OPTIMAL AGRICULTURAL LAND PRICING POLICIES UNDER MULTIPLE EXTERNALITIES IN A GLOBAL ECONOMY

Agriculture has recently been noted as a provider of non-market environmental benefits in addition to its traditional recognition as a source of negative externalities from polluting inputs. In this paper, a general equilibrium framework is used to determine optimal land subsidies and input taxes in agriculture. When agriculture generates both amenities and pollution, the optimal subsidy does not equal the net extra-market value of agricultural land. If opened to international trade, a small economy will fully correct externalities, while large economies have an incentive to set policies at non-internalizing levels to exploit terms-of-trade effects.agricultural land use, externalities, international trade, Environmental Economics and Policy, International Relations/Trade,

Comparing the cost-effectiveness of water conservation policies in a depleting aquifer: a dynamic analysis of the Kansas High Plains

This research analyzes two groundwater conservation policies in the Kansas High Plains located within the Ogallala aquifer: 1) cost-share assistance to increase irrigation efficiency; and 2) incentive payments to convert irrigated crop production to dryland crop production. To compare the cost-effectiveness of these two policies, a dynamic model simulated a representative irrigator’s optimal technology choice, crop selection, and irrigation water use over time. The results suggest that the overall water-saving effectiveness can be improved when different policy tools are considered under different conditions. High prevailing crop prices greatly reduce irrigators’ incentive to give up irrigation and therefore cause low enrollment and ineffectiveness of the incentive payment program. In areas with low aquifer-saturated thickness, the incentive payment program is more effective, whereas in areas with relatively higher water availability, the cost-share program could be a better choice

Optimal irrigation schedules and estimation of corn yield under varying well capacities and soil moisture levels in Western Kansas

Replaced with revised version of paper 04/05/06.Crop Production/Industries,

USING THE RANDOM PARAMETERS LOGIT MODEL TO COMBINE REVEALED AND STATED PREFERENCE DATA

Recent literature has combined Revealed (RP) and Stated Preference (SP) data in the Multinomial Logit Model (MNL) to estimate the value of environmental goods. However, emerging research has identified that a limitation of the MNL is the assumption of Independently and Identically Distributed (IID) errors, resulting in inaccurate model predictions and inconsistent utility parameters. Our analysis applies an alternative method to combine RP and SP data that takes into account the heterogeneity in both the observable and unobservable components of utility. This allows us to test whether such heterogeneity has an important effect on predicting behavioral choices.Revealed and Stated Preference Data, Scale Factor, Environmental Economics and Policy,

CONTROL OF NONPOINT SOURCE POLLUTION THROUGH VOLUNTARY INCENTIVE-BASED POLICIES: AN APPLICATION TO NITRATE CONTAMINATION IN NEW YORK

A voluntary program is developed to achieve environmental goals through the self-interested choices of farmers under environmental risk and asymmetric information. Farmers behave to maximize expected net returns, and environmental quality standards are formulated through chance constraints. Because the government may not know each farmer's soil type, policy options must be self-selecting. The model is applied empirically to nitrate leaching and runoff from corn production in three New York regions. Asymmetric information between producers and the government would impose additional cost burdens on society, but these costs are modest in the context of other farm programs.Environmental Economics and Policy,

OPTIMAL LAND CONVERSION AT THE RURAL-URBAN FRINGE WITH POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE AGRICULTURAL EXTERNALITIES

Bid-rent curves are incorporated in a stochastic dynamic programming model of land development around a city when farmland generates both positive and negative externalities. The model delineates how the quantities of land in various uses over time should depend on the relative social weights assigned to the competing agricultural externalities.Land Economics/Use,

Estimating the Nonmarket Value of Green Technologies Using Partial Data Enrichment Techniques

Recent studies have suggested that green technologies may be a cost effective way to manage urban runoff. Literature has also suggests that there needs to be a greater empirical basis to estimate the benefits associated with social values associated with urban trees; we therefore estimate ecosystem benefits of green technologies using emerging data enrichment valuation methods.Environmental Economics and Policy,

Groundwater Use under Incomplete Information

In this paper, we introduce a game theoretic model of groundwater extraction in a two-cell aquifer under incomplete information. A novel assumption is that individual users have incomplete knowledge of the speed of lateral flows in the aquifer: although a user is aware that his neighbor's water use has some influence on their future water stock, they are uncertain about the degree of this impact. We find that the lack of information may either increase or decrease the rate of water use and welfare. In a two-period framework, the relevant characteristic is the ratio of the periodic marginal benefits of water use. Depending on whether this ratio is convex or concave, the average speed with which the aquifer is depleted decreases or increases when users learn more about the local hydrologic properties of groundwater. We also show that the effect of better information on the welfare of the average producer may be negative even in the situations when, on average, groundwater is allocated more efficiently across irrigation seasons.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Biofuel Boom, Aquifer Doom?

Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Evaluation of Water Conservation From More Efficient Irrigation Systems

Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,