The purpose of this paper is to analyse land allocation between competing agri-environmentalcontracts taking into account institutional issues and farm household and farm characteristics. Weconsider a Biodiversity Protection Contract, Landscape Management Contract and a Restriction onIntensive...

Replaced with revised version of paper 07/29/10.

This thesis consists of three chapters on the choice of institutional governance. The first chapter provides empirical evidence on the effect of local norms on the contractual choice, using a comprehensive dataset on US agricultural leasing contracts. We focus on the choice between cash-rent and...

A crucial factor in the success of any water quality trading market is its ability to cost-effectivelyreallocate nutrient allowances from initial holders to those users who find them most valuable;the market's trading efficiency. We explore causes of and solutions to trading inefficiency...

On November 8, 1996, various Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials, scholars and industry representatives gathered at Resources for the Future (RFF) to examine the EPA's method for classifying private SO2 allowance transactions by the Allowance Tracking System (ATS). The one-day...

Much of the extensive empirical literature on insurance markets hasfocused on whether adverse selection can be detected. Once detected, however, therehas been little attempt to quantify its welfare cost, or to assess whether and whatpotential government interventions may reduce these costs. To...

Firms increasingly look outside their organizational boundaries to identify partners that can improve the effectiveness of R&D projects. The strategy for using partners, however, varies significantly across projects. In some, partners are used primarily to lower development costs and/or...

It is well known from the compliance literature that whenever it costly tomonitor agents' compliance to contract terms, compliance is likely to beincomplete. This paper goes one step further by examining the implications ofincomplete monitoring on agent's sales offers in auctions for...

Tackling the problem of ecosystem services degradation is an important policy challenge. Different types of economic instruments have been employed by conservation agencies to meet this challenge. Notable among them are Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) schemes that pay private landowners to...

Healthy growth towards sustainability requires evaluation methods that incorporate ecological and economic effects. Evaluating ecological effects in monetary terms would permit the use of Cost-Benefit Analysis. Major methodological difficulties hamper use of this approach. In this paper an...