evaluation of drought management in irrigated areas this paper focuses on the economic consequences of droughts for the irrigation sector we develop a dynamic recursive mathematical programming farm model that assumes imperfect mobility of capital and labour as well as rational expectations about future water availability the model is calibrated to 12 representative farms belonging to three irrigation communities of the guadalquivir basin south spain and used to simulate the 1991 1997 period which included 3 years of intense drought results indicate that the drought imposed significant costs on farmers but show also that water managers partly exacerbated these costs by allocating excessive amounts of water to irrigators in the abundant years the model is also used to evaluate the benefits of a perfect water supply forecast and to simulate the economic gains of a voluntary water banking scheme results show that the benefits resulting from the perfect forecast of water supply 1 year ahead would represent a relative gain of 5 however a voluntary banking system would allow farmers to increase their benefits by 32 82 depending on the supply system

general equilibrium modelling of the direct and indirect economic impacts of water quality improvements in the netherlands at national and river basin scale abstract the main objective of the study presented in this paper is to estimate the direct and indirect economic impacts of water quality policy scenarios in the netherlands focusing on the reduction of emission levels of nutrients and a number of eco toxicological substances for this purpose an applied general equilibrium age model consisting of 27 production sectors is extended to water through the inclusion of substitution elasticities between labour capital and emissions to water in the sectors production functions the macro economic costs of a 10 20 and 50 reduction of the emission levels in the year 2000 of ten priority substances in the eu water framework directive vary between 0 2 and 9 4 of net national income nni a large share of the total economic costs are borne by important sources of pollution like commercial shipping the chemical and metal industry however important spin off effects due to adaptation take place in the tertiary service sector besides the estimation of the economy wide impacts of water quality improvements the novelty of the study presented here is found in the downscaling of national and sector results to river basin level and the estimation of shadow prices for water polluting substances through the introduction of an emission permits market

are we risking too much perspectives on risk in farm modelling risk and uncertainty have been extensively studied by agricultural economists in this paper we question a the predominant use of static frameworks to formally analyse risk b the predominant focus on risk aversion as the motivation for considering risk and c the notion that explicitly probabilistic models are likely to be helpful to farmers in their decision making we pose the question for a risk averse farmer what is the extra value of a recommendation derived from a model that represents risk aversion compared to a model based on risk neutrality the conclusion reached is that for the types of the decision problems most commonly modelled by agricultural economists the extra value of representing risk aversion is commonly very little

water pricing policies public decision making and farmers response implications for water policy abstract the problems caused by water scarcity demand important changes in the criteria and objectives of water policies the agricultural sector in spain consumes up to 80 of all available hydric resources and the need to increase the efficiency of current uses of water in the agricultural sector is at the core of the country s national water policy one alternative would be to resort to water pricing policies with the aim of providing incentives to save water consumption although it would inflict a certain degree of income losses to the farmers and raise the revenue collected by the water authorities the objective of this research is to analyze the effect caused by the application of different water pricing policies on water demand farmers income and the revenue collected by the government agency to undertake this analysis a dynamic mathematical programming model has been built that simulates farmers behavior and their response to different water pricing scenarios empirical application of the model has been carried out in several irrigation districts in spain covering varied farm regions and river basins results show that the effects of alternative pricing policies for irrigation water are strongly dependent on regional structural and institutional conditions and that changing policies produce distinct consequences within the same region and water district thus equivalent water charges would create widespread effects on water savings farm income and collected government revenue across regions and districts

effects of treatment beyond the treated a general equilibrium impact evaluation of lesotho s cash grants program africa s social cash transfer programs target the most resource constrained households unlikely to expand supply in response to transfer induced demand we propose a local economy wide impact evaluation model and use it to evaluate local spillovers from lesotho s child grants program we report monte carlo confidence bounds around impact simulation results we find significant spillovers to nonrecipient households and significant real income multipliers although the latter are dampened if factor supply constraints generate excessive inflationary pressures our findings raise questions about how to measure the impacts of cash transfers evaluations focusing only on eligible households are likely to significantly understate program impacts

