The Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Agriculture are promoting point/nonpoint trading as a way of reducing the costs of meeting water quality goals while giving nonpoint sources a larger role in meeting those goals. Farms can create offsets or credits in a...

There is much interest among economists and policy makers in the use of reverse auctions to purchase habitat conservation on private lands as a mechanism for minimizing public expenditures to achieve desired conservation outcomes. Examples are the Conservation Reserve Program (US) and...