NATIONAL MARKETS AND THE IMPACTS OF STATE LAND USE AND ENVIRONMENTAL PROGRAMS

Land Economics/Use,

Time To Pay Back The Soil?

Iowa farmers have been cropping their land heavily for several years to meet war demands for food. Now they are beginning to think about replacing the fertility they\u27ve pulled from the soil during the heavy production years. Most farmers feel that they should be turning their land back to regular rotation. However,they don\u27t like to take this step as long as prices for corn and livestock are high

Taxing the Informal Economy: Challenges, Possibilities and Remaining Questions

Recent years have witnessed significantly increased attention to the challenge of taxing small businesses in the informal sector. However, much of this recent attention has remained focused on comparatively technical issues of revenue maximisation and policy design. This paper argues that this debate should focus increasingly on the wider development implications of informal sector taxation, as well as the political and institutional barriers to improved performance. When considering the merits of committing scarce resources to taxing small informal sector firms, debate has frequently focused on limited revenue potential, high costs of collection and potentially perverse impacts on small firms. By contrast, recent arguments have increasingly emphasised more indirect benefits of informal taxation in relation to economic growth, tax compliance and governance. These potentially broader benefits are increasingly finding support in recent research, but they are contingent on government support and consequently demand further attention. When we turn our attention away from whether tax authorities should tax small informal businesses towards the challenge of how to do so more effectively, we again argue that a broader frame of analysis is needed. Most existing research has focused on developing less distortionary tax regimes and on tax simplification in order to reduce the costs of compliance. However, while important, there strategies remain too narrow. Encouraging tax compliance demands not only lowering costs but also strengthening the potential benefits of formalisation, from increased security to new economic opportunities. As importantly, successful reform needs political support from political leaders, tax administrators and taxpayers alike. This demands greater attention to strengthening political incentives for reform, through strategic policy, administrative and institutional reform. With this in mind, the paper highlights a number of recent experiences that have sought to address these challenges, but which need further study

Optimum combinations of livestock enterprises and management practices on farms including supplementary dairy and poultry enterprises (An application of linear programming)

The object of this study is to determine (1) how scarce feed and other resources should be allocated between livestock enterprises and (2) which management practices or levels should be selected on farms producing a given feed supply. The situation selected for study is an average of 160-acre farms in northeast Iowa which have supplementary dairy and poultry enterprises (i.e., where these two enterprises are not on a large-scale or commercial basis). The cropping program on these farms results in production of 2,652 bushels of corn, 1,230 bushels of oats, 120 bushels of soybeans and 68 tons of forage from pasture and hay land. In addition, optimum programs have been worked out with only 48 tons of forage to determine the effects of restriction in this resource on enterprise combinations. Soybeans are considered to be sold for cash, while grain can be either fed to livestock or sold. Linear programming techniques are used in determining the most profitable management practices and resource allocations or enterprise combinations. In the major solutions, 43 activities or investment opportunities were included: dairy cows of above-average ability, average ability and below-average ability, each fed five different hay-grain combinations and using competitive labor; spring pigs of above-average, average and below-average efficiency; fall hogs with these same levels of efficiency; poultry with these three levels of efficiency, using competitive labor; beef cows; dairy cows as outlined above but using supplementary labor; and poultry as outlined above but using supplementary labor. Several different capital situations also were included in the optimum solutions

Principles of conservation economics and policy

The first part of this study is concerned with the application of principles of production economics to practical problems of soil conservation. The second part is devoted to the further development of the basic theory of economics of resource conservation. In the analysis of many applied problems, it is helpful to deal with soil conservation in terms of a single industry which can draw certain inputs from the outside. In this isolated industry case, conservation has a special meaning separate from the concept of competition in production between time periods. In this applied aspect it may be defined as prevention of diminution in future production on a given area of soil and from a given input of labor and capital (apart from the conservation resource input, and with the technique of production otherwise constant). In other words the economic problem is one of retaining a given production function over time. Society is confronted with two important problems with respect to the allocation of resources for soil conservation: (1) What total quantity of resources should be devoted to this end? (2) How can maximum efficiency be attained in the use of given funds? Attention in this study is devoted primarily to the second question

Inflationary Expectations and the Value of U.S. Farm Real Estate: Some Consistent Estimates

In a number of recent papers, Martin Feldstein has hypothesized that expected inflation may increase the real value of assets such as farm real estate. In this paper, simple models of the value of U.S. farm real estate were developed to test this hypothesis. Both adaptive expectations and rational interest rate-based expectations of future inflation were considered. Adaptive expectations measures for expected inflation generally suggested a negative impact of inflation on real estate value. The interest rate-based expectation measures had a positive coefficient in all cases but only in one case out of six was this coefficient significant

Pasture Improvement Costs and Returns

Much of Iowa\u27s permanent pasture is declining in productivity because of overgrazing, inroads made by brush and other factors. An unimproved pasture like that at right provides poor growth of desirable grasses and legumes and permits weeds to grow instead

Economic efficiency in pasture production and improvement in southern Iowa

Pasture crops provide an important source of income on most Corn Belt farms. On some farms of the Corn Belt, such as in southern Iowa, resources are such that income depends largely or entirely on pastures for livestock production. On these farms, earnings and the level of living of farm families may be raised measurably through better pasture improvement and management. Research in the last few decades has led to discoveries which many persons think can greatly increase returns from pasture crops. New grass and legume species and varieties have appeared which out yield older ones; they are hardier and better adapted to the weather conditions of the area. Techniques of production have been developed which increase yields and reduce risks and costs of pasture production. Farm magazines, newspapers, the extension services of state colleges, and various state and federal agencies have encouraged more widespread adoption of improved pasture practices. Many persons see, in the improved practices, an opportunity for expanding pasture acreage without reducing income

Future Crop Prices and Quantities: Influence of Alternative Crop Yields

Many people have tried to analyze what the future holds for continued increases in crop yields. After studying time series of average U.S. yields for 19 crops, Lin and Seaver [6] concluded that 12 crops including corn, cotton, and wheat have reached yield plateau, and the seven remaining crops including hay and soybeans yields have had a slowdown in their rate of growth. On the other hand, after presenting some of the possible new technologies or changes in existing technologies that could boast yields, Wittwer [15] concluded that it is reasonable to expect possible large increases in yields. Wittwer\u27s list of possible technologies included: changes in the plants\u27 ability to withstand environmental stress; changes in the plants\u27 ability to utilize fertilizer including the possibility of more plants with nitrogen fixation capabilities; increases in the plants\u27 photosynthetic efficiency; and increases in the use of chemical growth regulators. Heady [5], after reviewing a host of other studies, observed that probably the best that can be hoped for in the future is the continuation of the current absolute increases in yields