for transaction cost variation outperforms the standard fixed TVECM, which is consistent with findings from many previous studies in the literature. Our study also finds that although the flexible TVECM performs better than the fixed TVECM, it may not fully address the limitation of linear models when a real-world data represents a complex nonlinearity in the spatial price transmission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study conducts a discrete choice experiment to estimate turfgrass producers' willingness to accept (WTA) values using different logit models and specifications to capture respondents' attention. We first estimate the mixed logit model and a generalized multinomial logit model with and without eye-tracking variables to demonstrate the importance of accounting for individuals' differing levels of attention during an experiment. Our study finds that marginal WTA values are biased when individuals' attention changes are not properly accounted for in the model specification. This finding leads to our second objective, to determine whether attention changes can be fully captured in the absence of eye tracking data by testing six alternative model specifications. All six models are able to detect learning and fatigue effects but are unable to fully capture changes in attention. Of the six alternative models tested, the two models that implement panel data offer more reliable and significant results, suggesting the type of data and model specification used may play an important role in diagnosing attention changes when compared to various heterogeneity models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data from the National Incidence Study (NIS) of Child Abuse and Neglect suggest no racial difference in child maltreatment, although there are more black children within the child welfare population. This study found selection bias in the NIS design caused by the exclusion of family, friends, and neighbors that resulted in differences in NIS cases and cases handled by the Child Protective Services. (DB)

This paper explores the relationship between various measures of prior victimization and indicators of both the perceived victimization risk and fear of crime. Equations are specified and estimated both for the fear of crime/perception of risk and for prior victimization. Since prior victimizations are exogenous to the determination of the current assessment of risk or fear of crime, it is possible to isolate the independent effects of victimization and extraneous factors, like racial neighborhood composition, in a recursive model structure. The analysis also examines the contribution that individual victimization and extraneous factors make to the overall gap between average victimization rates and average indicators of fear. Prior victimization explains some of the rather enormous perception of future victimization, but a sizable gap between perceived risk and actual risk remains. Much of that gap appears to be related to proximity to nonwhites, a possible proxy for racial prejudices and beliefs that nonwhite neighborhoods contribute to heightened crime., I. INTRODUCTION Economists often assume that perceptions about risky outcomes are rationally formed (Muth, 1992; Sargent, 1993). Research suggests there may be perceptional gaps between assessment of possible outcomes and [...]

This article measures the racial disparities in home ownership and home equity among preretirement-aged households. It computes the proportion of the racial gap explained by discrimination in housing and credit markets. Maximum likelihood and nonlinear least squares estimates are obtained for models of home ownership probabilities and home equity, conditional on home ownership, yielding computations for expected home equity for black and white households. The results reveal an average discriminatory gap in expected home equity as a percent of the actual gap of 55%. In the top third of the family income distribution, the measured discriminatory gap is 82%; in the middle third it is 83%; in the lowest third it is 62%. Key Words: Discrimination, Housing, Net worth, Mortgage, Credit

This study combines a discrete choice experiment and eye-tracking technology to investigate producers' preferences for sod attributes including winterkill reduction, shade tolerance, drought tolerance, salinity tolerance, and maintenance cost reduction. Our study results show that sod producers valued drought tolerance the most, followed by shade tolerance, winterkill reduction, salinity tolerance, and lastly, a 10% maintenance cost reduction. Choice survey data revealed the existence of attribute nonattendance, i.e., respondents skipped some attributes, but statistical tests detected no clear evidence about the role of individuals' attention changes on their willingness-toaccept estimates. Estimates using a scale heterogeneity multinomial logit model indicate an overall learning effect as respondents made choices in the survey. Producers' willingness-to-accept were generally higher than consumers' willingness-to-pay for the improved sod variety attributes, except for the drought tolerance attribute. However, the rankings for these attributes were the same between consumers and producers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]