adoption of improved maize varieties in southern ethiopia factors and strategy options abstract this paper identifies factors that influence the decision behavior of farmers in southern ethiopia in adopting improved maize varieties by estimating a logistic regression data for this study came from 222 farmers interviewed as part of a national adoption survey conducted in three selected maize growing administrative zones of southern ethiopia in 1998 the paper also assesses the impact of pure and mixed strategy options on the probability of adoption of improved maize varieties through simulation under different scenarios as far as pure strategies are concerned the credit strategy is more powerful than the others in terms of raising the probability of adoption however results from the analysis of pure versus mixed strategies imply that mixed strategies are no necessarily much better than pure strategies

state alcohol policies teen drinking and traffic fatalities this empirical study evaluates the policy responsiveness of teen drinking in models that can condition on the unobserved state specific attributes that may have biased conventional evaluations the results demonstrate that cross state heterogeneity can be important and that beer taxes have relatively small and statistically insignificant effects on teen drinking models of youth traffic fatalities also indicate that the conventional beer tax elasticities are not robust to additional controls for omitted variables the importance of these omitted variables is illustrated by a counterfactual which compares models of nighttime fatalities to those that occur in the daytime when the rate of alcohol involvement is substantially lower

economywide impacts of climate change on agriculture in sub saharan africa two possible adaptation scenarios to climate change for sub saharan africa are analyzed under the sres b2 scenario the first scenario doubles the irrigated area in sub saharan africa by 2050 compared to the baseline but keeps total crop area constant the second scenario increases both rainfed and irrigated crop yields by 25 for all sub saharan african countries the two adaptation scenarios are analyzed with impact a partial equilibrium agricultural sector model combined with a water simulation module and with gtap w a general equilibrium model including water resources the methodology combines the advantages of a partial equilibrium approach which considers detailed water agriculture linkages with a general equilibrium approach which takes into account linkages between agriculture and nonagricultural sectors and includes a full treatment of factor markets the efficacy of the two scenarios as adaptation measures to cope with climate change is discussed due to the limited initial irrigated area in the region an increase in agricultural productivity achieves better outcomes than an expansion of irrigated area even though sub saharan africa is not a key contributor to global food production rainfed irrigated or total both scenarios help lower world food prices stimulating national and international food markets

sunday liquor laws and crime many jurisdictions have considered relaxing sunday alcohol sales restrictions yet such restrictions effects on public health remain poorly understood this paper analyzes the effects of legalization of sunday packaged liquor sales on crime focusing on the phased introduction of such sales in virginia beginning in 2004 differences in differences and triple differences estimates indicate the liberalization increased minor crime by 5 and alcohol involved serious crime by 10 the law change did not affect domestic crime or induce significant geographic or inter temporal crime displacement the costs of this additional crime are comparable to the state s revenues from increased liquor sales

computable general equilibrium model analysis of economywide cross effects of social and environmental policies in chile abstract the analysis of the linkages between development policies and social and environmental variables is a neglected area within the development literature this paper focuses on the key interrelations among the economic social and environmental elements of the sustainable development triangle a thorough review is undertaken of both social and environmental policies in chile underlining important economic growth and reforms using the static cge model ecogem chile the economywide impacts of several environmental social and combined policies are simulated for the chilean economy six different policies are simulated three environmental policies that impose different taxes on pm10 so 2 and no 2 emissions respectively the same tax on pm10 in a context of high unemployment one social policy that increases government transfers to households and a mixed social environmental policy package where the environmental tax on pm10 and the social transfer policy are simulated simultaneously the results show that environmental tax policies may have negative social effects using real disposable income by quintiles as proxy the impacts depend on the use of the new revenues and the status of employment taxing pm10 emission yields better environmental results than taxing so 2 and no 2 social policies do not show negative environmental impacts combined environmental and social policies improve results thus specific compensating social policies would improve environmental policy acceptance while also reducing poverty or strong income distribution disparities the evidence suggests that environmental policies may have social impacts but not vice versa the results show that the ecogem chile model is useful for analyzing systematically and holistically different economywide policies and their impact on the chilean economy winners and losers may be identified as well as the potential magnitude of gains and losses the results obtained are not all straightforward due to indirect effects

