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The South Korean livestock industry has increased in scale and production, generating positive impacts on the national economy. However, livestock externalities, primarily malodor, have subsequently led to increased conflicts between producers and affected communities. This study estimated Korean households’ willingness-to-pay (WTP) for government subsidies to help address livestock malodor using a contingent valuation method (CVM) derived from a double-bounded dichotomous choice model. The annual average household WTP was estimated at 29,206 Korean won (KRW) (USD 25). This was slightly higher than the respondents’ self-reported average amount of KRW 25,457 (USD 22). The estimated economic value nationally is KRW 628 billion (USD 546 million) annually, for a total of KRW 3.14 trillion (USD 2.73 billion) over a proposed five-year period. The public’s estimated WTP can be leveraged to improve livestock management practices, more efficient waste disposal techniques, and improved husbandry methods to address conflicts between producers and surrounding communities.

Evaluating the effectiveness of government programs is an important topic for economic developers. One popular example is the U.S. Economic Development Administration’s (EDA) Public Works Program, initially established in 1965. Haughwout (1999) found a significant positive impact of EDA public works projects completed in 1990 on county-level employment over the period 1990 to 1994. The authors reexamine whether this effect continues to hold 20 years later by replicating Haughwout’s specification using data from 2010 to 2014. The results are consistent with those originally reported by Haughwout. The authors then extend the analysis by incorporating a spatial econometric approach to examine the existence of potential spillover effects. The results indicate that EDA investments have a significant positive effect on both targeted and neighboring counties’ employment. The findings suggest that public infrastructure investments can be important tools for economic development by positively influencing employment in both the recipient county and neighboring counties.

Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) outbreaks are a threat to human health and cause extremely large financial losses to the poultry industry due to containment measures. Determining the most effective control measures, especially the culling radius, to minimize economic impacts yet contain the spread of HPAI is of great importance. This study examines the factors influencing the probability of a farm being infected with HPAI during the 2016–2017 HPAI outbreak in Korea. Using a spatial random effects logistic model, only a few factors commonly associated with a higher risk of HPAI infection were significant. Interestingly, most density-related factors, poultry and farm, were not significantly associated with a higher risk of HPAI infection. The effective culling radius was determined to be two ranges: 0.5–2.2 km and 2.7–3.0 km. This suggests that the spatial heterogeneity, due to local characteristics and/or the characteristics of the HPAI virus(es) involved, should be considered to determine the most effective culling radius in each region. These findings will help strengthen biosecurity control measures at the farm level and enable authorities to quickly respond to HPAI outbreaks with effective countermeasures to suppress the spread of HPAI.

This paper examines the effects of regional characteristics on the spread of the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) during Korea’s 2016–2017 outbreak. A spatial econometric model is used to determine the effects of regional characteristics on HPAI dispersion using data from 162 counties in Korea. Results indicate the existence of spatial dependence, suggesting that the occurrence of HPAI in a county is significantly influenced by neighboring counties. We found that larger size poultry, including laying hens, breeders, and ducks are significantly associated with a greater incidence of HPAI. Among poultry, we found ducks as the greatest source of the spread of HPAI. Our findings suggest that those regions that are spatially dependent with respect to the spread of HPAI, such as counties that intensively breed ducks, should be the focus of surveillance to prevent future epidemics of HPAI.

This study analyzes the self-reported intake of dietary supplements (DS) and their effects on perceived health well-being from a survey with 1210 adult respondents in Korea. To account for selectivity bias from observable confounders, we use a propensity score matching (PSM) model. Our findings show that demographics, health concerns, family history of disease, frequency of hospital visits, and regular exercise are positively associated with intake of DS among consumers. Results from PSM show that the intake of DS leads to significant improvements in perceived health well-being among DS takers relative to DS non-takers regardless of gender, urban residence, having self-reported diseases or not. The paper concludes with implications for policies that promote intake of DS in Korea.

Supplemental material, EDQ_930274_Appendix for Estimating the Impacts of EDA Public Works Program Investments on County Employment by Kwideok Han, Brian Whitacre and Inbae Ji in Economic Development Quarterly

This study estimates the oligopsony power in the U.S. cattle procurement market in consideration of market structure of beef-packing industry, cattle supply, and seasonality. Our conceptual model represents a price-setting monopsonist competing with multiple monopsonists, and the corresponding empirical model includes a time-varying parameter framework so that it can trace the change in packers’ imperfect competition behavior in the cattle procurement market over time. The empirical model is applied to three cattle procurement markets in the United States: national, Nebraska, and Texas/Oklahoma/New Mexico. Empirical results show the existence of oligopsony market power in the U.S. cattle procurement market. The oligopsony market power is considerably influenced by cattle cycle and seasonality, which indicates that packers tend to increase their margin during the excessive cattle supply period while maintaining lower margin during the short cattle supply period. [EconLit citations: D43, L11, L13, Q13].