Managed forest ecosystems—agroforestry systems in which crops such as coffee and bananas are planted side-by-side with woody perennials—are being touted as a means of safeguarding forests along with the ecological services they provide. Yet we know little about the determinants of land cover...

This study assesses the potential cost-effectiveness of incentive payment programs relative to traditional top-down regulatory programs for biological conservation. We develop site-level estimates of the opportunity cost and the nonmonetized biological benefits of protecting biodiversity...

Weather fluctuations tend to be as important as climate change in farmers’ decision making in countries such as Ethiopia that have virtually no weather insurance. This paper assesses the distinct impacts of weather and climate change measures on agricultural productivity of households,...

Particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, agriculture is predominantly rain-fed and, therefore, prone to unstable weather conditions and less productive than in other regions of the world. Increasing the efficiency and sustainability of farmer groups and cooperatives is of primary importance to many...

This paper discusses the application of a spatial-intertemporal model for tropical forest management to Khao Yai National Park in Thailand. This type of model, especially the spatial components, finds different optimal land allocations than do traditional models at empirically relevant levels of...

Shade coffee farms in Central America provide important ecological services. But because international coffee prices have fallen since 1990, many have been cleared to make way for more remunerative land uses. This problem is of particular concern in heavily deforested El Salvador, where a large...

Natural ecosystems provide a variety of benefits to society, known as “ecosystem services.” Fundamental to the provision of ecosystem services in a region is its underlying biodiversity, i.e., the wealth and variety of plants, animals, and microorganisms. Because the benefits from ecosystem...

Little is known about land cover change in mixed agroforestry systems, which often supply valuable ecological services. We use a spatial regression model to analyze clearing in El Salvador’s shade coffee–growing regions during the 1990s. Our findings buttress previous research suggesting the...

This study measures the impact of fanya juu bunds (an important soil and water conservation technology and the most popular type of contour bund in east Africa) on the value of crop production in a high-rainfall area in the Ethiopian highlands using cross-sectional multiple plot observations. We...

In the year 2000, the government of Zimbabwe launched the Fast Track Land Reform Program (FTLRP) as part of its ongoing land reform and resettlement program. It seeks to address the racially skewed land distribution pattern inherited at independence in 1980. This paper used data on beneficiaries...