minimum wages and alcohol related traffic fatalities among teens abstract using cross state variation in minimum wages we observe a positive relationship between the minimum wage and the number of alcohol related accidents involving teen drivers a similar effect is not observed when examining accidents among adults the results are consistent with a positive income elasticity for alcoholic beverages and driving activities among young people in particular for consumption out of discretionary income accorded by higher minimum wages evidence of a sizable impact of beer taxes on alcohol related accidents among youths suggests that beer taxes are one avenue for policymakers to consider in counteracting this unintended consequence of minimum wages

who benefited from burundi s demobilization program this paper assesses the impact of the demobilization reinsertion and reintegration program in post war burundi two major rebel groups benefited from cash and in kind transfers the cndd fdd from 2004 and the fnl from 2010 a panel data of households collected in 2006 and 2010 is combined with official records from the national commission for demobilization reinsertion and reintegration regression analysis shows that the cash payments received by fnl demobilized households had a positive impact on consumption nonfood spending and investments the program also generated positive spillovers in the villages where fnl combatants returned ex combatants indeed spent a large part of their allowance on consumption goods and clothing thereby generating a short run economic boom in villages however the long run evolution of consumption indicators is negative for cndd fdd households as well as for villages where cndd fdd combatants returned suggesting that the direct impact and the spillovers of the program vanished in the long run

water markets design and evidence from experimental economics market mechanisms are gaining increasing acceptance all over the world as a way of making more efficient use of scarce water resources designing regulatory frameworks that ensure both inter and intra temporal efficient allocations is a daunting task especially if supply is stochastic and there is ample storage capacity in addition to defining tradable rights specific provisions must regulate the use of reservoirs commonly water statutes include provisions that establish asymmetries regarding the allocation of water and market restrictions that ban water trading across different users in this article we use data collected in a laboratory to test two specific market regulations included in the 1999 water reform in spain first junior right holders are not allowed to buy water from senior users second the law does not explicitly define water rights over units left in reservoirs for the following season results suggest that trading restrictions among water right holders lead to welfare losses for senior users it is shown that removing this restriction would increase senior right holders benefits without reducing those of junior users results show that defining water rights over saved units across periods would increase the average stock levels of reservoirs and reduce market price instability the lessons learned from the spanish experience are applicable to settings characterized by unstable natural water supply and the availability of large storage facilities

paying for efficiency incentivising same day discharges in the english nhs we study a pay for efficiency scheme that encourages hospitals to admit and discharge patients on the same calendar day when clinically appropriate since 2010 hospitals in the english nhs are incentivised by a higher price for patients treated as same day discharge than for overnight stays despite the former being less costly we analyse administrative data for patients treated during 2006 2014 for 191 conditions for which same day discharge is clinically appropriate of which 32 are incentivised using difference in difference and synthetic control methods we find that the policy had generally a positive impact with a statistically significant effect in 14 out of the 32 conditions the median elasticity is 0 24 for planned and 0 01 for emergency conditions condition specific design features explain some but not all of the differential responses

bio economic modeling of water quality improvements using a dynamic applied general equilibrium approach an integrated bio economic model is developed to assess the impacts of pollution reduction policies on water quality and the economy emission levels of economic activities to water are determined based on existing environmental accounts these emission levels are built into a dynamic economic model for the dutch economy and subsequently coupled to a national water quality model the modular approach has the advantage that the impacts on the economy and water quality are evaluated simultaneously but each within their own domain based on the appropriate scale and level of detail the dynamic nature of the economic model allows us to also evaluate a derogated water policy as foreseen in the european water framework directive the indirect costs of different water quality improvement policy scenarios are at least as high as the direct costs related to investments in pollution abatement technology the stricter the policy scenario the more important the role of economic adjustment and restructuring mechanisms at the macro economic level significant water quality improvements can be achieved through stringent domestic emission reductions however reaching water quality standards is highly dependent on water quality improvement policy in surrounding river basin countries and climate change

