As provincial governments in Canada trim budgets, fewer funds are available for environmental conservation programs. Many jurisdictions are letting private interests and/or users of the resource base help fund conservation projects. Thus funding for conservation is becoming more dependent on...

We examine the propensity of respondents to choose the status quo (SQ) or current situation alternative as a function of complexity in two separate state-of-the-world choice experiments. Complexity in each choice set was characterized as the number of single and multiple changes in levels of...

While the compensatory model of choice dominates the environmental valuation literature, non-compensatory models, where individuals do not tradeoff one attribute for another, are sometimes found to be better representations of choice behavior. Most non-compensatory models employ “cutoffs”,...

This paper explores an optimal sharing contract between a grape grower and a winery, when a risk-averse grower allocates efforts among multiple activities that differe in measurability, while double-sided moral hazard is assumed to be present. The contract allows for asymmetric quality...

Following the May 2003 Canadian BSE case, food safety issues have become even more prominent to policymakers and consumers. In both Canada and the US, governments and industry have responded with a variety of quality assurance, traceability and labeling schemes. However, there is little...

This paper examines alternative risk management strategies in terms of their effectiveness for three representative Alberta farm operations. Stochastic dynamic simulation methods are used to model financial performance for these farms, and alternative risk management programs are compared in...