Agricultural biofuels require the use of scarce land, and this land has opportunity cost. We explore the objective function of a social planner who includes a land constraint in the optimization decision to minimize environmental cost. The results show that emissions should be measured on a per...

Biomass is being researched as a possible alternative to fossil sources of energy, in order to avoid externalities from fossil fuel use that affect the environment and the economy. Some biomass-based energy production systems may produce unwanted externalities in their own right, such as...

2010 AAEA Presidential Address; forthcoming in January 2011 AJAE in shortened version.

Among multiple slippage effects potentially generated in voluntary land retirement programs, this study attempts to identify one unique source of slippage. Specifically, I examine slippage caused by within-a-farm land conversion from uncultivated land to cropland. With the U.S. Agricultural...

This paper uses an economic catchment model to assess changes in land use, enterprise distribution, greenhouse gas emissions and nutrient loading levels from a series of policies that introduce carbon prices or nutrient reduction caps on land-based production in the Hurunui Catchment in...

There have long been concerns that federal crop insurance subsidies may significantly impact land use decisions. It is well known that classical insurance market information asymmetry problems can lead to a social excess of risky land entering crop production. Our conceptual model shows that the...

The framework conditions surrounding agricultural production in Germany have changed dramatically due to the Renewable Energy Law (EEG) and a sustained increase in agricultural prices. The Common Agricultural Policy, substantially reformed in the Luxemburg Compromise, will be considered in the...

Analyses of the impact of European policies on agricultural change are most often based on agricultural sector models. Such models have their limitations: they cannot specify the interaction between agriculture and the rest of the economy, and their spatial dimension is usually limited. Land use...

This study examined the effects of China’s grain subsidy program, the largest food self-sufficiency project in the developing countries, on grain-sown areas within a context of liquidity constraints. A large household level panel was used to evaluate how the subsidy affects the cultivation...