economic valuation of the vulnerability of world agriculture confronted with pollinator decline there is mounting evidence of pollinator decline all over the world and consequences in many agricultural areas could be significant we assessed these consequences by measuring 1 the contribution of insect pollination to the world agricultural output economic value and 2 the vulnerability of world agriculture in the face of pollinator decline we used a bioeconomic approach which integrated the production dependence ratio on pollinators for the 100 crops used directly for human food worldwide as listed by fao the total economic value of pollination worldwide amounted to 153 billion which represented 9 5 of the value of the world agricultural production used for human food in 2005 in terms of welfare the consumer surplus loss was estimated between 190 and 310 billion based upon average price elasticities of 1 5 to 0 8 respectively vegetables and fruits were the leading crop categories in value of insect pollination with about 50 billion each followed by edible oil crops stimulants nuts and spices the production value of a ton of the crop categories that do not depend on insect pollination averaged 151 while that of those that are pollinator dependent averaged 761 the vulnerability ratio was calculated for each crop category at the regional and world scales as the ratio between the economic value of pollination and the current total crop value this ratio varied considerably among crop categories and there was a positive correlation between the rate of vulnerability to pollinators decline of a crop category and its value per production unit looking at the capacity to nourish the world population after pollinator loss the production of 3 crop categories namely fruits vegetables and stimulants will clearly be below the current consumption level at the world scale and even more so for certain regions like europe yet although our valuation clearly demonstrates the economic importance of insect pollinators it cannot be considered as a scenario since it does not take into account the strategic responses of the markets

where is the value in valuing pollination ecosystem services to agriculture abstract current national and global scale monetary valuation of pollination services do not accurately estimate the contribution of wild pollinators to agricultural production first ecosystem wild pollination services remain largely bundled with those of managed pollinators this problem is compounded by the fact that the dependency of crops on pollination a key parameter used in current valuations does not reflect variation in pollinator density crop cultivars and growing conditions that exist in practice over half of the 153 billion of estimated global pollination service value in 2005 is based on estimates of pollinator dependency from crops with fewer than three field studies that measure actual levels of pollinator activity and corresponding fruit set the resulting uncertainty may be most distorting when applied to widely planted intensive oilseed crops furthermore current valuations are underpinned by simplistic assumptions regarding the likelihood of pollinator decline and the impact on agricultural prices although efforts to motivate wild pollinator protection through their ecosystem service value remain highly circumscribed by conceptual and empirical limitations we identify the need to go beyond technical solutions and develop a critical framework that could account for why pollinator conservation has come to be predominantly justified in these terms to begin with

in search of optimal stocking regimes in semi arid grazing lands one size does not fit all we discuss the search for optimal stocking regimes in semi arid grazing lands we argue that one size does not fit all and that different stocking regimes are appropriate under different conditions this paper is an attempt to move beyond polarization of the current debate towards a more integrative and flexible approach to grazing management we propose five different conditions as major influences on grazing regimes environmental variability and predictability degradation and thresholds property right regimes discount rates and market stability and prices we suggest a lack of connection between the micro economics literature and natural science and social anthropological literature it is timely to achieve greater integration around some key questions and hypotheses and recognize that policy prescriptions at national or even regional levels are likely to have limited value due to context specificity

agriculture and economic growth in ethiopia growth multipliers from a four sector simulation model abstract agriculture accounts for over half of ethiopian gdp yet the case for agriculture as a focus of economic growth strategies must rely on identifying a set of intersectoral linkages through which agricultural growth contributes to the growth of non agriculture in the ethiopian economy this article develops a four sector numerical simulation model of economic growth in ethiopia which permits the calculation of macroeconomic growth multipliers resulting from income shocks to agriculture services modern industry and traditional industry the resulting growth multipliers are 1 54 for agriculture 1 80 for services 1 34 for modern industry and 1 22 for traditional industry these results depict an economy in which intersectoral linkages operate on a highly uneven basis these limits are reflected in the wide disparity between sectoral growth multipliers and by substantial differences in the patterns of their decomposition the policy relevance of these findings relate in part to the distributional implications of growth in particular sectors poverty in ethiopia is disproportionately rural an income shock to agriculture is clearly the most progressive choice indicating the need to highlight agricultural development in growth strategies for ethiopia yet the simulation results further indicate that doing so imposes relatively little trade off against total benefit while a 1 service sector income shock generates 0 80 in indirect benefits a 1 agricultural income shock still generates 0 54 in indirect gains a somewhat smaller benefit but one likely to make the greatest possible impact on poverty reduction

