Dutch coastal land markets are characterized by high amenity values but are threatened by potential coastal hazards, leading to high potential damage costs from flooding. Yet, Dutch residents generally perceive low or no flood risk. Using an agent-based land market model and Dutch survey data on risk perceptions and location preferences, this paper explores the patterns of land development and land rents produced by buyers with low, highly skewed risk perceptions. We find that, compared to representative agent and uniform risk perception models, the skewed risk perception distribution produces substantially more, high-valued development in risky coastal zones, potentially creating economically significant risks triggered by the current Dutch flood protection policy.

We estimate an error correction model representing demand for leafy green vegetables but generalize the structure to allow for adjustment to one conspicuous shock. We investigate whether the adjustment rate to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) 2006 warning that fresh spinach was contaminated with deadly bacteria was distinct from the overall adjustment rate. Our model allows consumers to correct both for past errors and for any errors in their reaction to the shock. This method yields an estimate of the adjustment rate to the policy shock and points to an improved estimate of the duration of policy impacts.

Forest managers in developing countries enforce extraction restrictions to limit forest degradation. In response, villagers may displace some of their extraction to other forests, which generates “leakage” of degradation. Managers also implement poverty alleviation projects to compensate for lost resource access or to induce conservation. We develop a model of spatial joint production of bees and fuelwood that is based on forest-compatible projects such as beekeeping in Thailand, Tanzania, and Mexico. We demonstrate that managers can better determine the amount and pattern of degradation by choosing the location of both enforcement and the forest-based activity.

Data from the 2006 Agricultural Resource Management Survey and multivariate regression procedures are used to examine the role of human capital in impacting the incomes of farm households. The paper uses an “adjusted” concept of income where government payments are subtracted from total household income thus allowing for the utilization of government payments as a potential control variable in the regression models. Findings indicate a significant and positive role for higher education except for farm households at the very lower and upper ends of the income distribution.

Nitrous oxide is a powerful greenhouse gas that is emitted from cropland treated with nitrogen fertilizer. Reducing such emissions through nutrient management might be able to produce offsets for sale in a cap and trade program aimed at reducing greenhouse gases. We use the Nitrate Leaching and Economic Analysis Program (NLEAP) model and data from the Agricultural and Resource Management Survey to examine what changes in rate, timing, or method of application a farmer would take to produce offsets. We find that reducing the application rate is the most favored approach for producing offsets. We also find that some management choices may increase nitrate losses to water.

A mixed-integer linear programming model was formulated to minimize the cost of transport and processing of excess manure in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The results showed that primarily poultry manure was moved out of surplus counties for land application or processing. In the base model, annual cost was more than $350 million, with the bulk of the cost arising from construction of energy facilities for poultry manure. Forestland application of poultry manure had the lowest average cost, and more forestland than agricultural land was used for manure application. The lowest cost scenario was $127 million annually when constraints were removed to expand manure application on agricultural land and allow unlimited construction of composting facilities. Such a low-cost solution could not realistically be implemented without further development of markets for compost.

This paper extends first-best analysis of anti-sprawl policies, such as development taxes, and examines the welfare effects of development taxes in the presence of urban decline at the city core. We find that anti-sprawl policies generate several important feedbacks within the urban system, generating additional welfare gains and affecting the level of urban decline and suburban sprawl. Further, the optimal development tax exceeds the (first-best) Pigouvian level, irrespective of whether or not revenues are returned lump-sum to all landowners or earmarked for urban decline mitigation.

Policymakers in the Brazilian Amazon face the challenge of meeting environmental and developmental goals as cities and towns within these tropical forests continue to face migration pressure. Alternative government planning strategies have been implemented to address forest clearing in conjunction with meeting social agendas. This paper uses panel estimation methods to investigate the impact of settlement design on land use. Results indicate that new settlement designs developed to further social interaction have had a negative impact on land cover and land use transformation. Thus, while new settlement designs appear to positively impact stated social goals, including greater contact between families and access to water and services, these social advances have come at the expense of environmental goals.

This study used 30 years of continuous data for 135 farms in Kansas to explore changes in productivity using Malmquist productivity indices (MPI). The indices were used to determine whether there was productivity convergence or divergence in Kansas farms. The results showed there was significant divergence among the farms. The average annual productivity growth was 0.50 percent; the top farms based on MPI were larger in terms of value of farm production, crop farm income, and livestock farm income and received a larger percentage of their income from oilseeds, feed grains, and swine than the other farms on average.

Many studies on the adoption of precision technologies have generally used logit models to explain the adoption behavior of individuals. This study investigates factors affecting the intensity of precision agriculture technologies adopted by cotton farmers. Particular attention is given to the role of spatial yield variability on the number of precision farming technologies adopted, using a count data estimation procedure and farm-level data. Results indicate that farmers with more within-field yield variability adopted a higher number of precision agriculture technologies. Younger and better educated producers and the number of precision agriculture technologies used were significantly correlated. Finally, farmers using computers for management decisions also adopted a higher number of precision agriculture technologies.

Off-farm income as a share of total farm household income has been increasing. Previous studies found inconsistent results regarding the impact of off-farm income on adoption of conservation practices. We test the hypothesis that off-farm employment has a positive impact on adoption of capital incentive practices and a negative impact on adoption of labor-intensive practices. The results confirm that adoption of injecting manure into the soil, a capitalintensive practice, is positively and significantly impacted by off-farm employment of the operator. However, off-farm employment variables had no effect on adoption of record keeping.

This study examines the drivers of land use in a shifting cultivation system with forest fallow. Forest fallow provides on-farm soil quality benefits, local hydrological regulation, and global public goods. An optimal control model demonstrates that farmers have an incentive to fallow less than is socially optimal, though market failures limiting crop production can have a countervailing effect by encouraging fallow. An econometric model estimated using data from the Brazilian Amazon suggests that fallowing does not result from internalization of local fallow services but instead is associated with poor market access and labor and liquidity constraints.

Precision farming information demanded by cotton producers is provided by various suppliers, including consultants, farm input dealerships, University Extension systems, and media sources. Factors associated with the decisions to select among information sources to search for precision farming information are analyzed using a multivariate probit regression accounting for correlation among the different selection decisions. Factors influencing these decisions are age, education, and income. These findings should be valuable to precision farming information providers who may be able to better meet their target clientele needs.