The existing empirical literature on farmers' use of soil-conserving, runoff-reducing farming practices, while sizable, contains relatively little information on the influence of cost on adoption decisions and on how farmers combine multiple practices into an overall conservation package. Such...

We develop a model of regulation of environmental risks in a heterogeneousindustry when policy makers are sensitive to uncertainties about the processes generating the risks. Optimal source reduction capacity is shown to vary according to site suitability. Optimal source reduction capacity and...

While there is current interest in reorienting agricultural policy toward environmental and resource conservation goals, relatively little is known about the influence of cost on conservation adoption decisions or about how farmers combine multiple practices into an overall conservation package....

Policy discussions of agricultural pollution problems characterize prevention as more cost effective and precautionary than ex post treatment. We derive conditions under which treatment alone is more cost effective in situations involving multiple sources of emissions, multiple sites affected,...

Heterogeneity of agricultural landscapes may necessitate the use of spatially targeted instrument combinations to implement the social optimum. But compliance with these policies may require costly enforcement. This paper examines the design of agri-environmental policies featuring two of the...

Rapid urbanization enhances the desirability of policies for preserving open space but policies intended to preserve open space may extend the urban boundary and create leapfrog development. We investigate this potential conflict between open space preservation and urban sprawl conceptually and...

State and federal regulators have been considering making livestock integrators jointly responsible with growers for waste disposal. We show that joint responsibility will generally be efficient when contracts are structured to address problems of grower moral hazard. But joint responsibility...

The existing empirical literature on farmers' use of soil-conserving, runoff-reducing farming practices, while sizable, contains relatively little information on the influence of cost on adoption decisions and on how farmers combine multiple practices into an overall conservation package. Such...

The distinctive nature of environmental quality problems in agriculturean industry based on the extraction of highly variable natural resources under stochastic conditionshas important implications for policy design. First, we examine the source of environmental quality problems and the strength...