more than mean effects modeling the effect of climate on the higher order moments of crop yields this article proposes the use of moment functions and maximum entropy techniques as a flexible approach for estimating conditional crop yield distributions we present a moment based model that extends previous approaches and is easily estimated using standard econometric estimators predicted moments under alternative regimes are used as constraints in a maximum entropy framework to analyze the distributional impacts of switching regimes an empirical application for arkansas mississippi and texas upland cotton demonstrates how climate and irrigation affect the shape of the yield distribution and allows us to illustrate several advantages of our moment based maximum entropy approach

the economic impacts of droughts a framework for analysis abstract droughts are a specific type of natural hazard economic assessments of drought impacts require a framework capable of accounting for its unique and particular characteristics traditional conceptual frameworks used to assess the impacts of natural hazards do not adequately capture all of the factors that contribute to the economic impacts of droughts such as the importance of the level and composition of hydraulic capital the dispersion of economic impacts across different economic activities and agents the temporality of drought events and the critical importance of policy making in shaping the short and long term economic impacts of droughts nor do traditional frameworks take account of the complex interaction between factors within the domain of decision making and underlying climate conditions we propose a new conceptual framework based around two sources of economic impact green water and blue water and argue that because each source of drought impacts the economy in different ways they must be differentiated in any assessment of economic impact

district level economic linkages in kenya evidence based on a small regional social accounting matrix abstract this paper explores the nature and extent of the economic linkages in a small regional economy defined by a market center and its hinterland in kenya the analysis is based on a set of income and employment multipliers derived from a social accounting matrix estimated for the region issues considered include the impact of production activities on regional value added and employment the influence of sectoral production on the level of household income and the impact of household expenditure on regional value added and the relative significance of production and consumption linkages in terms of stimulating aggregate income the above questions are examined under the assumption of complete excess capacity in regional production and under the assumption of supply constraints in agriculture the usefulness of the analysis for district level economic planning is demonstrated

opportunistic and conservative pastoral strategies some economic arguments abstract this paper revisits the debate over the relative effectiveness of conservative and opportunistic stocking strategies for african pastoral rangelands the paper is based on a reassessment of the results of an earlier paper in this journal by campbell et al 2000 campbell b m dore d luckert m mukamuri b gambiza j 2000 economic comparisons of livestock production in communal grazing areas of zimbabwe ecol econ 33 413 438 which argued that the advocacy of opportunistic strategies by the new range science was misplaced this paper questions some of the assumptions of this scenario modelling effort both in terms of causal structure and parameter estimates by developing a mimic model and using data from the same site a dryland communal area in southern zimbabwe this paper shows how the conclusions of the earlier paper were premature the need for sensitivity analysis in assessing model findings is emphasised if policy conclusions with potentially major impacts on people s livelihoods are to be drawn a brief discussion of the implications of this reassessment including more broadly the limitations and prospects of economic ecological modelling in policymaking for rangeland management concludes the paper

drunk driving after the passage of smoking bans in bars abstract using geographic variation in local and state smoke free bar laws in the us we observe an increase in fatal accidents involving alcohol following bans on smoking in bars that is not observed in places without bans although an increased accident risk might seem surprising at first two strands of literature on consumer behavior suggest potential explanations smokers driving longer distances to a bordering jurisdiction that allows smoking in bars and smokers driving longer distances within their jurisdiction to bars that still allow smoking perhaps through non compliance or outdoor seating we find evidence consistent with both explanations the increased miles driven by drivers wishing to smoke and drink offsets any reduction in driving from smokers choosing to stay home following a ban resulting in increased alcohol related accidents this result proves durable as we subject it to an extensive battery of robustness checks

the economic impacts of drought on the economy of iran an integration of linear programming and macroeconometric modelling approaches in this paper we provide economy wide estimates of the costs of drought in the cropping sector of the iranian economy using a linear programming model to estimate the direct costs on agriculture and a macroeconometric model to trace the indirect impacts on the rest of the economy the results indicate that a severe drought such as the one that occurred in the crop year 1999 2000 imposes a direct cost of 1605 million usd equivalent to 30 3 of the total value added of the cropping sector in iran this in turn leads to a 12 7 reduction in the value added of other agricultural sub sectors livestock fisheries and forestry in the rest of the economy the manufacturing and service sectors experience value added declines of 7 8 and 3 7 respectively in addition there is a substantial decrease in investment in the agricultural manufacturing and service sectors thus such a drought reduces overall gdp by about 4 4 and it would also result in decreased non oil exports increased food imports and a rise in inflation the results of some drought mitigation simulations are reported in brief such estimates strengthen the case for increased attention to drought strategies and management in agriculture in iran and elsewhere

