Most economic studies of pollution control analyze policies that are optimal for a given set of underlying parameters. Less understood is how such policies perform when the underlying parameters change and policies are not adjusted in response, or what the benefits of adjustment are. We...

We develop a watershed-based model of green payments to examine how payments applied to different environmental performance measures compare on the basis of economic efficiency, equity, and environmental outcomes. We also explore how targeting in the specification of water quality goals (e.g.,...

We investigate second-best, input-based taxes foragricultural nonpoint pollution control when marketprices are endogenous and production isheterogeneous. Theoretically, we derive the optimalforms of taxes which take account of heterogeneity(non-uniform taxes) and a tax which does not (auniform...

Agricultural nonpoint pollution is inherently stochastic (e.g., due to weather). In theory, this randomness has implications for the choice and design of policy instruments. However, very few empirical studies have modeled natural variability. This paper investigates the importance of stochastic...

We analyze how choosing to use a particular type of instrument for agri-environmental payments, when these payments are constrained by the regulatory authority's budget, implies an underlying targeting criterion with respect to costs, benefits, participation, and income, and the tradeoffs among...

Conventional wisdom holds that optimal abatement subsidy rates should be differentiated across firms according to the (actual or imputed) marginal damages created by a firm’s emissions. When subsidy rates are developed under a limited budget, we find they may be optimally differentiated to...