For horticultural commodities, labor is necessary for post-harvest activities such as management, marketing, packing, and distribution. We create a model with pre-and post-harvest tasks and transportation network to study how a shortage in the pre-harvest labor market affects the post-harvest labor market and downstream commodity markets. Parameterized to U.S. pome and prunus industries, we find output prices are 16% greater, the prunus industry does less well adjusting, and producers benefit despite output reductions. Producers' benefit comes almost exclusively from higher prices, but decreases when the resulting post-harvest labor shortage increases spoilage along the transportation network.
In 2017, the US National Park Service faced a nearly $12 billion maintenance backlog. To address this backlog, they announced plans to increase entrance fees in 17 of the most visited parks. As fees are a component of the travel cost, we consider price change effects on demand
for park entry. Demand for the 17 parks is shown to be inelastic. Recognizing that spending in gateway communities is complementary to national park visitation, we use Yellowstone National Park as a case study on entrance fee increase effects on gateway communities. We estimate a $3.4
million annual loss in gateway community spending by visitors as a result of reduced visitation by those visitors who choose not to purchase a 7-day pass. Acknowledging the diminishing effect of the fee increase on travel costs, we further explore alternative means of structuring fees based
on examples of other countries.
Waterborne movements, one of the more economical methods of all modes of transportation, are a key component of the multimodal transportation system in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. The Columbia–Snake River system in the Pacific Northwest underwent a sustained lock outage from December 2010 to March 2011. This outage eliminated barge transportation on much of the upper Columbia River and all of the Snake River. Shippers, carriers, and ports on the river projected the impact of the loss of a major mode of transportation to be substantial and the impact on demands of other modes of transportation to be dramatic. A study done in real time took advantage of the disruption of the Columbia–Snake system to determine the dynamics of the overall process and the impacts of such a change induced by an outage. The study reported specifically on the Pacific Northwest wheat industry, 75% of downriver commodity movement. A transportation disruption like that of the extended lock outage on the Columbia–Snake River system had never occurred in the United States. The study authors were able to evaluate the logistic, economic, and environmental impacts of a sustained halt in barge transportation. Overall, Columbia–Snake River stakeholders were well prepared and managed to navigate the disruption in transportation without incurring inordinate costs at a net cost per bushel of 6 cents.
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