on kaldor and pensions in this paper the kaldorian saving function on differential propensities between household and corporate income is restated and extended to account for saving through occupational pension funds the extended hypothesis is then tested and compared to nicholas kaldor s own using recent u k data solid support is found for the kaldorian hypothesis and the extended corporate capitalism saving function the author s findings cast doubt on the life cycle and related hypotheses on savings they also raise interesting questions about neoclassical and post keynesian theories of growth and distribution copyright 1997 by oxford university press

learning innovation increasing returns and resource creation luigi pasinetti s original sin of and call for a post classical economics we draw on the seminal contribution to economics by luigi pasinetti respond to his call to reverse what he saw as the original sin of classical economists exacerbated by neoclassical economists namely the assumption of non increasing returns to scale and move towards building a post classical economics we outline the contours of a post classical framework that draws on key themes and contributions from pasinetti on learning technical progress increasing returns resource creation trade and catching up and contributions from within and without economics that are in line with lend support to and challenge it we advocate the pressing need and opportune timing for a concerted effort to revitalise ideas from the once vibrant cambridge school of economics and help develop a fresh more pluralist and inclusive post classical economics that cuts across divides and opens up opportunities for a less dismal science

resource use and technological progress in agriculture a dynamic general equilibrium analysis we analyze the global effects of economic and population growth and the impact of a slowdown in agricultural total factor productivity tfp on agriculture and forest resources using a dynamic multi region computable general equilibrium model with land use and cover detail given the current consensus about the growth of the world economy our results suggest that food security will not be threatened and agricultural activities will not encroach on forest resources over the next decade a slowdown in agricultural tfp growth might lead to higher crop prices in all regions with south east asia facing the steepest increases a slowdown in agricultural tfp growth also might be accompanied by higher conversion rates of forestland to farmland as well as by greater environmental or ecological damages on the remaining forestland

mitigating economic risk from climate variability in rain fed agriculture through enterprise mix diversification abstract climate variability and its increase with climate change pose substantial economic risks to agriculturalists and hence limit their ability to respond to global challenges such as food security enterprise mix diversification is the most common and is widely regarded as the most effective strategy for mitigating multiple sources of short term economic risk to agricultural enterprises however assessments of enterprise mix diversification as a strategy for mitigating climate risks to ensure long term viability of agricultural enterprises are sparse using the lower murray region in southern australia as a case study we combined apsim modelling with monte carlo simulation probability theory and finance techniques to assess the extent to which enterprise mix diversification can mitigate climate induced variability in long term net returns from rain fed agriculture we found that diversification can reduce the standard deviation by up to a 200 ha 1 or 52 of mean net returns increase the probability of breaking even by up to 20 and increase the mean of 10 of worst probable annual net returns conditional value at risk by up to a 100 ha 1 we conclude that enterprise mix diversification can also be an effective strategy for hedging against climate induced economic risk for agriculturalists in marginal areas

distribution and growth reconsidered empirical results for six oecd countries we analyse the relationship between functional income distribution and economic growth in austria france germany the netherlands the uk and the usa from 1960 until 2005 the analysis is based on a demand driven distribution and growth model for an open economy inspired by bhaduri and marglin which allows for either profit or wage led growth we find that growth in france germany the uk and the usa has been wage led whereas austria and the netherlands have been profit led in the case of austria a domestically wage led economy changes to profit led when including the effect of distribution on external trade the netherlands however are already profit led without external trade our results so far only partially confirm bhaduri and marglin s theoretical conclusion that wage led growth becomes less feasible when the effects of distribution on foreign trade are taken into account

