NEOPOPULISM AND THE NEW AGRICULTURE

Agricultural and Food Policy,

THE CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE COMMONS DILEMMA IN NATURAL RESOURCE ECONOMICS

This paper has three basic purposes. The first is to review a rigorous framework for the analysis of commons dilemmas proposed by Dasgupta that avoids many basic faults of the usual apparatus. The second is to relate this analysis of the commons to models of external effects and public foods. Properly formulated, the commons dilemma may be considered as a choice constrained by these external effects, making it a problem of the "Second Best." The third purpose is to extend the analysis into the literature on strategic interdependence, especially problems in the economics of expectation formation. The paper concludes with a general summary of the redirections implied for both theory and empirical research in natural resource economics.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

HOW TO PAY FOR AGRICULTURAL INCOME SUPPORTS

This paper examines the impact of deficit reductions on agricultural price support spending, and proposes several policy innovations designed to remove agricultural programs from the entitlement category. First, agricultural program costs are analyzed in relation to deficit reduction requirements resulting from recent legislation. Second, price support and food stamp programs are proposed as a separate budget category to be financed through an excise tax on retail food sales. Third, the incidence of this tax on consumers is considered, and compensation for lower income groups is proposed via expanded eligibility for the food stamp program. A final section presents some conclusions for policy.Agricultural and Food Policy, Agricultural Finance,

ECONOMIC IMPLICATIONS OF WIDER COMPENSATION FOR "TAKINGS." OR, WHAT IF AGRICULTURAL POLICIES RULED THE WORLD?

Agricultural and Food Policy,

International Public Goods, Export Subsidies, and the Harmonization of Environmental Regulations

Environmental Economics and Policy, International Relations/Trade,

GLOBALIZATION AND SUSTAINABILITY: THE MACHINE IN THE GLOBAL GARDEN

Environmental Economics and Policy,

U.S. AGRICULTURAL COMPETITIVENESS AND THE 1985 FARM BILL: A PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS

Agricultural and Food Policy, International Relations/Trade,

THE ASSURANCE PROBLEM AND CONJECTURAL VARIATION IN PUBLIC GOODS PROVISION

Public Economics,

U.S. FARM POLICY: CAN FAIR BE FIXED?

In the scheme of things, the 1996 Federal Agricultural Improvement and Reform Act (FAIR) contained important breaks with a tradition of crop-by-crop subsidies dating back to the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933. It freed many producers of "program commodities" (maize, grain sorghum, wheat, barley, oats, cotton and rice) from a system of crop-specific base acre accounting, merged these accounts into a single "whole farm base," and allowed production of any but a few crops on these lands. Overall, the freedom to produce in direct response to market forces, rather than on the basis of crop-by-crop subsidies, as well as the budget discipline of predetermined payments, were important steps in the direction of decoupled lump-sum compensation. Yet from the point of view of advocates of policy reform, FAIR represents an unfinished agenda. A variety of problems and issues remain. First, the coverage of "freedom to farm" is only partial, with numerous commodities left out of the decoupling program. Second, those critical of the distributive impacts of the commodity programs find little to cheer about in the new contracts, and consider the acronym FAIR ironic. Supply responses induced by price levels in the first two years of FAIR have led to substantially lower prices and marketing receipts in 1998. A call has now gone up to resuscitate some form of safety net, such as a return to deficiency payments or an extension and increase in contract payments under the 1996 Act. It is appropriate to move now to finish the unfinished agenda of the 1996 Act by implementing a long term safety net based on some form of revenue assurance (á la Cochrane and Runge, 1992).Agricultural and Food Policy,

Better Milk than Cola: Soft Drink Taxes and Substitution Effects

Soft Drink Taxes, Obesity, Substitution effects, Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Health Economics and Policy, H, H2, H25,