Browsing by Author "Ndembe, Elvis Mokake"

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Derived Demand for Grain Freight Transportation, Rail-Truck Competition, and Mode Choice and Allocative Efficiency
(North Dakota State University, 2016) Ndembe, Elvis Mokake
The demand for grain freight transportation is a derived demand; consequently changes in the grain supply chain in production and handling, and those in the transportation domain will affect the demand for grain transportation. The U.S. transportation industry (e.g. railroad and trucking), and the grain supply chain in general have witnessed structural changes over the years that have potential long-run implications for demand, intermodal competition, and grain shippers mode choices both nationally and regionally. Deregulation of the railroad and trucking industries initiated innovations (e.g. shuttle trains) that have revolutionized the way grain is marketed. These and other related trends in agriculture including bioenergy suggest a dynamic environment surrounding grain transportation and the need to revisit agricultural transportation demand and evaluate changes over time. A majority of freight demand studies are based on aggregate data (e.g. regional) due to lack of disaggregate data. Aggregation of shippers over large geographic regions leads to loss of information with potential erroneous elasticity estimates. This study develops a method to estimate transportation rates at the grain elevator level to estimate a shipper link specific cost function for barley, corn, durum, hard red spring wheat, and soybeans shippers. The aim of this study is to assess and characterize the nature of rail-truck competition for the transportation of five commodities over distance and time as well as to assess whether North Dakota grain shippers’ mode choices reflect an allocatively efficient mix assuming the choice of mode is based on shipping rates. Our findings indicate that in general, rail dominates most of the grain traffic, however, the degree of dominance is variable by commodity. Additional findings suggest that grain shippers utilize more rail than they would if they chose modes based on rates. This may suggest unmeasured service quality advantages of rail in comparison to truck.
Offsetting Behavior and the Benefits of Food Safety Policies in Vegetable Preparation and Consumption
(North Dakota State University, 2007) Ndembe, Elvis Mokake
Foodbome disease outbreaks have a tremendous impact on society, including foodbome illnesses, hospitalizations, lost work time, and deaths. These food-safety events have a significant influence in shaping consumers' perception of risk. Outbreaks of foodbome illnesses also have an effect on the development of public health policy. Due to these safety-related uncertainties in the food supply chain, various regulatory, safety, and health policies are implemented to decrease harm to potential victims. The total effect of such food-safety policies looked at in terms of reduction of foodbome illness, mortality, and food-related diseases may possibly be smaller than the forecasted effect because of failure to consider offsetting behavior. Attenuation and possibly reversal of the direct policy effect on expected injuries may arise because of offsetting behavior. This study combines both theoretical and empirical models to test the presence of dominant or partial offsetting behavior (OB) in the preparation and consumption of vegetables if a food-safety policy such as the Pathogen Reduction/Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (PR/HACCP) is mandated in the vegetable sector. Our findings indicate that food-safety information that has an effect on outrage and locus of control, both factors which have an effect on consumers' perception of risk, will lead consumers to become lax in response to this food-safety policy.