effects of us biofuel policies on us and world petroleum product markets with consequences for greenhouse gas emissions abstract us biofuel policy includes greenhouse gas reduction targets regulators do not address the potential that biofuel policy can have indirect impacts on greenhouse gases through its impacts on petroleum product markets and scientific research only partially addresses this question we use economic models of us biofuel and agricultural markets and us and world petroleum and petroleum product markets to show that discontinuing biofuel tax credits and ethanol tariff lower biofuel use could lead to increased us petroleum product use and a reduction in petroleum product use in other parts of the world the net effect is lower greenhouse gas emissions under certain assumptions we show that biofuel use mandate elimination can have positive or negative impacts on greenhouse gas emissions the magnitude and the direction of effects depend on how us biofuel trade affects biofuel in other countries with different emissions context that determines how important use mandates are in the first place who pays mandate costs and the price responsiveness of global petroleum supplies and uses however our results show that counter intuitive effects are possible and discourage broad conclusions about the greenhouse gas impacts of removing these elements of us biofuel policy

automatic responses of crop stocks and policies buffer climate change effects on crop markets and price volatility abstract climate change has the potential to affect crop prices and price volatility however the economic models used in prior assessments largely do not include known automatic stabilizing factors crop storage can stabilize prices and u s crop policy tends to provide support that moves opposite prices we quantify effects of circa 2050 climate forcing on the inter annual variability of u s corn belt corn and soybean yields using statistical crop models and climate scenarios from regional and global climate models climate change generally reduces mean yields and increases the inter annual variability of yields in the midwestern u s using these yield impacts and an economic model with automatic market stabilizers we find only modest increases in price volatility although individual producers and states are negatively affected by the yield reductions the aggregate effect for all corn and soybean producer returns can be positive because of price increases moreover agricultural policies based on price levels or revenue variation offset some of the impacts of market variation on farm income our results differ from other recent results and temper concerns that increasing climate instability necessarily translates to greater uncertainty about agricultural commodity uses including as food and biofuels in the near future

an agri environmental assessment of trade liberalization abstract this paper assesses the potential agri environmental impacts on the united states of liberalizing world agricultural trade we examine how the elimination of all agricultural policy distortions in all trading countries might influence agricultural production decisions and subsequently affect environmental quality in the united states the estimated changes in u s agricultural production under the ambitious assumption of full agricultural trade liberalization are well within the bounds of average annual variation for agricultural commodity production fig 2 in this context our results suggest that for the united states as a whole environmental impacts stemming from such hypothesized trade shocks would also fall within the average annual variation this generalization aside we note that the estimated changes in commodity production and subsequent environmental impacts are not uniform across the landscape with increases in agricultural production and the environmental indicators in some regions or sectors and decreases in others

market regulation and firm performance the case of smoking bans in the united kingdom abstractthis paper analyzes the effects on firms of a ban on smoking in public places our empirical strategy relies on comparing outcomes in scotland before and after the scottish smoking ban introduced in march 2006 with those in northern england where such a ban was not in place our analysis of survey data collected from public houses finds that the scottish smoking ban reduced pub sales with no concomitant effect on prices an event study analysis of the stock market performance of pub holding companies corroborates the negative effect of the smoking ban on firm performance

farm nonfarm linkages in rural sub saharan africa this paper is an accumulation over the past 25 years of a body of detailed work examining the structure of africa s rural nonfarm economy first it systematically reviews empirical evidence on the nature and magnitude of the african rural nonfarm economy it then explores differences across locality and size across countries and over time in an effort to assess likely patterns of growth a subsequent review of key production and consumption parameters allows an estimate of the magnitude of the agricultural growth multipliers in africa the paper concludes with a brief discussion of policies and programs that will be necessary if farm nonfarm growth linkages are to achieve their full potential

alcohol availability and crime lessons from liberalized weekend sales restrictions in february 2000 the swedish state monopoly alcohol retail company launched a largescale experiment in which all stores in selected counties were allowed to keep open onsaturdays we assess the ef

