We analyse the relative competitiveness between organic and conventional farming under different policy scenarios using a DEA-based non-convex metafrontier model. This model allows us to identify a farm’s ex post optimal technology based on input-output observations. Results for Bavarian dairy...

As an alternative to the more traditional fixed-price schemes, governments can run auctions to purchase environmental services from private agents. Governments have so far chosen the discriminatory price (DP) over the uniform price (UP) format. Theoretical and experimental studies have concluded...

In order to maximize efficiency, should conversation contracts include incentive payments and also be put up for tender? This work uses laboratory experiments to investigate this question. We find that there exists an optimal share of performance payment which yields maximum total stewardship...

Buying environmental services from private landholders using auction mechanisms often involves repeated multi-unit procurement-type auctions. These can either be target-constrained or budget-constrained. Most of the theoretical literature has focused on the former, whereas government agencies...

In the recent past, risk and risk management in agriculture has risen on the agenda of farm managers. Amongst other things, the increased interest is inter alia attributed to the Capital Requirements Directives in the ‘Basel II’ agreement. In this article, we apply indicators of...

This paper employs a partial equilibrium trade model to analyse the interaction of trade and environmental policy in the context of agriculture’s multifunctionality. We formally demonstrate that free trade is suboptimal if no efficient environmental policy addressing the provision of...

This paper employs a partial equilibrium trade model to analyse the interaction of trade and environmental policy in the context of agriculture’s multifunctionality. We formally demonstrate that free trade is suboptimal if no efficient environmental policy addressing the provision of...

The present paper reviews the development of agri-environmental policy in Europe and assesses its prospects. While it does so from a predominantly UK perspective, there are many common features of the experience and policy choices across the majority of Member States. The first generation of...

<heading id="h1" level="1" implicit="yes" format="display">summary</heading><title type="document">Quantifying the Benefits of Conservation Auctions</title>Most EU conservation schemes offer a single, fixed payment for compliance with a predetermined set of management prescriptions. Alternatively, the conservation tasks could be put up for tender: landholders are invited to bid competitively...

Building on available theory, this work uses controlled laboratory experiments to investigate the budgetary and the economic performance of competitive tenders for allocating conservation contracts to landholders. Experiments have been replicated in two different countries to check for...