are virtual water flows in spanish grain trade consistent with relative water scarcity abstract virtual water adds a new dimension to international trade and brings along a new perspective about water scarcity and water resource management most virtual water literature has focused on quantifying virtual water flows and on its application to ensure water and food security nevertheless the analysis of the potential gains from international trade at least from a water resources perspective needs to take into account both spatial and temporal variations of blue groundwater and stream flow and green soil moisture water as well as the socioeconomic and policy conditions this paper evaluates whether spanish international trade with grains is consistent with relative water scarcity for this purpose the study estimates the volume and economic value of virtual water flow through international grain trade for the period 1997 2005 which includes 3 years with different rainfall levels the calculations show that spain is a net virtual water importer through international grain trade the volume of net virtual water imports amounts to 3420 4383 and 8415 million m 3 in wet 1997 medium 1999 and dry 2005 years respectively valuing blue water at its shadow price or scarcity value blue water exports oscillate between 0 7 and 34 2 million euros for a wet and dry year respectively overall grain trade is apparently consistent with relative water scarcity as net imports increase in dry years however the evolution of grain exports expressed as a variation in quantity and volume does not match the variations in resource scarcity a disaggregated crop analysis reveals that there are other factors such as quality product specialization or the demand for a standardized product which also influence trade decisions and are not included in the notion of virtual water these facts among others can therefore create potential distortions in the application of virtual water to the analysis of specific trade patterns nevertheless from a water resources perspective virtual water can bring important insights across countries for improving water and land management globally fostering adaptation strategies to climate change and to transboundary resource management

agricultural technology and farm nonfarm growth linkages abstract agricultural growth stimulates rural nonfarm activity by boosting demand for production inputs and consumer goods but different kinds of agricultural technology promote different patterns of nonfarm linkages to explore how key features of agricultural technology affect growth in the rural nonfarm economy this paper reviews an array of cross section and time series evidence bearing on the dynamics of the rural nonfarm economy then using consumption and production parameters associated with different agricultural technologies it introduces a simple model which isolates the effects of different technologies on nonfarm growth linkages

multicrop production decisions in western irrigated agriculture the role of water price applying a model of the multioutput firm econometric results are reported for irrigated production in four multistate regions of the american west cross sectional microdata from the farm and ranch irrigation survey and limited dependent variable methods are used to estimate crop choice supply land allocation and water demand functions for field crops farm level water demand is decomposed into the sum of crop level water demands and crop level demands are further separated into an extensive margin land allocations and intensive margin short run water use response to water price measured as groundwater pumping cost occurs primarily at the extensive margin

the story of the moment risk averse cypriot farmers respond to drought management this article illustrates the importance of estimating risk preferences when evaluating water policy using agricultural production data from the kiti region of cyprus we estimate farmers risk preferences a la antle journal of business and economic statistics 1 192 201 1983 american journal of agricultural economics 69 509 22 1987 and show sensitivity to higher order moments of profit such as skewness we show that farmers in the kiti region are risk averse with risk premiums in the region of 20 of expected profit we use these estimates to analyse the impact of a water quota from the perspective of three policy makers who differ only in their understanding of farmers risk preferences we show in the case of kiti that policy makers who model risk preferences incorrectly that is either a assume risk neutrality or b ignore down side risk wrongly predict the magnitude and direction of input responses and therefore the magnitude of welfare changes this highlights the importance of accomm

water conservation policy analysis an interregional multi output primal dual optimization approach an interregional multi output normalized restricted equilibrium model of field crop agriculture is estimated within the context of a multistage programming based system estimation procedure implicit total economic cost functions endogenize behavioral opportunity adjustment costs of fixed and allocatable land and water resources crop specific marshallian water demand elasticities are estimated for restricted and unrestricted groundwater substitution environments and decomposed by water source elasticities are inelastic but water price policy reform can be an effective water conservation policy tool when groundwater use is unrestricted when groundwater use is restricted effective conservation policy requires more dramatic water price policy reform

did liberalising bar hours decrease traffic accidents legal bar closing times in england and wales have historically been early and uniform recent legislation liberalised closing times with the object of reducing social problems thought associated with drinking to beat the clock indeed using both difference in difference and synthetic control approaches we show that one consequence of this liberalisation was a decrease in traffic accidents this decrease is heavily concentrated among younger drivers moreover we provide evidence that the effect was most pronounced in the hours of the week directly affected by the liberalisation late nights and early mornings on weekends this evidence survives a series of robustness checks and suggests at least one socially positive consequence of extending bar hours